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I bought an "MP5 PSP" game player off eBay


LS650

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I bought a new toy off eBay a couple of weeks ago. It was advertised as an “MP5 Game player”. The version I bought seems to be fairly common on eBay; although most of the sellers are out of China/Hong Kong, you can find some sellers in other countries.

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The shell and button layout are a blatant rip-off of the Sony PSP, and the manufacturer even goes as far as putting PSP on the case. Although it looks like a PSP, it does NOT play Sony games. Some vendors have them in different colours, but mine is black.

 

It is first and foremost a media player, and that’s what I use it primarily for. The screen is 4.3 inches (the same as a Sony PSP). The screen puts out a very clear, bright image, and I have no complaints there. The machine can play a variety of formats: MP4, AVI, WMV, MPG, etc. I have thrown a lot of different video formats on it, and it’s rare to find a video it won’t play without conversion. About one out of 20 video files will not play immediately, and those can be made playable by running the file through conversion to any other format. I’ve used it to watch movies, TV shows, Youtube FLVs, etc. As a video player it is terrific. There is even an AV output, so you can plug the player into a TV and play back on a larger screen.

 

There’s also a music player that handles MP3, WMA, WAV and other formats. Again, it works almost flawlessly. No complaints there.

The text reader displays flat-text format files. I don’t know if I’d want to read a novel off such a small screen, but it works well.

A photo viewer is included that can handle JPG, BMP, and GIF files. It also works reasonably well.

I should also mention that there is a mini-SD slot, but I ordered my machine with 8 gigabytes of storage and I find that is plenty.

 

Now for some negative comments: there is a camera built in, but the image quality is very low. I’ve got a 3 megapixel cell phone camera that is far better. I can’t see much use for the camera, and I wonder why they even bothered putting a camera in if it was going to be so lousy. There’s also an FM radio, but the antenna range seems to be weak.

 

Most of these Chinese multimedia players can handle NES emulation, but this machine handles several other systems too. So, what’s the emulation like? I’ve tried maybe a dozen games out with each emulator just to test how they work. The player seems to handle NES, Gameboy B&W, and Gameboy Color almost flawlessly. To my surprise, it also handles Sega Genesis/Megadrive extremely well also!

 

However... the emulation for SNES and Gameboy Advance is very mediocre: it seems to emulate well only about half the ROMs I’ve tested for those consoles: a large number of games either don’t run, or have screwed up graphics that make the game unplayable.

 

You can find these systems listed on eBay as “MP4 Game Player”, “MP5 Game player”, etc. The internal storage seems to vary anywhere from 2 GB to 8 GB. I paid $70 US for mine with 8 GB, and that included shipping from China. The bundle came with an A/C charger, the A/V output cable, a pair of cheap earphones, a USB-2 cable, and a vinyl carrying case.

 

Build quality actually seems not too bad. The shell is solid, the buttons have a feel that is very similar to an actual Sony PSP, and the battery life on a full charge is several hours.

 

I get a lot of usage out of mine, and I really enjoy it. If you are looking for a portable MP3/video player that can also handle a fair number of classic videogames, I highly recommend checking one of these out.

 

This is the auction I won. The seller shipped immediately, and I received it within two weeks, so I don't hesitate to recommend him.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170378042759

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Thanks for the information. Previously I have heard of these in passing but didn't know anything about them until now. I may end up picking up one. It doesn't seem like a bad price to me especially when you consider it includes shipping.

 

tjb

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I'd like to hear more about the Genesis/Meg Drive emulation.

Sure. If there are any particular Genesis games you'd like me to test for compatibility, let me know. I'll try running them, snap a couple of screenshots, and post an update.

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I'd like to hear more about the Genesis/Meg Drive emulation.

Sure. If there are any particular Genesis games you'd like me to test for compatibility, let me know. I'll try running them, snap a couple of screenshots, and post an update.

If you could cover Zero Tolerance that's be awesome, say how it runs. I'm really interested in sound, so Sonic 3 would be a good candidate for that check. Thanks! I've thought about getting one of these, but they are so varied and so many different ones it's hard to choose. All I really want one for is Sega emulation. Not really into listening to mp3s or watching movies on them.

 

Nathan

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I have a Dingoo A320 ... or at least, I HAD one.

 

The Dingoo is configurable; you can load whatever software you want on it. There are a lot of 3rd party games and emulators available for it. There's a decent emulator for the ColecoVision (:D) for the Dingoo, and I played that more than anything else...

 

... but....

The damn things are unreliable. I was watching a movie one night on my Dingoo, turned it off, tried to turn it on the next morning - and it's dead. I've tried following the instructions on the 'net for unbricking to no avail. I've now contacted the seller to see if I can arrange a return. :(

 

If it were just mine I wouldn't hesitate to recommend a Dingoo, but when you look at the forums for the Dingoo, you'll all kinds of posts from other people suffering similar issues: lock-ups, bricking, broken screens, screwed up buttons, etc.

It's really frustrating, as the Dingoo was a terrific piece of hardware for the first two weeks - and now it's a worthless paperweight. :x

 

My advice is to stay away from the Dingoo for a while until the manufacturer gets these bugs worked out. My impression is that their quality control stinks and they are letting the Dingoos ship 'half-baked'.

Edited by ls650
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Looks pretty cool, but I personally have no reason to buy it due to my hacked psp can do all that and more

 

I dont need it either, cause I have a psp 3000, and ChickHEN R3 is coming out soon, soo...yeah. (No insults here, but it looks cool.)

Edited by Frizo
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If you could cover Zero Tolerance that's be awesome, say how it runs. I'm really interested in sound, so Sonic 3 would be a good candidate for that check.

 

I tried out both games for about 10 minutes each (I'm not really a big fan of either game). Both ran without any noticeable graphics errors or problems. Sound in Sonic 3 seemed spot-on to my ear. I thought Zero Tolerance had a bit of a fuzzy sound, perfectly okay for playing. I also noticed that ZT had a very slight frame skip - like maybe one frame out of 20 or so.

 

And yes, it outputs to either NTSC or PAL just fine.

 

The thing I like is that the Video out port can also take a regular pair of headphones, and you can have sounds going to both it and the headphones port at the same time... so if you're sitting on the bus/plane next to a friend, you can each plug in a pair of earphones and listen to the same video or music.

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So it has emulators for the systems you mentioned built in, is that right?

Yes. You just put ROM files into the appropriate folder with the necessary 3-letter file extension, and select them in the menu system to run them. Same with .MP3, .MP4, .AVI files.

 

You can't alter the included software on it, like a Dingoo - but unlike my Dingoo, it seems to be solid and reliable. I dropped it about 5 feet onto pavement this morning, but it was inside a vinyl case and didn't get a scratch. The sudden jarring doesn't seem to have harmed it in the slightest.

 

The funny thing is, I don't know what to call this player because there is no name brand or manufacturer info on the shell.

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Oh, you guys and your crazy obscure game systems. I felt a little silly paying all that money for a Gizmondo a few years ago, but this tops it in the frivolous purchase department.

 

Yet I shouldn't complain... you were able to test out my GORF translation on your Dingoo, a system I'd heard about but was too timid to actually buy. I do appreciate that you were willing to take that bullet for me!

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Another thing all the haters are forgetting is that this apparently has good ntsc/pal output. I have a hacked psp slim and the TV out sucks. WTF is with the tiny image on my 42" LCD?

 

I don't understand why any time people post about a handheld that does emulation there are 50 posts of "I already have a hacked PSP"(I'm not talking about pinball22 his post was at least relevant and asked a question). Anyways, this looks like a pretty cool device. I don't do much portable gaming at all(hence why my hacked psp is tucked in a drawer somewhere) so I probably wont pick one up, but it's still a cool device!

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  • 2 months later...

Someone pointed me to this post. I was at a computer show yesterday and they had one of these for $109. It was only 4GB. I'm so glad I didn't buy it.

 

I am thankful for your review. I read the manual, but got not much out of it. I was mainly interested in the games and I managed to back out of the video playing and get to the games. I saw it had GBA games preloaded, but nice to know it plays other things too.

 

I have a Dingoo A320, but was interested in this unit due to size of screen.

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