A new Linux handheld game console based on ODROID-N2
forum.odroid.com
forum.odroid.com
HK earned a longtime fan with that move for sure, haha. :) This new handheld looks great, I hope they have their "mainstream moment."
[1] http://replicaisland.blogspot.com/2010/01/fragmentation-more...
(I've posted this comment a few times on HardKernel/ODROID stories. Just want to pay it forward to these guys.)
I know I've had moments where people have made unnaturally kind gestures towards me, and I still remember years later.
Can't edit on HN anymore?
Retro Dodo does as well.
"The best" is very subjective unfortunately. And the answer will change based on what you're looking for.
IE I've searched for "the best" and ended up with an android phone in a telescopic controller before getting a Steam Deck.
https://www.youtube.com/c/ETAPRIME and https://www.youtube.com/c/ThePhawx are also good YouTube channels, although they tend to stick to higher end systems.
Finally, https://www.reddit.com/r/SBCGaming/ has a pretty active community. There are also a couple of good discord servers that I could track down if you're interested.
I really hope the production will keep with the sales...
I bought a miyoo mini because I heard from a friend from a friend, that it's great before it got popular, and got it for cheap... then it became popular, and it's practically impossible to get at "normal" prices, only through resellers at 2x the price.
Personally, I've tried both the ODROID Go Advance and the Anbernic equivalent RG351M. The build quality and controls on the Anbernic are definitely better. However, I ultimately stuck with the ODROID as it was cheap enough not to worry about damaging or losing.
If they made the price eg $90, I'd add $10, $20 more, and buy a better device (or maybe I wouldn't buy anything at all, because it's above the $100 mental barrier, and it's not "cheap" anymore).
* Build quality. I'd prefer a slightly higher BOM of it led to a significantly better experience. Everyone complains about the controls on Odroid Go devices, meanwhile the Chinese clones come and improve this and get a ton of sales that could have gone to HK. The 3-headed charging cable that comes with this device is another example. That thing is an abomination and likely a fire hazard too. They don't have to go full USB-PD, it could just follow the much simpler and cheaper-to-implement BC 1.2 standard. But instead they do their own wired thing, presumably for some minor cost savings.
* Their shipping / checkout process. First, you have to sign up for an account. Then it estimates some ridiculous amount for shipping (e.g. $60 shipping for a 10-oz $80 item.) Then the address form is in a different language (Korean?) despite the rest of the site being in English. It switches to English after you find the right control, but it's just confusing and the whole process almost certainly costs them some sales.
* Their forum members can be oddly aggressive sometimes, e.g. defending that crazy charging cable. One of the arguments boiled down to "it's safe to use if you're an electrical engineer". They also attack any mention of a competitors product. And the moderators support this behavior.
All of this combines to keep me from buying an Odroid so far, despite it being the kind of thing I'd really like to support.
Still, it's probably the right place to order from for folks in the US.
- the weird power cable (did they cheapen out on PD? for just 7.5W there's no need to do something like that)
- the lack of exposed GPIO header (no hacking, they could have just left in unpopulated)
- the bigger size (the Odroid Go Advance was just the right size)
- the lack of option for a 10000 mAh battery
Hopefully, the framework laptop starts a new trend of devices where you can keep the shell and screen (just replacing the inside) and new motherboards can be swapped-in, with the old one returned and resold or recycled.
A subscription-basis model for motherboard upgrade or damaged case replacement could help a big reduce the waste from people updating their phone every year.
For this question I think I know the answer: USB PD chips are hard to obtain right now. So they probably left it out just due to a lack of general (reliable) availability.
It does have exposed GPIO, though! You can see the connector above the CPU and other microchips in the first motherboard picture. This is in keeping with the Odroid Go Super design, which also had exposed GPIO in that location.
The bigger size allows for a much better screen. But I agree that you loose something in pocketability.
I suppose technically you could upgrade the battery yourself. Although a larger battery is at ods with that size constraint.
Eyeballing it, I would guess that you can swap the motherboard out from the previous generation Odroid Go Super, so that may actually be an option.
I don't think I'd want a subscription, but sure some people might go for that.
I wish ODROID actually just sold these as kits like they used to for folks to just install better sticks and buttons on their own if they want them, and especially if it retained some hackability. Clones offering better gaming experiences - better controls, less wonky charging, more solid cases, integrated wireless, video output - are only going to come out faster and faster.
It's a decent handheld but Sony's paranoia really kneecapped it. And it doesn't quite have the ease of use as a lot of the retro handhelds available today.
Also I just ftp and drop roms on the sd card too.
To get the mod working I had to compile the software for macOS 10.13 as some libusb function wasn’t working correctly and wouldn’t inject the payload to the vita. This was well out of my comfort zone.
Honestly, vita is life!
It really was let down by the business folks at Sony. I guess the upside is that it paved the way for the Switch and Nintendo really learned from Sony's mistakes (but even then, my Vita sees a lot more usage than my Switch).
What's sad is that modding anything requires a level of technical knowledge and patience that most will not have. I fully agree with you though - i bought a used Vita and could not be happier with it as a handheld console.
Can these things play native games, or are they locked in to emulating?
In the before times (when WordPress was new and shiny, or even earlier) this was a run-of-the-mill setup and every community had a locked Announcement section where only moderators/admins could post.
They are targeted at emulation, but it's just a small ARM computer running Linux, so you can really do anything you want (within the limits of what the hardware can run, of course.)
There's a reason it costs Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo millions in R&D to finalise their controllers: it's hard to get right; and terrible if it's even slightly wrong.
This is clearly a budget option but I'd wish budget manufacturers tried to key into existing controllers more. Slide in ports for Nintendo JoyCons, for example. Or club together to fab a common input and ergonomics platform, just leave the computation, display and battery capacity variables.
A ~4 year old Xbox one controller just got too much drift, surprisingly enough. I was kind of disappointed. But with these small sample sizes, could just be a fluke.
Secondly, you seem to have missed my point. I did not mean that the actual Xbox 360 controller is the best, I meant that for games and other similar applications, an Xbox 360 controller seems to be what most interfaces are designed for, and an Xbox 360 controller can also be plugged into anything with a USB port, which is everything. Therefore, you can choose to buy any good Xbox 360-compatible controller on the market and use it with most software and hardware.
DualShock is supported out of the box on Windows, Linux, Android, iOS
Wireless Xbox controller use proprietary tech, DualShock uses bluetooth
For these points, the sony's controller wins at the "designed to be plugged into anything" argument that you are trying to push
What a shame I really hoped they with opt for the RK3588 instead .
I really had fun with their older hand held device but it really needed more power
Ahh... Sweet dreams~
That said, I've really been enjoying Final Fantasy XIV on my Steam Deck - being able to pick it it up at lunch time and do a quick half hour of crafting or gathering really does present a different way to enjoy the game.
It does not matter about the specs here, it's always about the games and all this is useful for is playing pirated games.
Consumers who love the Nintendo Switch are not missing out on anything here, given that they know that their Switch will be supported for longer than 2 years.
It's also sad that you think I can't play games I own on this. As if I'm going to rip my mint copy of FFVII open when I can play it upscaled. It's just a sad backwards way to think about it.
Nice to see they are still around!
i would buy this just to support the linux part of the "whole package"...
However, an iPad is going to be significantly more powerful than one of these devices; you're probably not going to want compile code and whatnot on one of these.
But sure, it would do in a pinch.
Would it work?
I used some in the past and they are powerful alternatives.
The only downside is worse software support (the official images have only older linux versions), but there are alternative images. I had good experience using Armbian images instead of the official ones.