Console 3 - JXD A1000

JXD A1000

You may remember the post I made about the Dingoo A320. If not, scroll down a few entries and find it. You can also simply go here: Console 2: Dingoo A320 - Classic Console Experience .

Well, as awesome as that thing is, the JXD A1000 is on par, if not slightly above the Dingoo.

A little background is warranted at this point. The Dingoo took a spill and died. Apparently the Dingoo was not designed to take a minor fall, and the soldering components easily bust loose, and make the device inoperable.  So I was in the market for a new handheld emulator. My birthday was coming up, and my mom asked me what I wanted. Well I stumbled across this little thing on Amazon, for half the cost of what the Dingoo was listed at. The biggest problem was that there were not a lot of reviews to be found online, anywhere. I watched a partial video on YouTube about it, and read some buyers reviews on Amazon, and it appeared that the JXD A1000 could do everything I was looking for. So I emailed my mom a link to the item on Amazon, and she purchased it.

The day finally came when it arrived at her house, so I rushed up there after work to go get it. Wow! This thing looks impressive right out of the box. It looks just like a Sony PSP, but it's not. Whenever people see me playing it, they always say, "Oh, is that a PSP?" Nope, nothing even close to a PSP. Once I show them what it is, they ususally say, "Oh, cool..." or just kind of acknowledge it, and move along.

The major difference between the JXD  and the Dingoo is that the firmware is not "open" on the JXD as it is on the Dingoo. This means you can't install the Dingux (Linux for Dingoo) on the device. To be honest, the Dingux, was not that great. It allowed you to install some additional emulators on the Dingoo, but it was mostly just a pain in the ass. The JXD has yet to be opened like the Dingoo, and I am fine with that. Here is what the JXD has to offer the casual user:

Emulation:

The JXD comes loaded with emulators for Nintendo (NES), Super Nintendo (SNES), GameBoy Advance (GBA), GameBoy (GB), GameBoy Color (GBC), Sega Genesis (GEN), and flash games. The machine handles all of these emulations great. The GBA is by far the best. The larger 4.3" screen (as compared to the smaller 2.8" screen of the Dingoo) really brings the games to life. The LCD screen is bright, and easy to see. The games on all systems, do not lag, there is no frame rate issues, nothing. This thing is great. The Dingoo did not come with a GameBoy emulator, but there was a homebrew emulator that could be installed on to it. The biggest problem was the audio output on that emulator. It constantly buzzed, and you would constantly need to adjust the volume so that it could be muted. The JXD on the otherhand, comes with a GameBoy emulator, and it has ZERO audio problems. Not only that, but the LCD screen smoothes out the blocky pixels of the 8-bit GameBoy games, and makes the games actually look great. Here are some pictures of the screen resolution for the main emulations:

Castlevania Legends (GameBoy)

Castlevania Harmony of Dissonance (GameBoy Advance)

Sonic The Hedgehog (Sega Genesis)

Double Dragon (Nintendo)

The Legend of Zelda - Link To The Past (Super Nintendo)

As you can see this machine handles everything just fine. I tried to find some flash games to install on this, but couldn't find anything that ran easily and good playability.

On top of the emulations, this machine will also play movies, and music. I have used it to watch a few movies already, and even though this has a small screen, the resolution is amazing, and makes it fun.

The Bad:

Let's be honest. As amazing as this thing is, it does have one downside. It is minor, but worth mentioning. Button configuration. The button configuration for the SNES is incorrectly mapped. As such, you have to re-train your brain to play anything on the Super Nintendo games. Its a minor flaw, but it is something that you can learn to live with.

Overall:

I love my JXD A1000, and at half the cost of the Dingoo, it is highly worth it. Anyone who enjoys old console games, as I do, will absolutely love this little device, purely based on the capability of the emulators found on it. The rechargeable battery provides hours of game play ability. The ability to play movies, makes a great alternative to your iPOD. It makes road trips fun (only if you aren't driving).

I highly recommend this inexpensive device to anyone who enjoys gaming.