# thaddius' Console Roast 2014 Edition - Round 14 - Handheld Semi-Final



## thaddius (May 23, 2014)

Welcome back to _thaddius’ Console Roast 2014 Edition_. For those of you who are not aware this is a poll where you, the GBATemp user, get to vote on what GBATemp thinks is the worst console ever is. For more information check out the Rules section below.

*Recap:*
Wow. You guys really don’t like:





*The OUYA!* Congrats OUYA.

I guess it makes sense compared to the big three and their current gen consoles.

Keeping up with the apparent Microsoft bashing the Xbone somehow made it into second place. I’ll never understand you guys.

Anyway: rules!

*Rules:*


Spoiler



There can only be one!

Each week I pit each console generation against itself to determine what the worst console of that generation was. Updates will hopefully be up every Thursday from now till the end.

We’re going to work our way up through consoles and handhelds until we reach the current generation. Once that’s all done, we’ll determine the worst console and the worst handheld. From there we choose the definitive GBATemp-approved WORST CONSOLE EVER.

Your only job, Mr. or Ms. GBATemper, is to cast your vote for what you think the worst of the generation is. Please try to do some research, watch some videos, maybe play a few of these games on a (completely legitimate) emulator, and you just might learn a little about the weird amorphous blob that is video game history. But I can't (and won't) keep you from just shooting from the uninformed hip. You're also encouraged to explain your choice in the form of a response to this topic. 

In the event of a tie, I (Sir thaddius prigg) will cast the deciding vote. It is my Roast after all...

The Generations are taken from Wikipedia as I've deemed that to be an appropriate neutral third party. I understand if you might have some concerns that I've put things in the wrong generation in your opinion, but I'm not too concerned about that. Generations are murky constructs at best and are based on arbitrary distinctions made by outsiders as post hoc rationalizations that don't mean anything to anyone anyway.

If I left out/included a certain console/handheld you think does/doesn't belong there I'm probably not going to include/not include them anyway. Basically don't take any of this too seriously. I'm not going to change the polls based on your opinion of them. I also can't change the polls once I've created them. The fact that people keep telling me to change things means that no one reads this but whatever. It's not like anyone cares about what I have to say. 

Aggressive discussion is allowed, but please try to keep within the rules of the forums. Just try to have fun and don’t be a jerk, k?


Enough of that crap, time to get started!

*Intro:*
And now we enter our first of two semi-final rounds. This week we’ll explore the past ‘winners’ of the handheld generations as we try and determine, once and for all, what the worst handheld ever is. Heady stuffy, my friends.

I’m interested to see how this will go. Will GBATemp do what it’s always done, vote for the one they’ve never heard of? Or will the sheer number of systems they’ve never heard of compel them to do some research and figure out which one is the worst? Or, better yet, will the most well known one get the vote? So just who will it be? Only you can decide, fair Tempers.

*This Week's Challengers are:*

*The Watara SuperVision*




Deftly kicking the original Game Boy, the Atari Lynx, the Sega Game Gear and the Turbo Express aside, I wasn’t too surprised with the outcome. This is simply not a good system. It’s a pale imitation of the Game Boy which they managed to screw up (mostly because there were no quality games for the system). But will it be GBATemp's least preferred handheld?

*The Tiger R-Zone*




Speaking of pale imitations, the R-Zone managed to beat the Virtual Boy at it’s own game in being a shitty VR-themed system.

Not that I was concerned, but it managed to beat the GBC, the Sega Nomad, the Wonderswan, and the Neo Geo Pocket as well. And the Game.com… I’m not sure which one I would have voted for in that case.

Is the R-Zone bad enough to be heralded as the worst handheld ever? You decide!

*The Nokia N-Gage*




The side talker eked out a win against the GBA and the Neo Geo Pocket Color. And managed to out dazzle the GP32, and the Swan Crystal.

Adding gaming to a phone doesn’t necessarily make it a great handheld. And while the N-Gage was probably not the worst thing ever, it was certainly nowhere near as good as the GBA or the NGPC. At least that’s the way you guys voted anyway.

So, is it the worst of the worst?

*The GamePark Wiz/Caanoo*




Poor open consoles! Somehow the Dingoo or the Pandora didn’t win this prestigious honour, while we weren’t too surprised to see the DS and PSP skate by unscathed.

I think this was just a misunderstanding of what the Wiz and Caanoo are. Both are great, better than the Dingoo anyway as far as emulation machines go. And the Pandora is more powerful, but manufacturing problems throw it into the fray.

Are these systems worthy of being the worst handhelds ever as voted by GBATemp?

*The SNK Neo Geo X*




While there was a lot of hate brewing for the Shield, the Neo Geo X was unable to cut the mustard. Luckily the 3DS and Vita lost by a wide margin, not that we expected any different.


I don’t think this was a terrible choice. The Neo Geo X does not compare to the others and deserved this win. But does it deserve a win against today's competitors?

*Outro:*
So there you have it! We're choosing our least favourite handheld today. Take care, fellow Tempers, for this is a grave poll! What you collectively vote for will be _the_ handheld you dislike the most of all others. So choose wisely!

I'll see y'all net week and maybe even in the comments!

*Current Standings:*


Spoiler


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## Veho (May 23, 2014)

Tiger R-Zone, hands down, no contest.


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## KingVamp (May 23, 2014)

I agree. Tiger R-Zone.


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## Foxi4 (May 23, 2014)

Veho said:


> Tiger R-Zone, hands down, no contest.


QFT.


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## TheCasketMan (May 23, 2014)

The R-Zone hands down. Lokk at that kid crying in agony, cuz of the r-zone. By the way thaddius, you forgot that there was a redesign of the r-zone called the R-Zone X.P.G. which was the same s##### console, but now handheld. Anything from Tiger is the worse s###.


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## KingVamp (May 23, 2014)

Come on now. How is Nokia N-Gage worst than the Tiger R-Zone and Supervision?


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## Nah3DS (May 23, 2014)

the PS Vita


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## DinohScene (May 23, 2014)

R-Zone.
Just what?


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## Gahars (May 23, 2014)

Highway to the Tiger Zone,
I'll take you
Right into the Tiger Zone...


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## Sakitoshi (May 23, 2014)

R-Zone, obviously.
I still don't get how people dislike that much the N-Gage to think that is worse than the R-Zone when at least is a very competent smartphone. was the S60 phone with the most RAM memory of his time, compared to the R-Zone even a calculator has more processing power and is more entertaining.


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## Krakatau (May 23, 2014)

I actually don't think the N-gage was completely made with the main objective that it would be seen as a gaming console, it's a phone after all.


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## Vipera (May 23, 2014)

I'd vote for the Neo Geo X because it's a shit console under any circumstance, but the R-Zone had 0 appeal while the Neo Geo X at least lets you play some Neo Geo Games "kind of" good in 4:3 on a 16:9 screen. But still, it has GAMES.

R-Zone wins.


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## Qtis (May 23, 2014)

Seriously, the Nokia N-Gage was at least a capable phone compared to the R-Zone. It wasn't even that.


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## matpower (May 23, 2014)

Tiger R-Zone. Cheap rip-off of the Virtual Boy, also the guy playing the R-Zone here is screaming in agony, it is a torture device! ;O;




I nearly voted the SuperVision, but it had some unique stuff and I took a while hunting down for its emulator.
N-Gage was a cool concept, but it wanted more than it could bite.
Caanon is on the same level as the N-Gage IMO.
And the Neo Geo X is a custom Dingoo, so you can hack it and make it useful, bonus point for that.


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## thaddius (May 23, 2014)

I guess GBATemp doesn't like handhelds with the 'letter hyphen word' name structure.


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## Adeka (May 23, 2014)

Pretty easy choice for me. R-Zone


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## Attila13 (May 23, 2014)

My choice remains the R-Zone even in this poll and forever.
Maybe I sound like an ass and maybe I even am one now, but I'm greatly surprised to so the Ngage being so close to the Tiger....I mean come on people, the Ngage was shit for many people but compared to the Rzone the Ngage is the fucking winner console of the Millennium.
I do know that people who voted for the Ngage maybe didn't have the chance to ever try the Rzone (you all shall be grateful for that you lucky bastards), but still! That's no excuse!


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## Foxi4 (May 23, 2014)

I can't believe people are actually voting for anything other than the R-Zone. I know these are the _"lowest of the low"_ according to previous polls but the gap between the R-Zone and the other three contenders is comparable to the Great Canyon.


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## xwatchmanx (May 23, 2014)

Tiger R-Zone. It's not even a contest. I mean, really.


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## cracker (May 24, 2014)

Seriously... Why are people voting for anything besides the R-Zone?


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## geoflcl (May 24, 2014)

You'd have to be N-Sane not to vote for the D-Spicable R-Zone! Come on, folks, X-ercise that right!



Spoiler



...I'm so sorry


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## Taleweaver (May 24, 2014)

I'm also curious why anything but the R-Zone gets a vote. The N-gage may not have been what it promised it would be, but I honestly cannot believe that when giving someone the choice of playing with the R-zone or the N-gage, they would pick the former. This shouldn't even be a contest but a given.

But...c'mon, guys. Please explain your vote a bit, will you? I scrolled through the entire page wondering why the N-gage is relatively close, but found nothing...


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## chavosaur (May 24, 2014)

Id assume because people have a more active memory of the N-gage then the R-Zone. Most people probably just vote for what they recognize.


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## WiiCube_2013 (May 24, 2014)

Tbh, if it weren't due to AVGN/James Rolfe I'd not know how bad the R-Tiger Zone was of a gaming system, if you can call it this.

N-Gage bad? Nope. Whenever I'd play on it I'd enjoy it a lot and it felt like a portable gaming console like GBA or such which is awesome, except the screen of N-Gage wasn't intended for games as it seemed (wrong AR).


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## matpower (May 24, 2014)

Does anyone have a N-Gage emulator, I want to check it.
(tbh I would pick the R-Zone if someone said to me "R-Zone or N-Gage" because I am crazy as heck and I would love to check how it plays. )


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## Pleng (May 25, 2014)

thaddius said:


> Poor open consoles! Somehow the Dingoo or the Pandora didn’t win this prestigious honour, while we weren’t too surprised to see the DS and PSP skate by unscathed.
> 
> I think this was just a misunderstanding of what the Wiz and Caanoo are. Both are great, better than the Dingoo anyway as far as emulation machines go. And the Pandora is more powerful, but manufacturing problems throw it into the fray.


 
I guess you had a Wiz or Canoo then...!

I really don't think they were 'better' than the Dingoo. They were probably more powerful but the Dingoo was about half the price (maybe even less), fitted neatly into just about any size pocket, had a sensible button configuration, and had a battery that just went on forever; I took mine on a 12 hour flight and after having it in use for the majority of the time - a mixture of watching videos, playing games, and listening to music - it still had battery enough to watch a couple of episodes of Family Guy when I arrived at my guest house.


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## orcid (May 25, 2014)

N-Gage
It is really bad and the other handhelds were just niche products which you had to import.


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## cracker (May 25, 2014)

The Supervision and R-Zone were widely available in catalogs and stores even outside Asia. The Wiz/Caanoo were really the only ones on the list that were only available from import/Asian shops.


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## thaddius (May 25, 2014)

Pleng said:


> I guess you had a Wiz or Canoo then...!


 
I do own a Wiz, a Caanoo, and a few Dingoos. And I can say they're all great.

As far as emulator machines the Wiz and the Caanoo can do a bit more. The SNES, Genesis, GBA, and even PSX emulators are much better than the Dingoo's (even the Dingux ones) and the touch screen made for some interesting/varied homebrew.

As far as buttons go the L and R buttons on the Wiz and Caanoo were much better than the Dingoos. The Wiz is the only one with bad A, B, Y, X buttons (they're a segmented D-pad).

They're all hard to compare to each other. The Dingoo is a great budget console, while the Wiz and the Caanoo are much better at being emulator machines, but are just barely worth the extra price. Luckily I never paid for a Caanoo and merely won it in a contest. Otherwise I probably would never have bothered.


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## codezer0 (May 26, 2014)

cracker said:


> Seriously... Why are people voting for anything besides the R-Zone?


Maybe some of them actually had the handheld they were voting for, and thus are voting for the worst they'd ever *used* rather than just simply the worst of the list.


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## tbgtbg (May 27, 2014)

KingVamp said:


> Come on now. How is Nokia N-Gage worst than the Tiger R-Zone and Supervision?



At least with those you don't have to take out the battery to change games.


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## Maxternal (May 28, 2014)

That was easy. Will probably even win out against whatever console wins the home console semi-final as well.
Not sure what the outcome would have been had it not even been included, though (it only borderline qualified, anyhow)


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## techboy (May 28, 2014)

Been said plenty of times...R-Zone.


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## matpower (May 28, 2014)

Maxternal said:


> That was easy. Will probably even win out against whatever console wins the home console semi-final as well.
> Not sure what the outcome would have been had it not even been included, though (it only borderline qualified, anyhow)


The poll will be "R-Zone vs an okay console comparated to the R-Zone", so yeah, the final result is obvious. :/


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## codezer0 (May 30, 2014)

The fact that it's called the R-Zone also reminds me of the fact that the electronics/video game section of Toys R Us stores used to be called the RZone... and guess where they were heavily promoting the Tiger games?

I seriously wonder if it was _just like that_ that enabled Toys R Us and Tiger electronics to come up with that name...

In any case, we had some genuine stinkers in the handheld side. I can't wait to see what it boils down to.


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## KingVamp (May 30, 2014)

tbgtbg said:


> At least with those you don't have to take out the battery to change games.


So you rather play this than take out the battery? At least they were able to approve on it with the N-Gage QD.


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