Free Play Zero vs K101 Pro

Dieterweireldt

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My son would love to have a gaming device and since I don't really think he's old enough for a 3DS. He loves to play Super Mario All Stars on my computer (I have a lot of emulators running) so I thought of getting him a GBA. But over here they are asking ridiculous prices (70-100€) for the console so I was thinking of getting a handheld emulation device..

I dug around the internet a bit and found some candidates, mainly the Free Play Zero and the K101Pro/Coolboy/RS-97.. problem is: I've seen different review videos of both and some reviewers show perfect gameplay, the others show laggy (especially GBA and SNES). I could go for a Free Play CM3 if I wanted something more powerful, but for that price, shouldn't I be better of with a GPD XD Plus? Would really like to keep the price below 100€. The most it would have to run are GBA/SNES/Mega Drive (just Alladin actually).. So no PSX/N64/Dreamcast/... My preference would go out to the Free Play Zero since I like the interface better and I can customize the shell the way he would want to but I'm not sure the Raspberry Pie Zero is fast enough to emulate GBA/SNES games at full speed..

Anyone have experience with both devices? Or even a better alternative?
 

steelseth

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Free Play Zero is going to cost you more than 100 EUR. When you factor in shipping, taxes, gba shell, micro sd card I think it will be closer to 200 EUR.
The Rs-97 is supposed to be an ok option once you update to custom firmware and its only ~40 EUR.
If you are going to import the console you could get a GBA for around 20 EUR, and an EZ Flash omega for another 35 EUR from ebay.
Best handheld emulation option for the money in my opinion is a psp, which can be found for under 50 EUR in good condition, and you can also play ps1 and psp games.
The old 2ds is also a good gaming device for younger children, it can take a beating and not as expensive, dont know how capable it is as an emulation device but you have the whole 3ds and ds libraries to play.
 

Clydefrosch

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Why not just get him a 2ds? I'm sure you can still find them below 90 bucks (and even cheaper used).
They're sturdy and supposedly comfortable to hold. not to mention, button quality on a true nintendo product will always be better than on these things.
Hacked, they run anything up to snes (only the chip games don't work perfectly) with snes9x for o3ds and gba through VC injected cias.

granted, setting up a 3ds console is slightly more work, as its not simple plug and play, but its probably still worth it. and you ultimately have access to the 3ds' gigantic library of games for all ages down the line.


Best handheld emulation option for the money in my opinion is a psp, which can be found for under 50 EUR in good condition, and you can also play ps1 and psp games.


don't believe this. the psp was as good as it got back in its day, but emulation was far from perfect. the snes emulator required tweaking for every other game while gba required using 4 variations of the same emulator to get most games running good enough.
it is great for the weaker end of emulation and definitely for ps1 and psp games though.
though having gone through three of them myself, again, button quality. wether its the x button becoming spongy (not reacting to the click anymore but needing a harder press 9 out of 10 times), the L/R buttons giving up on life or the dpad being an abomination. They just weren't meant for eternity.
 
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steelseth

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don't believe this. the psp was as good as it got back in its day, but emulation was far from perfect. the snes emulator required tweaking for every other game while gba required using 4 variations of the same emulator to get most games running good enough.

Best handheld emulation option for the money in my opinion is a psp.
And snes run fine except some slowdowns on some sa1 games but they were perfectly playable. Also dont remember any problems with gba games either.
 

Clydefrosch

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Best handheld emulation option for the money in my opinion is a psp.
And snes run fine except some slowdowns on some sa1 games but they were perfectly playable. Also dont remember any problems with gba games either.
even for the money, the 2ds is still a much better deal (not to mention, almost all of them come with a free game like Mario Kart or Animal Crossing which are very child friendly)
and exactly my point, you don't remember. gpsp, gpsp kai, tempgba, they all played a large number of games mostly ok if you ignored sound and occasionally dropped frames. but they all also had between 5 and 50 titles one or two of them would either downright crash on, have terrible graphical artifacts or unignorable sound issues.
and you'd always have to check all three to see which one performed the best.

as with snes, again, only after checking all the graphic modes, sound buffers and potentially hack fixes would most games worth playing run great.

either way, even the 2ds does it better. not to mention, you're not getting a fresh psp console for that price. you get one where the buttons are already used and the battery is probably on it's deathbed, with no good replacements (4 out of 5 replacement psp batteries work as well as the dying original one).
 
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steelseth

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even for the money, the 2ds is still a much better deal (not to mention, almost all of them come with a free game like Mario Kart or Animal Crossing which are very child friendly)
and exactly my point, you don't remember. gpsp, gpsp kai, tempgba, they all played a large number of games mostly ok if you ignored sound and occasionally dropped frames. but they all also had between 5 and 50 titles one or two of them would either downright crash on, have terrible graphical artifacts or unignorable sound issues.
and you'd always have to check all three to see which one performed the best.

as with snes, again, only after checking all the graphic modes, sound buffers and potentially hack fixes would most games worth playing run great.

either way, even the 2ds does it better. not to mention, you're not getting a fresh psp console for that price. you get one where the buttons are already used and the battery is probably on it's deathbed, with no good replacements (4 out of 5 replacement psp batteries work as well as the dying original one).

gba required using 4 variations of the same emulator to get most games running good enough.
Of the 1500 gba games 5 - 50 have problems. Seriously dude? Most games? LOL.

If you are a perfect emulation nut get an i7 PC with a 2080ti and go crazy, because its not happening on a 2ds.

P.S This is a system for a child.

P.P.S For the price of the 2ds you can get a PS Vita, so yeah. And I can get "fresh" psp's for 50 EUR or less all day long, you just don't know where to look.
 
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Enkuler

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Of the 1500 gba games 5 - 50 have problems. Seriously dude? Most games? LOL.

If you are a perfect emulation nut get an i7 PC with a 2080ti and go crazy, because its not happening on a 2ds.
The 2DS does not emulate, hence compatibility without mad CPU power.
 

Rioluwott

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I think the 3ds is perfect for a child(of course it would be good if you tell us his age) but i got my little brother a 3ds when he was 8 and he has no problems with it, there are a lot of games (and emulators) he can play and is sturdy, if you set it up correctly you can avoid software issues when the kid plays and you can use parental control you can also play gba games without issues like in a real console
i don´t know about a 2ds somehow one of my friends sat on his 2ds by mistake and broke the screen
the psp is a good emulator machine but is not that much of a kid friendly(well depending on the version), i don´t know of the catalog of the games
well my suggestion is that you buy an used o3ds but it´s up to you, good luck with that man
would you please tell us what did you meant by that?, the guy above is not wrong by the way
the only thing it can´t play is gba romhacks that have something not even the real hardware can play
 
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steelseth

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would you please tell us what did you meant by that?, the guy above is not wrong by the way
the only thing it can´t play is gba romhacks that have something not even the real hardware can play
Nes, Snes, MD, MS, GG .... the 2ds does not emulate?
 

Rioluwott

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Then he was not following the conversation.
If the question was what was the best way to play gba games, neither the 2ds or the psp is the correct answer.
he quoted "Of the 1500 gba games 5 - 50 have problems. Seriously dude? Most games? LOL." so im pretty sure he was following the converation.
the OP said he wanted to keep it at low price and the 2ds is at a pretty good price and can play gba games natively, in your opinion what would be the best way to play gba games(and the other consoles OP said) at a low price and be kid friendly?
 

steelseth

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he quoted "Of the 1500 gba games 5 - 50 have problems. Seriously dude? Most games? LOL." so im pretty sure he was following the converation.
the OP said he wanted to keep it at low price and the 2ds is at a pretty good price and can play gba games natively, in your opinion what would be the best way to play gba games(and the other consoles OP said) at a low price and be kid friendly?
OP said
The most it would have to run are GBA/SNES/Mega Drive (just Alladin actually)
Like I said before .... psp would be the best option. Especially for a child.
Put all the roms on the sd card and be done with it. How many gba games is anyone going to inject into cia and install on the 2ds?
 

Rioluwott

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OP said
Like I said before .... psp would be the best option. Especially for a child.
Put all the roms on the sd card and be done with it. How many gba games is anyone going to inject into cia and install on the 2ds?
Well if you actually put the effort i think the 3ds is better, i think the snes emulator for psp doesnt have sleep mode,depending on the psp you may need to boot the cfw each time you power it up, i don´t know about megadrive, the gba emulator is nice but i don´t use it a lot, i don´t know a lot of good kids games for psp and you have to buy an adapter for the sd card(i really have problems with those since they break really easy) but it has psx backward compability(its the same as the gba since you need to inject the games too),on the 3ds you have snes/nes/megadrive/pc engine as emulator and you just need to drag and drop the roms for the gba you need to inject them or download them somewhere but they work perfectly and they look nice, the cfw boots when you power it on and is kid friendly ,easy to set up parental control ,has a lot of kids games,the console still gets new games and has a more active homebrew community than the psp
 

steelseth

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Well if you actually put the effort i think the 3ds is better, i think the snes emulator for psp doesnt have sleep mode,depending on the psp you may need to boot the cfw each time you power it up, i don´t know about megadrive, the gba emulator is nice but i don´t use it a lot, i don´t know a lot of good kids games for psp and you have to buy an adapter for the sd card(i really have problems with those since they break really easy) but it has psx backward compability(its the same as the gba since you need to inject the games too),on the 3ds you have snes/nes/megadrive/pc engine as emulator and you just need to drag and drop the roms for the gba you need to inject them or download them somewhere but they work perfectly and they look nice, the cfw boots when you power it on and is kid friendly ,easy to set up parental control ,has a lot of kids games,the console still gets new games and has a more active homebrew community than the psp

If im not mistaken there is permanent cfw for all psp's now expect the psp street.

Dude this was my original reply. I have nothing against the 2ds/3ds, I own 5 of them.
Free Play Zero is going to cost you more than 100 EUR. When you factor in shipping, taxes, gba shell, micro sd card I think it will be closer to 200 EUR.
The Rs-97 is supposed to be an ok option once you update to custom firmware and its only ~40 EUR.
If you are going to import the console you could get a GBA for around 20 EUR, and an EZ Flash omega for another 35 EUR from ebay.
Best handheld emulation option for the money in my opinion is a psp, which can be found for under 50 EUR in good condition, and you can also play ps1 and psp games.
The old 2ds is also a good gaming device for younger children, it can take a beating and not as expensive, dont know how capable it is as an emulation device but you have the whole 3ds and ds libraries to play.

To which an ass replied.

don't believe this. the psp was as good as it got back in its day, but emulation was far from perfect. the snes emulator required tweaking for every other game while gba required using 4 variations of the same emulator to get most games running good enough.

Which is complete bullshit.
I never said the psp was better than the 2ds.
I recommended the 2ds as an alternative.
But price to value the psp is better as an emulation device.
 

Rioluwott

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If im not mistaken there is permanent cfw for all psp's now expect the psp street.
Dude this was my original reply. I have nothing against the 2ds/3ds, I own 5 of them.
oh well sorry, here were i live both the psp and an used 3ds cost nearly the same
im glad we think alike
 

Clydefrosch

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OP said
Like I said before .... psp would be the best option. Especially for a child.
Put all the roms on the sd card and be done with it. How many gba games is anyone going to inject into cia and install on the 2ds?

2ds is more sturdy, more egonomic, has a better analogpad and dpad, better battery life and you get all those gba cias ready to install online. all around better for a child. its all well worth the few extra bucks.

that isn't to say that, overall, the kid would probably be happy with any 20 dollar preloaded lcd gameboy knockoff from amazon anyways.

Then he was not following the conversation.
If the question was what was the best way to play gba games, neither the 2ds or the psp is the correct answer.
the 2ds is a pretty correct answer outside of a never unboxed gba sp and maybe a ds lite (but again, old consoles, worn out buttons, battery life, about to die hinges).

If im not mistaken there is permanent cfw for all psp's now expect the psp street.

Dude this was my original reply. I have nothing against the 2ds/3ds, I own 5 of them.

To which an ass replied.

Which is complete bullshit.
I never said the psp was better than the 2ds.
I recommended the 2ds as an alternative.
But price to value the psp is better as an emulation device.

Good going with the insulting there champ.
Before the 3ds was hacked, I would've agreed with you on the psp being the best all around retro emulation handheld. but it simply isn't anymore, not even if its a few bucks cheaper. by todays standards, it's simply mediocre for the more demanding systems.
many people look back at the psp with rose colored glasses as it was their first hacked retro handheld and could do a lot of things, but it simply doesnt hold up anymore today.
go back and move through the gba and snes catalog, see how many games required obligatory frameskips with sound delays (and all the popping, I just remembered the popping and scratching especially in gpsp kai) and have fun trying to play through golden sun. i think it was just about bearable in one of the four gba emulators (the last of which, gpSPmod 20090720 i forgot to mention in the post before because it's just confusing as heck at some point).

I would agree with you that the psp would probably suffice, as would anything from this video , but the 2ds is still a much better fit and objectively, the better emulation machine if we ignore ps1 games.
also, i dunno how old the kid here is, but in 2 - 3 years, all those 3ds games will probably be more suitable than the psp library too.
 

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