New Android Device - The W3D - Preorder on Amazon!

AshuraZro · Jun 25, 2015

I admit when I'm wrong and I was. That said this is a news post of a portable gaming android device the OP had hands on time with on a site built and started around handheld gaming and has reviewed various devices in-depth. I don't think the expectation of a clear news post in this area is unreasonable or something to belittle a reader for.

TVL · Jun 25, 2015

cracker said:
All day battery life on a phone you are gaming on...

This has standby time of 10-16 hours, that's what I was looking at when thinking it has too short of a battery life. Not that you should be able to play games the whole day and not having to use a charger.

BORTZ · Jun 25, 2015

Doesnt look like something I would ever buy, but at least interesting. would this be like a spiritual successor to say a Dingoo? Anyone remember those?

AceWarhead · Jun 25, 2015

Bortz said:
Doesnt look like something I would ever buy, but at least interesting. would this be like a spiritual successor to say a Dingoo? Anyone remember those?

Ah yes, those Dingoo were so weird. MiniSD card slot, for one, was a big question mark. I've also heard reports of people having their screen break down after a couple months too. Loved the Gameboy Micr-esque design though.

Sychophantom · Jun 25, 2015

cracker said:
Did you get the tablet for free because I picked up a powered MHL/OTG micro/SD reader, HDMI out, USB A for only a few dollars?

I paid $50 for mine, and then roughly $50 more on various bits and bobs that were supposed to work via feedback on Windowscentral but didn't. The HP Stream 7 has the same stupid bit of HP fuckery (that my last HP tablet, a Touchpad, had) that gets finicky with any outside equipment. The closest I got to an OTG hub charging while using a wired Xbox controller was a little strip OTG hub meant for a Samsung Galaxy Tab.....it doesn't really charge, but it also doesn't seem to eat the battery either.

There's a brick of a thing with extra usb, hdmi out, mouse and keyboard ports, for 90 bucks over at Amazon. Since I just use it for watching movies via Kodi, I said "fuck that"....and tossed $40 bucks at Amazon for an Acer quad-core Android tab for emulators.

Bobbyloujo · Jun 26, 2015

$399 is pretty typical for an off contract phone with specs like this. Remember that this is a phone, not just an open source handheld like the Dingoo or GCW Zero.

FireEmblemGuy · Jun 26, 2015

Bobbyloujo said:
$399 is pretty typical for an off contract phone with specs like this. Remember that this is a phone, not just an open source handheld like the Dingoo or GCW Zero.

Right, but for a name-brand phone you get a better processor (Snapdragon, etc.) - the MTK series are OK, but they're still budget Chinese chipsets. That's important, because the MTK processors generally don't include the latest and greatest graphics processing; I can't find definitively if the PowerVR G6200 can or does support the latest OpenGL ES, which is important if you want things like Dolphin to run (at 10-15 FPS, probably, but running regardless).

Frankly this'd be a better device if they'd forgone the 3D screens in favor of a better processor - there's next to no practical use for a 3D screen in Android, unless you're saying you can create a 3DS emulator that runs on current or slightly outdated hardware.

Tom Bombadildo · Jun 26, 2015

FireEmblemGuy said:
Right, but for a name-brand phone you get a better processor (Snapdragon, etc.) - the MTK series are OK, but they're still budget Chinese chipsets. That's important, because the MTK processors generally don't include the latest and greatest graphics processing; I can't find definitively if the PowerVR G6200 can or does support the latest OpenGL ES, which is important if you want things like Dolphin to run (at 10-15 FPS, probably, but running regardless).

http://www.notebookcheck.net/Imagination-PowerVR-G6200.129146.0.html
http://www.imgtec.com/powervr/series6.asp

Both state The G6200 supports up to OpenGL ES 3.1, and so does various other wikis and pages. Not really sure how you didn't find it, it was literally the first two links with my Google Search

AshuraZro · Jun 26, 2015

Regardless of qualms about the price, it is an awfully niche device and the fact that it is a phone as well is a decent point. Options are pretty limited here if you insist on your phone being a capable emulation device with hardware controls so another option is always welcome in the end. It does make me wonder how easy it'd be to go with a different display (lose the 3D stuff) and put a little more into the design or quality of components.

Also running Dolphin strikes me as aiming awfully high in a device. Does it run well on any android unit?

Tom Bombadildo · Jun 26, 2015

AshuraZro said:
Also running Dolphin strikes me as aiming awfully high in a device. Does it run well on any android unit?

Theoretically speaking, Dolphin could run very well on the Tegra X1 chipset, and at this point can even run...some minor GC games at playable speeds on the Tegra K1. At the moment, it's more about Dolphin's optimization on Android and on ARM CPUs than anything.

But the specs of this device aren't anywhere near the X1 or even the Tegra K1, so this probably won't run Dolphin anything at playable speeds.

But everything else would work fine, though I guess.

the_randomizer · Jun 26, 2015

Xenon Hacks said:
Ok I might get this phone but here's the big question, can it run PPSSPP?

Many mid-range Android devices can actually run it quite well, my Nexus 7 runs quite a few PSP games at full speed.

TripleSMoon · Jun 26, 2015

Super cool, but the price completely kills it for me.

I don't want a cool retro emulation device so badly that I'm willing to pay as much for it as a current gen console. At that rate, I'd rather just use my iControlPad combined with my current android smartphone.

Edit: I missed the part where they say it's a phone, not just a device. I guess that makes the price a bit better, but still too much for me.

KingVamp · Jun 27, 2015

I think it still could have had better hardware and design even with 3D. Wonder if there's 3D emulators for Android.

Afaik, the X1 isn't in any mobile device.

cracker · Jun 27, 2015

Tom Bombadildo said:
Theoretically speaking, Dolphin could run very well on the Tegra X1 chipset, and at this point can even run...some minor GC games at playable speeds on the Tegra K1. At the moment, it's more about Dolphin's optimization on Android and on ARM CPUs than anything.

But the specs of this device aren't anywhere near the X1 or even the Tegra K1, so this probably won't run Dolphin anything at playable speeds.

But everything else would work fine, though I guess.

What titles? The few I tried would freeze immediately or within half a minute of booting. The dev site states that you should install Ubuntu via LinuxOnAndroid for better support since he isn't going to keep making native Android releases. It sounds like it was meant to be a PoC.

Tom Bombadildo · Jun 27, 2015

cracker said:
What titles? The few I tried would freeze immediately or within half a minute of booting. The dev site states that you should install Ubuntu via LinuxOnAndroid for better support since he isn't going to keep making native Android releases. It sounds like it was meant to be a PoC.

I take it you haven't tried the most recent build of Dolphin from November, then, because I haven't had any crashes on the games I've tested since the last build on my Shield Tablet. Mario Kart Double Dash still runs ~30-40fps in Time trial mode (like 25fps in grand prix, which is still "playable" but, y'know, annoyingly slow

), Luigi's Mansion still boots up fine and runs at about 25fps, Super Smash Bros Melee runs at about 20fps, Crazy Taxi runs at a nice 45fps, sometimes you can even get it up to 55 in smaller areas in town. Animal Crossing is supposed to be quite playable for the most part but I haven't tried it cuz I'm not much of a fan of AC...

It's not a huge list, but there are definitely some games that can be launched and "played" on the Android build. It's nowhere near perfect, of course, but it doesn't mean it doesn't work either

cracker · Jun 27, 2015

It is v0.14 from Nov 3. It is very possible that it is due to the Mali 400 GPU cores.

Edit: It doesn't support OGLES 3.0 so that is why.

Oh well, it would have meant more ISOs filling my microSD's limited space for games I wouldn't play.

Psionic Roshambo · Jun 27, 2015

Tom Bombadildo said:
Soooooo...it has...3D...for allllllllllll those great Android games that are...3D?

Uhh...ok I guess? 3D seems absolutely useless on Android, especially when there have already been 3D Android devices that just fell flat on their face, and as such there's virtually 0 worthwhile 3D content. And that price tag seems way too high, too >.> And disgusting circle pads instead of actual analog sticks, no thanks. A nice try, I guess

Kodi has support for playing movies in 3D (and yeah you can download compatible movies... not that I am a huge fan of 3D movies but if I was that alone might make this thing worth getting as a portable 3D movie machine? lol again not a huge fan....)

The only other use I could think of is if the VirtualBoy emulator supports this, that to me seems like it would be more interesting as a closer "emulation" of what the VB did (I actually did enjoy mine, but it's not very portable... lol)

To me this doesn't seem like it would be worth it right now, but if 3D takes off on more phones and machines the apps to take advantage of it might be pretty cool. I guess this is something for those people who like to be on the bleeding edge of things?

I wouldn't buy it myself, JXD makes much cheaper versions of this (looking at the design it screams emulation machine) and the maybe added support of VB games isn't worth the added 200 bucks IMO. I would have to actually try it out but for my money your better off getting a 10 inch Android pad and BT connecting a PS3 controller. (This is simply awesome if you try it out.)

If some one else mentioned this crap later in the thread forgive me, I am half awake.... lol (going to read the rest of the thread as it's super interesting to me. I may end up editing this post.)

Edit: And my post completely ignores the whole phone aspect because as a phone that would suck balls... lol would virtually require the use of a BT ear piece to use with out looking retarded.

DarkFlare69 · Jun 27, 2015

TheGrayShow1467 said:
3DS emulator confirmed after they release the Wii U emulator.
JOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOKE

If it can do PSP Emulation, I'm in.

My Android phone has 4 cores and 1.5GB of RAM and it can emulate PSP at about 60% speed, so this should have enough potential to do it at 100

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

Vipera said:
...no expandable memory? Pass.

Also 10 hours of standby is incredibly short for a gaming device that has no sim card.

It clearly says it can have micro SD cards.

Vipera · Jun 27, 2015

Vipera said:
... I'm reading a bulletin list from a thread in a "news" section of the forum from my phone. Sorry I have the staff the benefit of the doubt. Will remember to not trust you again next time.

Deleted User · Jun 28, 2015

Well for like $20 you can get a psp, mod it, and play GB/GBC/GBA, NES, SNES, some N64 (pretty crap compatibility but still), PS1, PSP, and probably some other stuff Im forgetting. I guess you can't play those fantastic f2p games but don't we all already have other devices for that?

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