GBA ELINK Flash Kit in-house at GBAtemp!

shaunj66 · Oct 10, 2007

GBA ELINK Flash Kit in-house at GBAtemp!
Questions? Fire away!

We've just received our sample unit of the new ELINK (the one with the shmancy backwards 'E') GBA flash kit. It's been a while since we've seen a new dedicated GBA flash kit so it will be interesting to see how this one fairs. Could it be the "be-all and end-all" for GBA flash kits?

If you have any questions you'd like answered or would like to see specific tests or other things covered in the upcoming review then please feel free to leave a message.

Thanks to the ELINK Team for sending us the kit for review.

Enter this topic for more photos and short first impressions

shaunj66 · Oct 10, 2007

It's been a while since we've received a sample GBA flash kit. The ELINK flash kit is a dedicated Game Boy Advance flash kit which means absolutely zero official support for Nintendo DS games. The cart comes in 512Mb (64MB) or 1Gb (128MB) sizes and is connected to your PC via a mini (and non-standard) USB cable.

The build quality of the device is fairly good. The cart comes in a bright green colour and the mini USB connector doesn't affect the size of the casing and also feels quite sturdy. The cart looks and feels very much like the original EFA Linker.

The flash kit comes in a nice gift type box which has a cardboard sleeve and a nice book-type interior. Included is a small instruction leaflet, CD-ROM, USB cable and of course, GBA cart.

The device requires itself to be inserted into a powered-on GBA or DS (in GBA mode) whilst connected to the PC, which feels like a bit of a drawback when the EFA-Linker which connected in the same way didn't need to be.

The cart is not "drag and drop". It does not appear as a U-DISK device. Instead you must install the ELINK driver and use their client software. The write times aren't the fastest we've seen, with the average write speed at approximately 177KB/s.

The software is straight forward with just 3 main buttons 'Add File' 'Start Burn' and 'Clean All'. You get to customise advanced options when adding ROMs such as cheat codes (which are already available for the majority of games) and soft-reset. You can also customise the name of each game shown in the loader. You can also write and backup save game (.sav) files.

The boot loader is straight forward and void of any additional options or features. You can't seem to customise the boot loader at this point in time.

The kit is priced at around 30USD or 19GBP which is quite cheap.

We'll have a review up shortly. In the mean time feel free to ask any questions you may have.

Mangofett · Oct 10, 2007

The cable, while not standard, isn't proprietary, its just less common. If someone loses theirs, they can usually get a replacement.

shaunj66 · Oct 10, 2007

QUOTE(Linkiboy @ Oct 10 2007 said:
The cable, while not standard, isn't proprietary, its just less common. If someone loses theirs, they can usually get a replacement.

Yeh you can find them on eBay and other places. It's the same cable as the EFA Linker uses

DjoeN · Oct 10, 2007

Can't wait to see how it performs with all different save types

Will it need sram patching or not

jalaneme · Oct 10, 2007

hmm that's not a bad price, i expected more expensive due to gba flash carts being still expensive due to flash memory e.t.c, but i'm very happy with my g6 lite for gba games.

TLSpartan · Oct 10, 2007

Have you tested the software in WINE?

4saken · Oct 10, 2007

QUOTE(DjoeNtje @ Oct 10 2007 said:
Can't wait to see how it performs with all different save types

Will it need sram patching or not

The ELink software incorporates GBATA, so my guess is yes. It simply uses the GBATA patcher to patch certain ROMs.

Something shaun didn't bring up was that this card has build in cheats (a database which is constantly updated) and soft reset which can be enabled on request. Their client also has a built in updater which works fairly well.

EDIT :WAIT he did say something about it

The lack of UDISK is not something surprising. It's not external memory after all; all flashcards like this have used similar card writer/USB interfaces.

Lumstar · Oct 10, 2007

If it supports the save type of F-Zero Climax and runs with absolutely ZERO slowdown whatsoever... I'm sold. I've never read confirmation of any flashcart capable of either (or the other way around for that matter).

4saken · Oct 10, 2007

I've been told compatibility is near perfect (along the lines of the compatibility present in the M3 and EZ3-4)

F-ZERO Climax can always be patched (unless I'm mistaken - not a fan of the GBA F-Zero series)

JPH · Oct 10, 2007

These look very nice. I still would rather purchase something newer and has NDS, as well as GBA compatibility.

They're very inexpensive, though. 30 bucks is a great deal...this'd make a good birthday present for my little cousin

kreatosoupa · Oct 10, 2007

Good. I was planning of taking the easy way out and just grabbing a Fire Linker. I'm glad I didn't...

Da-Huntha · Oct 10, 2007

Does the driver work on Vista?
Also, does this thing have an internal battery?

recover · Oct 10, 2007

Nice, but I don't know how much success this card will be considering the competition.
Btw, anyone know if the word "Quaity" is in the dictionary? lol

DirtyH · Oct 10, 2007

QUOTE(shaunj66 @ Oct 10 2007 said:
We'll have a review up shortly. In the mean time feel free to ask any questions you may have.

Still waiting for the Acekard RPG review.

mkoo · Oct 10, 2007

SMS ...? short message service? .. or save manager system?

arctic_flame · Oct 10, 2007

Does it support Single-rom mode?

Will it Pal-Park or similar? (Does it only have SRAM or does it have extra hardware for better save support?)
mkoo, read the back of the box.

Jdbye · Oct 10, 2007

QUOTE(mkoo @ Oct 10 2007 said:
SMS ...? short message service? .. or save manager system?Â

Neither, it's Sega Master System

Anyway, I don't get the point in releasing another GBA flashcart now, as if there aren't enough of them.

Szyslak · Oct 10, 2007

Sorry, but when I look at that stupid backwards "E" logo with the "L" under the "i", this is all I see:

dexmix · Oct 10, 2007

F-Zero Climax runs on most carts if patched with GBATA.
ELink shouldn't be any different - if theyre using GBATA as a patch engine.

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