the ismart premium is a rebranded ez flash vi. it has very poor homebrew support and the kernel has many bugs. i also had contact issues with 2 carts shipped to me for testing. 2 out of 2 cards not working correctly is a bad start.
what went wrong with your acekard? is it dead or are you just not sure how to debug your problem?
the ismart mm has some good things going for it right now, such as ismart linux (which runs dingoo emulators) and software coded and updated by supercard. i read a discussion on a japanese blog lastnight about working to try to get the SFC emulator up and running on the MM. the scds2 is more polished, has a faster cpu, and can do more things (thanks to the public SDK, which i don't think is updated any longer). both are good choices and its hard to say which is better. the ds2 offers more exclusive homebrew and more options, yet the ismart mm isn't far behind. both have about the same gba compatibility even though they appear to be running different emulators. the MM does not support the game_config.txt file, from what some testing has shown me, yet things like ninja 5-0 run perfectly fine without it.
asking questions is good but you should also be reading every review you can find and then poke around on the official forums for both cards to see what features they have, what bug reports have been made, etc.
as far as scds2 vs acekard, with akaio you are going to get the best homebrew and rom compatibility. the kernel has some cool features (multiple save slots, wifi updates, ap patching, etc), all documented in the akaio wiki. scds2 has exclusive homebrew (ds2x86, atari emus, sfc emu, gba emu, mame4all emu) and features like a fuzzy cheat editor, slow motion, real time save, in-game guide, etc. the scds2 is geared more towards making a rom experience better and then offers cool features. where akaio is more about a very high rom and homebrew compatiblity without the special bells and whistles. if you want the extra stuff don't see it as $20 more. $35 is still REALLY cheap for a flash kit, especially considering everything it does out of the box.
-another world
