Anyone Got a GB Boy Colour?

[Bart Lemming]

I've just ordered one for £12! It actually looks really good in the Youtube videos I've looked at but I was just wondering if any of you lot had one.

If you do, what do you think? Is it as good as it looks?

Finally, I'll be able to play Kirby Tilt 'n' Tumble and see the screen properly. (I hope!)

 

[Issac]

I have one... and the only bad thing about it is really the lack of backlight in the screen. Nowadays when you're used to it, it's so hard going back So you'll have to sit near some light (or outdoors), but it's worth it!

 

[Bart Lemming]

I think you might have misunderstood. The GB Boy is a Chinese GBC clone. It has a backlight. That's why I'm so excited... A Game Boy Color compatible console with a backlight! It just seems too cool. And it was only £12 brand new!

PS: I also like that the company have actually spelled 'colour' correctly too.

 

[pyromaniac123]

Frontlight modded gbc is way better than this

 

[Bart Lemming]

Can I ask why it's better?

 

[Another World]

probably because that solution uses an actual GBC, so you aren't dealing with emulation or a SoC solution. speaking of which, does this clone use emulation? does it accept roms or carts? does it work with flash kits like the drag n derp? i'd love to see a large majority of games tested on it to see how it actually performs.

-another world

 

[TyBlood13]

PS: I also like that the company have actually spelled 'colour' correctly too.

What, you mean like "color"? Both "color" & "colour" are both correct. Or did they really mess up with something like "corol" (I'm not racist, I promise!)

 

[Another World]

based on his location flag, i think he was happy to see the UK spelling used.

-another world

 

[Bart Lemming]

Indeed, I was pretty tickled to see the British spelling of colour. It always irked me that the US spelling was used on a product sold to British children!

Anyway, the GB Boy Colour looks to be fairly compatible from what I saw in these two YT videos:





Both videos say nothing but positive things though neither show off a lot of games. I'm really interested in how games that push the 3D etc run.

 

[theBitman]

The GB Boy Color is a System-On-A-Chip (SoaC) clone of the Gameboy Color. The screen is backlit, the headphone jack is loud, the battery life is modest, and the screen's aspect ratio isn't perfect. On my unit, the link port doesn't work, the IR port is nonexistent, and the buttons are less than great. However, it is probably your best no-modding solution to a love for older Gameboy games with a good lit screen. Do take note that the system runs slightly faster than the original Gameboy Color, but I suspect that swapping the CPU crystals may fix it. Due to the nature of clone hardware, sound emulation. The pulse channels cannot do pitch bends, vibrato, or legato, WAV channel plays back samples a bit fuzzy. Noise channel is super loud, and a bit kickass. Source: I own one of these.

I have a front lit Gameboy Color I made and prefer to use for gaming because I make music with LSDJ on it sometimes. If you want to know how the sound compares between the GB Boy Colour and the original DMG, you can have a listen. If sound really matters to you (Pokemon games will be heavily affected by poor sound channel emulation) you may want to look into getting a frontlit Gameboy Color.

 

[Bart Lemming]

Thanks for your thoughts and info theBitman I appreciate it. Maybe if I play the GB Boy enough it might warrant the price (or hassle) of a front lit GBC. It is only for playing a handful of games on so it might be okay and was super cheap.

I listened to your tracks and I'm a little embarrassed to say that I actually preferred the rougher more primitive GB Boy version! Maybe it's because I love the sounds and music of really old stuff like the Vic 20 and the Atari 26000... Maybe I'm just tone deaf!

Nice tune by the way. I'll be checking out some more later.

 

[Nusdogg]

Nice. Never seen one of those before.

I do however have a front lit GBC myself. I did custom the front light, so that it is in it's correct orientation with no annoying vertical lines in the screen when playing. Also modded the LED to a green one and a GBASP speaker. Here it is:

 

[Bart Lemming]

^
Nice.

Is the GBA speaker better than the GBC one then? I was always under the impression that the GBA speaker wasn't so good...

 

[JPdensetsu]

May I ask where you ordered it? I can't find a GB Boy Colour for such a cheap price.

 

[TheBlueSky]

May I ask where you ordered it? I can't find a GB Boy Colour for such a cheap price.

http://www.aliexpress.com/item/No-1...g-Feng-brand-new-8-bit-16-bit/1169589357.html I am guessing he meant this one.

 

[Bart Lemming]

Sure. I ordered them from here:

http://www.aliexpress.com/

I haven't received them yet but so far their communication has been pretty good.

 

[Sizednochi]

I was almost buying one of those until I saw things related to compatibility issues. It's a SoC so obviously you'll have that. Kinda annoys me. Do tell me what you find about it when you get the thing though, I'd be more than interested. The buttons could be easilly be replaced by original GBC buttons, the worst problem here would be the compatibility.

 

[Nusdogg]

^
Nice.

Is the GBA speaker better than the GBC one then? I was always under the impression that the GBA speaker wasn't so good...

The GBASP+ speaker according from what I read is louder than the GBC.

 

[Bart Lemming]

^
Ah. That's something I never really thought about. I figured the quality of the different speakers would change but I just presumed the amplification would just be the same.

 

[theBitman]

I was almost buying one of those until I saw things related to compatibility issues. It's a SoC so obviously you'll have that. Kinda annoys me. Do tell me what you find about it when you get the thing though, I'd be more than interested. The buttons could be easilly be replaced by original GBC buttons, the worst problem here would be the compatibility.

Not quite true, the case and PCB are very different, and the buttons are much thicker than the GBC's. There is no easy hotswapping of any components. None.