Hacking Ninjapass Mini-review!

[Impetus]

I've only had the ninjapass for 3 days, and have used it long enough to be able to write a decent mini review. Here goes!

Packaging

I found the packaging quite professional. A picture is worth a thousand words so... (These are my friend's pictures he made when he got the package of 4 ninjapass X9's)





Sorry, no video camera so I cant do a video review (i'd like to do one though). I can tell you that the microSD card fits perfectly into the ninja.
My ninja has a little bit of plastic sticking out on a side so it does not fit into my DS smoothly, but is easily fixed after multiple uses/smoothing it out with a rough surface.
Better than having the ds not detecting the flash cart itself imo (if you know what im talking about =P )

Installing the applications

Following the instructions the admin wrote in the readme/forums, I placed all the roms I wanted to try out quite easily. Drag and Drop is always a good thing, but it is a little more complicated than merely copy pasting all your applications. However, it's much easier than expected. trust me.

ROMS i tested

I have the following in my 1 gig Sandisk Ultra II.

0405 Kanji Sonomama Rakubiki Jiten (J) (SCZ)
Works perfectly (Medium)

0431 Metroid Prime Hunters (E) (Independent)
Can't get pass "Loading game..." screen

0625 Tales of Tempest (J) (WRG)
Works Perfectly (Medium)

0681 Final Fantasy III (U) (pSyDS)
Works, with a tiny delay after encountering a monster (Medium)

0083 Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan (J) (ProjectG)
Works, with a delay between the "ooouendan!" cry and the actual song. (Medium)

0168 Mario Kart DS (U) (SCZ)
Works Perfectly. (Medium) I even tested wifi with randoms, and that worked (played against some hacker though =/)

0111 Advance Wars - Dual Strike (E) (Legacy)
Works Perfectly (Fast)

0292 Bleach DS Souten ni Kakeru Unmei (J) (WRG)
Works Perfectly (Medium)

0563 MechAssault: Phantom War (U) (Legacy)
Works Perfectly (Medium)

Moonshell X9 Edition (BETA)
Works Perfectly (Fast)

Note: By slow/medium/fast I mean the speed of the card I selected. I have stated the fastest speed that will allow the rom to run. The delays could be due to my microSD card, I dont know. I dont have the resources to compare different microSD cards, sorry ^^"

Firmware updates/patches support?

The support here is great. Sure they may be from China but the very frequent updates are always welcome. I hear they're working on something major that will make the ninja a lot better. The staff reply to suggestions. Wonderful community in the ninjapass forums too!

Conclusion

Sorry for the rushed review, but I just wanted to put something out to the community. I really love my ninjapass ( awesome name too xD )

And a quick summary:

Pros
Cheap.
Uses microSD cards.
Slot 1 solution!
Frequent updates
Purely Drag and Drop
Awesome name

Cons
Placing roms is a little more complicated.
You need a 66x + microSD card so you dont get bombarded with slowdowns.


Feel free to post questions here. I will answer them if I can. Im using the same review for multiple forums so yeah.

 

[Impetus]

I'll just add here, the GUI could use a little work, but there's news that the next major update to the ninja will support long file names, and a system that allows you to load the save file automatically after selecting a rom. (check ninjapass forums for more information on this)

 

[quartercast]

Well done, I was wondering when a factual account of the X9 would come!

 

[Impetus]

As a matter of fact I wrote the mini-review about a week ago, keeping it posted in ninjapass forums for any updates. I just decided to post it here since there was nothing on the ninjapass in here.

 

[Peter Hacke]

@Impetus
which FILESYSTEM is used on the micro sd card ?
FAT16 like SUPERCARD or FAT32 like M3 ?

i've got a supercard lite with micro sd and i'd like to use the memory card with both sc lite and ninjapass x9. that would only be possible, if the ninjapass uses fat16.

 

[quartercast]

The X9 requires a FAT16 formatted microSD card.

 

[mr_blonde_88]

and now we wait for a proper review from a GBATemp admin

 

[Harsky]

More about the GUI please. Is it touch controlled? Does it display the icons? Skinable?

 

[mr_blonde_88]

yeah, take a look at the acecard review and then do one like that, more detail please

but it is a little more complicated than merely copy pasting all your applications

doesnt really give us any information

 

[Impetus]

like i said, its a mini-review. You'll have to wait on a proper review if you want more information. Atm i dont have the time to write more detail.

 

[Monkey01]

More about the GUI please. Is it touch controlled? Does it display the icons? Skinable?

Yes, it's touch controlled, but since it's just a DOS-style list of short file names, just using the buttons is easier I guess.
Yes, it is able to display the icon of a rom, unfortunately you won't see it in the list, just on the top screen when a rom is selected.
Yes, it's skinnable, but in exactly the opposite way of ds-x, in ds-x you can skin anything about the touch screen, but can't even change the top screen yet. Where in ninjapass all you can skin is the top screen.

Better than having the ds not detecting the flash cart itself imo (if you know what im talking about =P )
If you mean DS-X, yes it sucks that some of the units shipped had some problems, but if you buy one now, you'll won't have the problem anymore cause they fixed the solding problem or something. I know that it actually should have been tested better before the first batch, but since it's fine now, it's not good to compare those anymore and it were only a few units that had this problem, not all of them.

Firmware updates/patches support?

The support here is great. Sure they may be from China but the very frequent updates are always welcome. I hear they're working on something major that will make the ninja a lot better. The staff reply to suggestions. Wonderful community in the ninjapass forums too!

Hmm, I'm interested in what exactly has been updated besides the savelist which doesn't really mather since you can update it manually and other cards (with exception for AceKard) have save detection.

QUOTE

Conclusion
I really love my ninjapass ( awesome name too xD )

Yeah, great name to spread confusion, there's a NinjaDS flashcard too and it's not from the same company...

 

[quartercast]

Not to mention the ninjapass media launcher, which is a separate product by the same company. Just call it the X9.

 

[Impetus]

Its a review coming from a customer, expect it to be a little biased. No need to sound too negative. I might add to the mini-review...maybe in about a month.

Personally I think its great. Yes the fixes are on the save list but they're being done every few days. Each fix fixes the game as well. People had to wait many months for the ds-x to come out, being nearly perfected by the time it did. Ninjapass-well 1 week after ANY news had come out it was already out in the market.

Thanks for the criticism, because now I am ABSOLUTELY THRILLED to update the review, JUST for you Monkey01.

 

[art-101]

I've also got an X9 and I've found it to be excellent.
Agreed there are problems, no long filename support and you have to choose which save file but they are both items that the X9 team are working on for the next release.

Yes the GUI is basic, you have an image on the top screen which also displays an icon for the game you have under the cursor and a text list on the bottom screen with your games listed.
There is a competition running on the X9 forums to design a new GUI which the forum members will vote on which is great as it's the users who will get the GUI "THEY" want.

Save list fixes are very frequent, in fact I think there was one just yesterday and the loader was updated approx 8 days ago.

The community are great and have been very very helpful to new users.

There has also been discussion that the firmware is going to be released as open source at some point in the future.

It's a great flashcart as it stands despite it's problems but once they are resolved it's going to be a fantastic card. I personally am not too concerned about having a shiny pretty GUI as I don't find myself sitting there staring at it for hours at a time, it's there to serve a purpose, choose a game.

 

[animalsex]

I have an x-9 too..I think it has its problems, but they are going to be fixed soon. I don't regret getting the card one but, as it runs everything I want perfectly (Using a 1gb kingston SD card)

Also, I'm in that GUI designing contest, so vote 4 meh!