Retro Gaming Emulation Juggernaut... Redux

GP2X Caanoo MAME/Console Emulator You may be familiar with the original GP2X Wiz gaming console that emulated over a dozen different gaming systems and made pocket size retro-gaming nostalgia a reality. Now GP2X has launched the Caanoo... a new improved version of the Wiz with a larger screen and improved controls. Of course incredible MAME emulation allows you to run all your favorite arcade video game classics, even vector games. Amiga game emulation is rock solid. Commodore 64, NES, SNES, Gameboy, Gameboy Advance, NeoGeo, Flash Games and more too numerous to mention. Of course you'll need to find yourself some game roms... but we have a feeling that's no problem for you and Google. The Caanoo can do a host of other useful things besides gaming. It can play video files including MPEG4, Xvid and DIVX. You get a built in e-book reader, calendar, voice recorder... etc... you know the drill. Unlimited storage is available via the SD (SDHC) card slot. The high-res touchscreen makes navigation easy and the gaming controls feature a thumbstick on the left with 4 buttons on the right and two shoulder buttons on the top. It's plenty good for anything a retro game can dish out. There is an active development community for the Caanoo and with a respectable ARM9 533MHz Processor overclockable to 800Mhz you've got plenty of power to play with if you're interested to write your own applications. Now you can actually sell your own apps via the new FunGP site if you're interested. Details are below. Caution: Please Read Before Ordering The Caanoo does not come with any games, emulator software or game roms pre-installed. First you need to provide your own SD card to load games onto. Then you'll need to download the freeware emulator app for the console or computer system you want to emulate. Then you'll need to unzip the emulator software, and copy it to an SD card along with some game roms you've downloaded. Then start-up the Caanoo, and run the emulator from the "Games" menu. Inside the emulator you'll choose the rom you want to load and then the game can begin. Each emulator software interface is a bit different and most give you the option to overclock the Caanoo to get the best performance. Remember you are running emulator software... most games work perfectly, but some may run slow or be glitchy. You may have to configure the controls to work well with the game you want to play. Documentation is not always the best, so you might need to put in a bit of effort to figure things out. If any of this scares you, then you may want to reconsider your purchase. Here is a great site where you can freely download all the emulators available for the Caanoo as well as other homebrew software. Please take a look at this before you buy. http://dl.openhandhelds.org/cgi-bin/wiz.cgi FunGP App Store for Caanoo For those looking for another option to get software and Apps onto your Caanoo you can try FunGP, run by Korean manufacturer Gamepark. This gives you a more "App Store" like experience where you'll find some unusal but cool Korean games for purchase. Geek Toys