[Xperia Play General] Senyaka:
At the request of [MENTION=2857649]ozzmanj1[/MENTION] I said I would do a quick thoughts review on the GPD XD console. It's not new anymore and has been out for a little bit, but it took me a while to find the 32GIG version of the console at a decent price. I got mine at GeekyBuying.com and though, it was intially a bit slow to Ship, once it was it got to me extremely fast.

Anyways onto the thoughts:

FIrst off this is by far hands down, the best android powered handheld gaming devivce out there. I have owned all iterations of the JXD consoles, and few other android powered gaming tablets, our beloved Xperia Play of course and this in terms of performance blows them out of the water. That said there is a new JXD tablet coming out the JXD s192. And that looks beastly as well.

The Feel/ The Buildl:

The GPD XD is shaped and desigend to look like the old 3DS XL console. Without the second screen. All the buttons are layed out nicely and all feel natural, with the execption of the start and select buttons being on the left hand side of the console, and the home and back buttons on the right hand side. Being right handed this felt a bit odd a first when playing emualtors but you get used to quickly enough. The device is extremly light but doesn't feel totally cheap. Being shaped like a 3DS it does close, and this comes in very handy when travelling as you don't always need a pouch for it to protect the screen. The device even has separate buttons for the L3 and R3 triggers as well. If you happen to have an old 3DS hand grip it will fit into nicely, BUT the L2 and R2 buttons will be covered, however if you wish you can remap all the buttons and have the L3 and R3 buttons be mapped to those instead. This is only if you want to use a 3DS grip, so keep that in mind. The D pad and the buttons themselves feel nice enough, but for me the buttons felt a bit mushy for my liking, but they were all resposive. The Dpad though, is brilliant fighting games. Its designed in a way that it doesnt' cut or rub your thumb down when doing those crazy combos and its the first Dpad that didn't make my thumb bleed after a heavy session of Guilty Gear. The screen is very nice and crisp, and also very resposive to touch. It's 5 inches and gives you plenty or real estate to play those lovely, lovely emulator games. The two joysticks on either end, both feel very nice to use and very sturdy too. MUCH better than the 3DS joysticks and they feel on par with the PS Vita ones. They can be a bit sensitve though, so if you the emulator or game allows you adjust that setting, then I suggest you do so. There is also a dedicated button to bring up the mapping software the device has as well.

There is also mini HDMI slot so you can play it on your TV or monitor and it does have a SD card slot where you can extend the memory up to 128GIG. I use a 64GIG card myself and it's a must have for all those Rom you will end up putting on it.

All in all I felt that the build of the device was really nice. The lightness will throw you off a bit, but it does feel very nice in hand and the best part is, it doesn't overheat, so you never feel uncomfortable when playing. It does get slightly warm, but for most gaming sessions you won't even notice it.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/kyfP3tjEBiY/maxresdefault.jpg

http://g03.a.alicdn.com/kf/HTB1IEriIFXXXXbYXFXXq6xXFXXX1/NEW-GPD-XD-5-Inch-Android4-4-Gamepad-Tablet-PC-2GB-32GB-RK3288-Quad-Core-1.jpg

The Software:

Now the software is somewhat of a mixed bag for me. It runs Android 4.4.4 Kitkat and it comes with the standard android Launcher and it's own Metro launcher. If you have used the Ouya, it sort of similar where it sorts out it's own emulators and games into their own section and then everything else is in the Apps category. Now the Metro launcher is nice and easy to navigate it does feel slow and clunky. I changed mine to Square home tablet launcher and got a very similar interface but without the lag.

Everything is stock standard KK android under the Metro launcher skin, and it's a very well optimized version of KK for the device as well, I ran into no lag just browsing and using the device as a tablet. However I did get rid of all social media and entertainment apps after my intial playing with it, since for me this is just about the gaming. The device also comes Pre-Rooted with Supersu installed, so you don't need to worry about trying to root it. Which is a nice touch I must say.

There is also a Mapping tool that can be used, so you can play android games that do not have native touchpad support. And this does work for the most part, however this version of the mapping tool is rather old and has been used before in much older devices. I suppose if it ain't broke don't fix it, but this particular version is a bit broken. More than a couple times, having the Mapping software up caused the system to freeze or lag up forcing me to reboot the device by holding down the power button. So keep that mind before you start using it.

Another thing to note too, is that the wifi can be a bit weak and cut out for no reason.

Emulation:

Here is where things get a bit different though. This is the first chinese console where I did immediately get rid of the built in bloatware and emulators. There is an App called Happychick, which acts as a little Hub where you can download games for many different types of emulators from MAME Arcade to Dreamcast. You find the Rom you want, and it lets you know if it's in English or not, and once it's downloaded you can lauch the Rom from within the app and everything is optimsed off the bat. This is the first system I've used where Running a dreamcast game was so damn easy. The good thing I have noticed about Happy Chick is that it only shows Roms, that work really well or function well enough with their emulators. (and yes the emulators are simply knockoffs or ripoffs from the ones you can get in the playstore but they have been integrated to work with the device seamlessly).

The other App is called KO games and functions very much the same as the Happy Chick app as well. So beween these two apps, if you didn't want to go find the roms yourself on the net, you have a very quick way to do so here.

That said all the Roms you download through these apps, will alll be stored on the INTERNAL SD card. There is an option in the apps to lauch the games from the External SD card, but I have not yet been able to get this to work. You can even add your Own Roms to the different Rom folders on the internal SD so that they display within the apps well which is another nice touch. You can install your own emulators of course and everyone but the CPS2 emulator work perfectly. Even the PSP emulator works great with this device and the games I tried out ran nice and smoothly as well. For emulation this thing is a total beast. There are still some games that look a bit dodgy, however that has more to do with the emulator than the device. So if you are getting this purely for emulation like I have, then you are getting the right device for sure.

http://www.willgoo.com/images/GPD-XD-10.jpg

Android Gaming:

This device does come with some android apks that you can install, however I suggest you don't. These are highly outdated versions of the games, and even though they controller supported games, they all kind of sucked. That said, when said games were downloaded from the playstore, the experience was much better. As stated the mapping software tool can be a bit dodgy, but when it works, it works great, so go get all those android games that you know would work so much better with a controller. The device worked great with a variety of android games and even the heaveir gameloft titles as well

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qpPce6V1pmM/Veh8GByDWHI/AAAAAAAAD2Q/oLhjNuXUrGg/s1600/P1020539.JPG

Battery:

As for Battery life, well I must say I am very, very impressed. Today so far, I've had it off charge for 8 hours and have played with it solid for 4 hours screen on the whole time with downloads going in the background and the battery is down to 73%. As stated though, I don't have any social networks or emails syncing in the background. I have no powersaving apps like greenify working either. But for pure gaming you can get a fair bit of time doing so without having to worry about plugging it back in.

http://smg.photobucket.com/user/leung/media/mini-DSC01106_zps3cggh7de.jpg.html

Final Thoughts:

If you are looking for the best handheld emulator gaming device at this point of time, this is it. The new JXD tablet coming out will most probably smoke this little guy out of the water when it releases, but considering how portable this thing is, it really depends on what you feel is better for your needs. It's a very solid piece of gaming hardware and gaming software with a few quirks, but none that are game breaking or will hamper your experience. So this is a must get, if you love retro gaming on the go. If not, then it will be worth picking up if it does get a price drop.

You can get it here: http://www.geekbuying.com/Search/?keyword=GPD+XD That is the cheapest I have seen them around. Hope this has helped some of you. I will still love and always use my Xperia Play. That thing just keeps going and going, but if you want to upgrade and simply have a powerful gaming only portable device, you can't go wrong with this one.

---------- Post added at 05:54 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:22 PM ----------

Hi there, if you follow the guids that Sony has for unlocking the bootloader it should still be applicable. There was a thread there about unlocking the bootloader too. I got another Xplay last year, same model as yours and simply followed the guide at Sony's website. I remember it was a bit of a hassle since all the software and what not has been updated on their site, but it still worked the same. As for Roms, there are plenty of really good ones here, but one thing I have personally noticed though, the GB roms, seem more stable and can play a wider variety of games more fluidly with controller support.