After the frustration of the Japanese getting games early, and GBA games costing more than crack (35$ a pop). I decided an Xtreme linker would be a good investment. At $201 ($179 plus shipping and handling from lik sang) it pays itself off after about 10 games, considering yopu pay a low price of 20$ a game (altho many are 35$).
I live in New York, i ordered it Saturday and got it today (Thursday), which imo is very fast considering 2 of the days was a sunday and labor day.
It arrived and after carefully opening the box so no hong kong insects or diseases got through, i took out all the contents. Linker, usb cable, paralell port cable, flash card, AC adapter and driver cd.
I hooked the linker up with only the usb cable hooked up and installed the softweare...no linker found. Drivers not found. hmmmmm. I try the parallel wire, with the usb wire powering. Sucess! For 1 rom. I decided the real test would be 3 roms. Uh oh fail. hmmmm. Format. fail. Hmmmm
I then again tried to reinstall the drivers for the usb. Sucess! It finally recognized my linker in usb, and i tried writing 3 roms. FAIL! ARGHHHHH! Format. Fail! Damnit!
I then thought, what if the usb isnt giving enough power. I ripped out the suppied ac adapter. I now had the linker hooked up with the USB cable and AC adapter only. 5%. 30%. 95%. 100% sucess! This is me -->
How is the speed via usb and paralell? Honestly, almost identical speed. And both slow. It took longer to write 160 mbits (what is that 8 megs?) via usb, then it does to write a 800MB CD-R in my 48x burner.
Also the build quality is SHIT. I just know the flash card is gonna break one day. Its fragile feeling and has a hard time fitting into the linker. As far as it being professionaly built, when the paralell port cable is in, its almost impossible to fit the AC adapter in. A big oversight for professionals
Pros:
+Free GBA games on yer handheld
+Usb or Paralell connectivity
+Pretty good straight foward software.
+USB wire supplied.
+fast delivery (from lik-sang)
Cons:
-Cheap build quality
-Iffy usb drivers
-ac adapter needed even in usb mode
-usb is slow. Almost identical to Paralell speed
-no manual, or documentation.
Overall:
So far after initial tweeking and trouble shooting, it does the most important thing...it works. I currently have Kuru Kuruin, Blender Bros, and some Hampstar weirdo jap game on 1 card. All are working fine. I have about 500 games ready to go...1000+$ worth of games. Is it worth $200? WTF you think? MMMMMHHMMMMM!
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