Dingoo A320 vs Caanoo

[_Belial]

Being a die-hard gadgeteer (and avid console collector), I couldn't resist getting my hand on the latest "homebrew" console by Gamepark, makers of the much loved GP32, GP2x and Wiz.

Now I already had the Dingoo A320 and have always been impressed by it's emulation (apart from megadrive emulation which has always been ropey on it), I've spent many an hour playing super mario allstars on the bog with it. For those who haven't heard of it; it's a cheap (both price, and in terms of quality) Chinese handheld which comes pre-loaded with emulators for SNES,GB,NES,NeoGeo, CPS1/2, Megadrive, plays movies etc. It emulates stuff pretty well (CPS1 being my favorite, captain commando, oh yeah!).

However in terms of build quality it's appalling, the shoulder buttons (or rather, head buttons) are so badly placed on the top of the unit that you'll end with arthritis before you can complete ghosts & goblins Also, most amusing is the complete lack of a volume button/slider on the dingoo, you have to rely on software to implement volume control (made me chuckle), another sign of how cheap this thing is.

It's not all bad though, the dPad is responsive and the screen nice and clear, and the most important thing is that the emulators all work brilliantly (apart from the megadrive one, which tends to be a bit hit and miss).

So yesterday I took delivery of the new Gamepark Caanoo(odd name I know). Now I already have the GP32 & GP2x so I half knew what to expect. Although immediately i was wondering why no d-pad, just an analogue stick? Surprisingly the analogue stick works really well, even pulling off a few dragon punches in street fighter with little effort

The build quality of the unit is streets ahead of the dingoo, with proper shoulder buttons, a volume slider ;P and a nice (resistive) touch-screen which works surprisingly well too (although can't think of a use for it). IT also comes with a tilt sensor, which i'm yet to put to any use, but I have seen videos of someone playing super hang-on using it, bonus!

The one glaring omission with the caanoo though has to be that you have to use a custom cable to charge/synch it! No nice mini or microUSB like we've come to expect, which is doubly daft as it even has a usb host slot on the console for yuou to plugin your pen-drives etc.

The Cannoo doesnt come pre-installed with anything, so you have to hunt down some emulators (from here, brilliant site). But they are easy to install, just copy them over to the "game" folder of your sd card (or device), copy your (legally obtained ) ROMs and you're away.

Immediately you notice the quality is superb, the screen is crisp, audio much better, and megadrive emulation (was playing sonic 3 + desert strike) is perfect. I did try some 32x emulation which it's supposed to support, but did have awful lag on star wars 32x.


Here's an amusing review of the Dingoo, worth watching (although he must be running on old firmware as lots of problems he reports are fixed)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wj3Q4h4fQ2o

And a review of the caanoo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJliZ0PYdMQ


There's plenty of them on youTube anyway.

Overall, the winner has to be the Caanoo. It's a bit bigger sure, but the quality of the build, and emulation is excellent. It's still new, so it doesnt have as many emulators atm (they are being ported) as the dingoo, so no snes yet!!

The price could be an issue though, the dingoo will set you about about £50, the caanoo at least double that. So I guess that plays a bigger part in your choice rather than how comfortable it is to hold.

Anyway thought i'd write that anyway for anyone who was looking at getting one

Enjoy, i'm off to play metroid!