Dingoonity.org

I'll start by introducing myself. I'm a retro game collector and enthusiast with an emulation obsession.

Since around 2009/10 I've been on a quest to find the perfect portable device for me to emulate my games from various systems. These systems are: GBA, GBC, NES, SNES, GENESIS, SEGA MS, N64, PSX.

If you are like me, then things need to be perfect in terms of speed, sound, controls, battery life, size and performance. Even the slightest frame drop will throw me off into discomfort. In this post I'll highlight the devices I've owned and my emulation experience with them. This might help others who might share my quest to make a choice when purchasing a device.

Here is a rough list of the devices I've used so far. I did not include some which were not in the range of being satisfactory like an iPhone with touch overlay controls.

PSP

Pros
Perfect in almost every way
Great screen size
Great buttons
Great form factor
Plays PSP games
Native PSX emulation
Plays GBA, GBC, NES, SNES and GENESIS pretty much full speed 0 frame drops, very impressive

Cons
Shortish battery life (not really a huge issue tbh)
Low screen resolution and huge ghosting visible
Slowdowns in heavy SNES games
Cant handle N64 at any satisfactory level
Not really any newer updates to old emulators

Conclusion: I have a huge soft spot for this device being the one that introduced me to portable emulation. It is still one of the best contenders today. If only it managed N64, it would be perfect.

Xperia Play

Pros
Light and sleek
Built in gamepad where buttons feel and respond great
Can map volume keys as L2 and R2 for PSX
Runs Android, wide variety of emulators available still getting updates
Good battery life
Handles PSX and N64 at satisfactory speeds

Cons
Old device running outdated android
Requires an overclocking to 1.6ghz to get satisfactory performance
Does not handle GBA, GENESIS, GBC or NES to my satisfaction (framedrops even on full OC)

Conclusion: This device is almost perfect, its like a 99%, just for that 1% which makes this a deal breaker. In the emulators I tried for GBA and the others there is a consistent frame drop every 1-2 seconds that is very clear and visible. I don't mind the odd drop here and there, but the fact it is 100% consistent it drives me crazy. Disabling auto frame skip results in smoothness but then the sound will hiccup. It's a very big shame and I have tried many times and things to fix it.

JXD S7300b

Pros
Large screen
Dual core packing a decent amount of power
Runs Android and plays Android games

Cons
Buttons sucked and required modding to get them to be responsive
Analog sticks are not "real", making left analog a glorified dpad extension
Very poor quality screen, tilting forward almost inverts the colours completely
Short battery life, around 2 hours
Very poor implementation of android OS, requires custom rom flashing to get a reasonable experience
Poor and clunky build quality feel
Has a bug with sleep mode (screen off mode), where the second core will not wake up causing frame drops and poor performance in emulators after turning the screen back on. requires a reboot to solve or an app workaround.

Conclusion: I decided that this device was simply too big to be called truly portable. The buttons and lack of a joystick annoyed me. It lasted me about 2 months before I stopped using it.

JXD S5110B

Pros
This is basically the same as the S7300B in terms of pros

Cons
Same cons as S7300B
Build quality so bad, I dropped it 1 foot and the right analog stick snapped right off

Conclusion: This device is borderline acceptable, but now that it's broken it is useless. I hated the controls and unresponsiveness and battery life, so stopped using it after a week.

Galaxy Note 3 + iPega bluetooth controller

Pros
Super fast device for running android games
Large and very nice colourful screen
Can stream PC games at playable speeds using Limelight
Strong battery life
Handles PSX and N64 great

Cons
Shows the same problem as the Xperia Play with GBA, GENESIS, GBC and SNES. There is a consistent frame drop every 1-2 seconds and it drives me insane, especially for this kind of powerful device I did not expect to see this kind of performance problem
Requires a separate attachment (the bluetooth gamepad) to complete the experience making it inconvenient for quick playing and traveling
Distracting phone calls and text messages and other notifications

Conclusion: A decent contender, but this lack of performance is very unacceptable for this device. I was expecting a power house but it did not deliver.

Nvidia Shield

Pros
Runs everything I throw at it perfectly: GBA, SNES, PSP, etc
Dedicated gaming handheld
Runs a recent version of android

Cons
Poor dpad, making precision difficult
Dpad clicks very loudly
Controls give me huge cramps after 5 mins of play, making it unusable and uncomfortable
Device form factor is very thick and bulky, does not feel sleek
It weighs a lot and makes traveling difficult
(mine is bugged with a static speaker clicking noise, making it unusable)
Appears they have discontinued the product or are no longer focusing on its future
Has a software glitch causing emulators to be unplayable on higher software update revisions, leaving you on a lower revision if you want to keep it working properly (no signs of nvidia fixing it)

Conclusion: This one is truly nice, and would satisfy many crowds. If only it was smaller and lighter making it easier for traveling, and had controls that didn't bother me enough to not use it full time.

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So that is all the devices I've used so far. It seems like there is always some problem that makes things not quite perfect. I'm honestly not sure where to go next in my search. Is there a perfect device for me?

I'd like to see if anyone has any input on devices they have used and the ones they liked the most + had the greatest performance for them.

Alienware Alpha may be a good choice if you would like to have an at-home console

It seems like the GPU is just a custom Intel APU that incorporates the i3, i5, or i7 processors and the NVIDIA GeForce graphics.

Get an Ipega 9023 and a tablet running full windows OS. Even an HP Stream for ~$100 will probably work and be comfortably within your usual budget. Combine the two and be happy forever.

The more I stay in the portable emulation scene, the more I realize emulation belongs on windows. Android/Linux/dingoo consoles have all been stopgap devices before portable windows systems make it to the market.

I have an iPega 9023 and a Linx 8" tablet with Windows 8.1, and I was considering making it my emulation device. However a) the device was too large and clunky for me to feel comfortable and b) the emulation experience lacks. It was super hard to exit and get into full screen with the emulators I tried without a keyboard attached.

I don't think you're going to find your perfect device then. You're looking for something the size of a PSP Go, with a long battery life, big-three build quality and probably not running Android. I say probably not running Android because you've tried out some very high spec Android devices and they have consistent problems so you probably won't find your solution there. Also, Android game consoles are becomming fewer and far between. Nvidia making Shield tablets is a sign of the shape of things to come. I guess just hope and pray that the Vita gets successfully hacked like the PSP, good luck with the proprietary memory cards though.

Is the windows tablet really that hard to use?? I don't have one but you mean it doesn't have a virtual keyboard or anything? I could see myself traveling with a backpack that has a tablet in a protective sleeve and an ipega controller in one of the pockets. I don't see how it would be large and clunky, I'd be happy with that.

I'm posting a review of a Wikipad this week if you're interested. I know it's an older device and I don't think it fits your specs but it might be worth a look. I have the video shot but not edited, it'll be posted in the Android section.

If the Vita gets hacked that would be very nice, either that or a way to allocate resources to the PSP emulator (CPU and RAM) that it has to perhaps improve the PSP side of things, that would be epic to see actually but I don't know how hard it would be to do that.

As for the tablet, it's not hard to use per say just that the biggest problem is the controls, when you have the iPega 9023 and you try to play it feels very detached when the buttons are so far apart from the analog (since the device is clipped in the middle of them). The second thing is the lack of the virtual keyboard. For example, I configured SNES9X on Windows, it ran great so I put it in full screen from the menu. Then I played a bit and when I wanted to quit I was like "ah.. how do I get out of this?". It sounds silly, but I don't like to have to think too much for that kind of thing. I think what I ended up doing was pressing windows key button to bring the Metro UI up and did something from there as when I went back to visit the desktop mode it put me right back into full screen SNES9X. A virtual keyboard or a bluetooth one would solve the issue for sure but doesn't beat a "back" or "home" button on an Android device or PSP. If we had some perfect emulators designed for 100% controller operation (maybe we do, and I don't know about them?) I can see it being a very nice piece of kit especially since it has HDMI output as well for quick connection to the TV. Just one thing to point out, the Stream and Linx 8 have bugged bluetooth drivers meaning WiFi drops out and goes slow whenever you have a controller connected oer bluetooth (tested with ipega 9023 and 9025), making it useless for streaming which is a huge shame since it plays games from Steam in-home streaming pretty flawlessly.

Regarding the Wikipad, I've been turned off a lot by larger devices for a number of reasons which I think are probably not even good reasons. I'm also thinking if I don't like the Shield or the thought of Shield tablet + controller then I wouldn't like a 7" gaming tablet either. For example, if I'm traveling on the train I want a small device so people don't stare at me. I had a lot of looks when I pulled out my JXD S7300B, and it was quite a distracting. Maybe I'm over exaggerating a little but some people even asked if it was a Wii U. The Xperia Play or Vita/PSP form factor doesn't get any strange glances as everyone knows what it is I guess. The other reason is just the smaller and thinner the device the bigger the "cool" factor in my book. My personal opinion is that "cool" factors and peoples looks shouldn't be getting in my way of a gaming experience that 95% of the time I'm doing at home anyway. The final and probably most legit reasons is pocketablity and traveling purposes. I play games on the PSP, Vita and DS and 3DS and they all share a small/thin/sleek form factor that can be compared. I'm trying to fill the void with a similar device for emulation needs, as I know what might happen. If I get used to playing games on a 7" device I will then go back to the 3DS and Vita and get turned off because they are smaller. Not only that but I think it's fair to say that I want my devices in a consistent size.

So if I can put those reasons behind me It would open up to trying out more devices of the 7" category, like the JXD S7800 which I heard a lot about, or the Wikipad as you mentioned or the Achos Gamepad/2 or TUVVA player. Having said that the JXD S7300B was a decent device but I got put off by it's poor buttons and lack of true analog sticks. If a fully working and comfortable device exists (and it might be the Wikipad?) then it's worth a shot to send me that review when it is up

Thank you very much for sharing your findings and your vivid description of the struggle to find the perfect hendheld emulator unit! For some reason, I suddenly feel the urge to get my hands on an Xperia Play. 

There just might not be a perfect device for you.   I have everything on that list as well with the exception of the Experia Play and the tablet.  I do have a Open Pandora classic on top of that.  The Shield is the closest to perfection that I've gotten.   I don't hear the sound latency probably in most emulators.  The only one that i have touble with it is the EPSXE and you can turn it down load.   The Pandora is a nice portable option.  It sucks with the N64 and the SNES emulation isn't always perfect but you can work with it by getting multiple emulators.   But I use that alot more when I'm on the go.   

@Linkandzelda
 Sent you a PM.  Hope you can respond!
Thank you!