Received mine this week:
+ GBA SP shell.
+ 3in IPS screen.
+ Has an additional "MENU" button.
+ D pad and ABXY buttons are good enough, so the device does a reasonable job at gaming.
+ USB C charger, although personally I'd have been fine with micro USB since I've got loads.
+ Unlike a RS-97, microSD card is accessible.
- Built quality feels mediocre, the case doesn't feel as good quality as my RS-97 that I sold.
- Screen hinge is nowhere near as good as a GBA SP. It does more like a "crack" noise (like when crack a bone joint) than a satisfyingly subtle "click" like the SP. I've seen videos on Youtube of people finding it satisfying, so not sure if I got a lemon.
- The screen has some shadowing issue: if you fire up an app that starts with a mostly black screen, you'll still see a shadow of what was displayed before. It takes several seconds to fade away.
- The shoulder buttons are a bit crap: the L1/R1 buttons are nowhere near as good sa a GBA. I wish they didn't bother with L2/R2 and just make bigger L1/R1 buttons, which hopefully would have made them feel more solid and responsive. It's particularly annoying considering they are required to navigate Gmenu2x.
- The power button feels very weak too, like it's going to fall apart any minute.
- Same with the volume control: it feels very cheap, and is difficult to adjust. It goes from too low to too loud very quickly.
- The speakers feel crap too, the kind of crackling you'd get from an old speaker that has some dust in the coil.
- Only way I could find to access/update files is to put the card in a card reader, make "main" partition accessible, do your file ops, make "boot" accessible again, eject card and put it back in the V90, so very tedious. I couldn't access the card via USB from either Windows 10 or Linux in Virtualbox. It just doesn't detect any storage, whether the device is on or off.
Unsure about whether the Allwinner ARM9 is better or worse than an Ingenic MIPS. The device seems to have similar performance and battery life.
All in all, it does work acceptably well, just like a 1985 Vauxhall Nova will take you to Tesco. But there are probably (I don't have any) much better products out there, although not at this price tag and not in clamshell format.
I installed PowKiddy_Q90_V90_Only_CFW_v1.3.3_04-10-20.img yesterday, and to be fair, I didn't really notice major changes/improvements compared to the stock firmware. Maybe if I knew where the differences lie, I'd notice them.
Finally, someone said they're not sure if the film on the screen is supposed to be removed, so even though it bubbles in a couple of corners on mine, I didn't pull it out. I also saw one on eBay on which the screen was scratched, accordingly to the buyer while attempting to remove the film. I'd appreciate if someone could confirm if it's as removable protective film.
