Overview of the multiplatform portable emulator Dingoo Digital A-320

One unknown Chinese firm, Shenzhen Dingoo Digital Product Company, on a beautiful sunny morning of February 2009, launched a wonderful device on the market - the Dingoo Digital A-320.
The main purpose of Dingoo is emulation of old gaming consoles and machines. Officially supported as many as seven consoles! In addition, a small white Satan-box can play music and radio, play movies, show pictures, work as a voice recorder, read books. Miracle and only! Or just another Chinese rattle?

This review will allow you to find out what this thing is - Dingoo. Yes, Digital. Yes, even the A-320.
And, I hope, will answer all your questions.

So…

')

Specifications

Screen: 320x240 pixels, 2.8 inches, 16 million colors;
Processor: 430 MHz MIPS;
RAM: 32 MB;
Memory: 4 GB of internal flash memory, a slot for Mini-SD HC cards (officially up to 8 GB);
Power: Built-in 1700 mAh battery;
Outputs: 1 x mini-USB for sharing information with a PC and charging the battery; 1 x TV-Out (RCA) - to display the image on the TV; 1 x 3.5 mm headphone jack;
Dimensions: 125x55.5x14 mm;
Weight: 110 g

Contents of delivery

In addition to the device itself, the kit includes: a USB cable for charging and synchronizing with a PC, a network charger, a cable for connecting to a TV, headphones, gags, documentation in English and Chinese.

The box visibly shabby, traveling two weeks during the delivery in Russia.
The charger looks like Apple product chargers ( animation of the charger ). The included headphones are pretty lousy. For listening to music and movies are hardly suitable, but for games - completely. Connecting them once and checking the sound quality, put it back in the package until better times.

The game console looks great:



Build quality is very good. When squeezing the device, nothing creaks, no backlash. Milky-white plastic housing pleased with its quality. If it were not for the hieroglyphs, the inscription "Made in China" and the omnipresent golden sticker "QC PASSED" on the back of the A-320, in general, we can assume that this is some kind of new game console from Nintendo. Even the fastening points of the body halves with screws are covered with white translucent rubber plugs. Thanks to these stubs that act as legs, Dingoo stably rests on smooth surfaces. The front panel is completely covered with transparent plastic and due to this it acquires a beautiful gloss. Gloss, remarkably collecting fingerprints. But it is scratch resistant.
Headphone, video output and mini-USB connectors do not loose when sticking cables into them. And on the contrary, even too tightly cling to the plugs.
Control buttons always respond to pressing. There are no false clicks or failures.
The stereo speakers located on the bottom of the device are truly stereo. All emulators have support for stereo audio output.
The screen resolution of 320x240 pixels in the sun remains visible, only the image fades a little.

A lithium-ion, non-replaceable battery, soldered to the main board inside the device. Actual battery capacity: 1700 mAh.
This battery lasts about 7-8 hours of continuous play and video viewing. When the USB cable is connected to the console and PC, the device doesn’t display the battery charging process as if it were connected to a normal charger. From this we can conclude that our multi-emulator will not charge from the PC. Only from the charger.

The console is very compact, only one third more than a plastic card in width. With a size of 125x55.5x14 millimeters and a weight of 110 grams, it fits easily into a shirt pocket.

Size comparison: Dingoo A-320, bank card, “flash drive”:


When connected to a computer, it is defined as a regular flash drive. Guaranteed to work in Mac OS X 10.5, Ubuntu Linux, Windows XP. The file transfer speed is limited to 4 megabytes / sec .

Device functions

• CPS2 / CPS1 / GBA / MVS / NEOGEO / NES / SFC / SMD Game Console Emulators
• Own 3D and 2D games (there is the possibility of development using the SDK)
• Audio player
• Video player
• FM radio
• Book reader
• Dictaphone
• View images

Read more about all the main functions.

Emulators

It is this function that is most pronounced in this device - starting from the number of supported gaming platforms, ending with thoughtful layout and ergonomics of buttons on the device.
In the main menu, the item containing games for emulators is called “Interesting game”.


Total emulation of seven gaming platforms is officially supported:

1. Capcom play system
2. Capcom Play System II
3. Neo Geo MVS
4. Game Boy Advance
5. Nintendo Entertainment System (Dendy)
6. Super Nintendo Entertainment System
7. Sega mega drive

Additionally, you can download and install the Game Boy Color platform emulator.

NES and GBA are best emulated. Each emulator has the ability to save the state of the game and the subsequent download. The number of save slots is 10. Also, all emulators have the option of manually adjusting the volume of the sound, setting the Frameskip parameter (frame skip) and reconfiguring the control to suit yourself.

Nintendo Entertainment System ("Dendy")

Emulation performed above all praise. Games run at 100% speed, without braking, dropping frames and image artifacts. All the games that I tried to run, run. There is even digital sound support (shots, speech, growl, etc.) in games like Jurassic Park . To celebrate, I remembered the past and passed, it would seem, “to the holes” of the Black Raincoat and Battletoads passed in childhood. Weak reflexes are well replaced by the function of saving and loading the state of games :)

Battletoads:

Chip and Dale:

Contra is not a contraA:

Batman. Return of the Joker:

But we load the previously saved state of the game ...

And voila! You can continue from the place where we finished playing last time:


Final rating:
Graphics: 5/5
Sound: 5/5
Management: 5/5

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Game Boy Advance

GBA emulation as well as NES emulation is awesome. Almost all games and applications for this platform work. By eye, the frame rate does not reach the original Game Boy Advance, but the animation in games is very smooth. Both games released at the very beginning of sales of this pocket console, for example, Super Mario Advance , and the latest games developed for GBA work: Sonic Battle , Final Fantasy Tactics Advance , Fire Emblem and others.

Games can be run in “window mode”, that is, in the original resolution, or by stretching to full screen.

I even ran demo releases. For example, the well-known GBA-Demo " Matt Current " from the group Shitfaced Clowns.

Final rating:
Graphics: 5/5
Sound: 5/5
Management: 5/5

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Super nintendo

The emulator of this console is not the strong point of Dingoo A-320. The sound is emulated from “good” to “frankly bad” depending on the game. For many games, you have to manually set the value of the number of dropped frames, otherwise they are either too fast or too slow. Games with support for the Super FX chip do not start. But it is not all that bad. If you correctly select the value of Frameskip, then you can perfectly play not very dynamic games.


Final rating:
Graphics: 4/5
Sound: 3/5
Management: 5/5

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Sega mega drive

The most terrible for the quality of emulation. And this is due to the fact that stripes appear on a fast-moving image as on an interlaced comb video with interpolation turned off. This is especially noticeable on scrolling games, where the whole image moves along with the hero. For example, Earth Worm Jim, but in fights such as Mortal Kombat, this effect is almost invisible.
One " But! ": If you play on TV, set NTSC mode in TV-Out settings, then the bands disappear!
Digital sound (shots, screams) is good. And the synthesized music is often accelerated, then on the contrary it stops.
It is fair to say that the graphics in games is smooth. And if you do not pay attention to these bands-halos and turn down the sound, then you can play.
To control, in some games, you have to use the upper buttons-shifty, since there were six action buttons on the original Sega joystick, not four. All controls can be reconfigured, so that it can be a little fit for themselves.


Attention! Updated information dated May 14, 2011:
User Tqb has kindly provided a link to the fixed Sega Mega Drive emulator, in which the comb image problem is missing!
Download: http://db.tt/DC5xLn4 (703 Kb)
Unzip the archive and replace the MD.SIM file located in the / GAME folder with the archive file.

Final rating:
Graphics: 2/5 (4/5)
Sound: 3/5
Management: 4/5

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Neo Geo MVS

Emulator of the popular in Japan gaming machine. Here you even need to lower the virtual coin to start the game. The quality of emulation is good, but not all games are launched. There are even lists of games compatible with the emulator on the Internet. Some start without sound, some with graphical artifacts. But most goes fine.

Last Blade 2:

We throw a coin and start the game:

Hurray, victory! :)

Metal Slug 3:


Final rating:
Graphics: 4/5
Sound: 4/5
Management: 5/5

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Capcom Play System I, II

I, unfortunately, did not find the games that would run in these emulators. To its credit, Dingoo should say that I tried to run only 4 or 5 games and it was right after the console was purchased. Now searches on the Internet have guided me to a thread on the forum , where people write about the successful launch of many games. These emulators and the Neo Geo emulator require that before "feeding" them games, the images of the games are converted by special converters. Maybe it was in the old converter.

Final rating:
Graphics: N / A
Sound: N / A
Management: N / A

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3D and 2D games

Dingoo A-320 has its own developer toolkit, available for download. Included with the console are several 3D and 2D games, showing the capabilities of the SDK.

The most impressive game is the 3D quest " 7 Days. Salvation ". In appearance and gameplay is very similar to the series of games Silent Hill :

Graphically, these games are close to Sony Playstation One or to modern 3D JAVA games on mobile phones.

Audio player

The player supports playback of MP3 , WMA , APE , FLAC , WAV formats . You can play music in the background. Naturally, everywhere, except for emulators, video players and radio.

Much to our regret, the player does not understand the musical tags, and during playback it displays only the name of the file. Although, in the main menu, you can sort the lists of songs by album, artist and title. That is, the player can handle the tags, but simply does not display them when playing songs.
In the settings, you can select one of 7 equalizer presets or customize one of your own. There are options for enhanced 3D sound: select the type of headphones, the type of 3D processing, automatic sound balance, bass boost and adjust the high-frequency compensation.

When using good headphones or speakers, the quality can be called good. No crackle, clicks. Between tracks the noise is almost inaudible.
But it is quite difficult to choose the sound parameters for myself, since I did not like the built-in equalizers.

The player uses its database to store information about the music, so after each disconnection of the device from the computer, it “wools” the internal memory for the presence of new musical compositions for a few seconds.

Video player

Supports a bunch of formats: RMVB , RM , AVI , WMV , FLV , MPEG , DAT , MP4 , ASF . Various variations of DivX and Xvid go without problems. There is even support for the old DivX 3 , so my dusty collection of old avishkas on CDs in this format will find a second life. Without transcoding can play 700 megabytes of DVD-Rip'y. Half-and-gigabyte movies are already difficult for him - the video will stop for a split second about every 5 seconds to load the stream. Although, to be honest, I never hoped that the player would understand the video with a frame size of more than 320x240 pixels.

Support for subtitles is missing.
Another upsetting owners of iPod and iPhone. The video intended for these devices Dingoo does not understand. When you try to open a file, he thinks for a second and then goes back to selecting files.

After launching, the video is deployed immediately to the full screen, and if you have already started the video file, but have not watched it, the player asks if you want to continue watching from the interrupted place:

When you press the X button, the player interface pops up: the progress bar, volume, etc. And after some time disappears again:

Due to the popularity of video in FLV format, support for playing such a video is very pleased. Flash video as well as other video formats, you can rewind time:

FM radio

The receiver can memorize up to 40 channels, there is an autoscanning function of stations. There is the ability to record sound in the file. In the settings you can select the FM-region (China, Europe, USA, Japan), the strength of signal reception. Just like in the audio player you can listen to the radio in the background.

Hooray! Finally, someone made support for playing radio without " Plug in a headset "! : 0) It can be useful if the headphones are forgotten at home. The radio will work without stuck headphones acting as an antenna. At the same time, the quality of signal reception will naturally decrease.

Sound recording

Able to record sound in MP3 and WAV. In the settings you can select the recording quality. There is nothing more to say, except that the microphone is average in sensitivity. It is advisable to pronounce the sound directly into it. When you remove a sound source by 2 meters or more, the volume drops significantly.

View images

Dingoo Digital A-320 is able to work with images in formats JPG , BMP , GIF , PNG . Pictures can be enlarged, rotated, make a slideshow. GIF animation works. From the image viewer, you can assign any picture as the background of the main menu, music player, sound recording, book reader.

In the slideshow mode, you can set the frame shift time: 2, 3, 5, 8 and 15 seconds. There are various transition effects: dissolving, shifting, hitting, squeezing, etc. The effects are relatively smooth.

Setting the background of the main menu:

Additionally, you can view flash movies (SWF format) from a separate item. If I'm not mistaken, flash up to version 7 is supported.

Book reader

This reader is completely useless for everyone except the British and Chinese. Reader does not understand any other languages ​​except Chinese and English.

When you open the text, you will be prompted to continue reading from the stop or first:

If you are learning Chinese, this book reader can help you - because there is a speech synthesizer in it. An electronic Chinese woman who also speaks a little English will read you a fairy tale for the night :)

In the settings you can set the font color, background, set the picture as the background, select the font:

Dingoo A-320 settings

The settings item contains the standard options for such devices: language selection, the choice of themes, screen backlighting options, screen brightness, firmware information, etc.

Themes:

How to purchase?

I bought Dingoo on the site DealExtreme already known here. Just the other day, a black version of the console appeared there, so every Jedi geek will choose his side of power :)
Write down the address:
1) White version of Dingoo Digital A-320 for $ 83.91
2) Black version of Dingoo Digital A-320 for $ 82.80

As you can see, the transition to the dark side is cheaper for a dollar with a little :)
Worldwide shipping is free, and Russia is stable for three weeks.

The white version can still be ordered on the Chinavision website for $ 87.31 :
http://www.chinavasion.com/product_info.php/pName/multi-platform-portable-gaming-entertainment-station/

However, I have never ordered anything on this site, so I am waiting for your comments about Chinavision.

What is the result

Pros:

• Good emulation of most gaming platforms;
• High-quality assembly;
• Support a large number of music, photo and video formats;
• The radio can work without stuck headphones;
• High-quality screen;
• You can play games and watch videos on TV;
• The possibility of the emergence in the future of new emulators, games and applications through the SDK;
• Long work from a single charge

Minuses:

• Some emulators require refinement;
• Bad book reading program;
• Insufficient sensitivity of the microphone;
• Cannot charge via USB from PC;
• Non-replaceable battery