Matt Willoughby Hi Matt - I have - best I can say is its not bad. Not all games work. The popular ones do though (as no doubt those ROMS are tweaked to ruin on emulators better). The ones that did though (Crazy Taxi, Sonic, Resident) ran well.
yeah thanks for the reply, had the thing for about 2 years and heard about the custom firmware upgrades from dingoonity forums about making it operate quicker and smoother, but could never find a video walking through the process. As i am new to android and all the jargon i dont want to brick the device as i love what the happy chick provides at the moment... Would be great if you decide to do a video though
Can you list the emulators you used and for which consoles they are for? Also where did you get the roms from if not happy chick? And any recommended firmware to upgrade to? Mainly to solve the partition issue
EjitWebDesign Hi - all the emu's are named in the Video and their consoles. There are many sites out there offering ROM download - a quick Google will show them. I cant add links here for obvious reasons. For the firmware - I have not updated still, no major need. If I did I would use the official one.
I was thinking about getting one, but I'm concerned about the system's quality/durability. I've seen a LOT of boards where systems completely die after a month, or internal solders disconnecting. Do you have a good feeling about the system, or should I not expect much?
I made the exact same mistake as you did, I just got mine today and accidentally wiped all the pre installed stuff. How did you get it back? Many thanks!
+Theo White Head to the JXD site here, download all the stuff and restore it on - bit of a pain and the different drives a little confusing, hence why I stuck a folder on the drive to identify which is which. www.jxd.hk/s7800-firmware%EF%BC%89/ - also as your right at the start of setting it up think about sticking the latest ROM on - will give you better memory flexibility for onboard - on same page 4.4.4
Azwel I did all the ROM moving offline with a usb adapter and my Mac. For folders its trial and error. I setup a folder for each system. Some systems only read from the external SD. Some from internal. Have to play with each and move to where works best.
thanks foe the reply. One more question before I buy it. I see the internal storage is 16 gb max... but if I buy a tf card, I can get 32 gb more, so 48 gig max storage for roms? Am i correct?
Right enough. The internal is 16 but its really a hard soldered SD card on the motherboard. That means, with out the box 15 is for the system and only 1 for storage. Which becomes a pain. With the latest OS update though you can move them about and have bigger internal storage available. Why? Some emulators will only allow you to use the internal storage, not external. PS1 and Android for instance. So no matter how big the external (I think you can use up to 32) you can only use internal for some emulators.
Dear David, did you find out what we can do about turning controller ? its so annoying, I don't understand the reason behind the design of it this way?!!
LondonSport2012 "turning" controller? You can mod settings in the controller screen for games or if you want to hook it to your TV you can connect an Xbox old school controller to it via the supplied cable. Not tried latter.
I bought me one recently and factory reset my gamepad deleting everything. Now I don't have anything. How do I restore at least the happy chic program?
Not yet. Nothing useful about the official upgrade on the forums yet. TBH the games and emulators work fine, the UX and Android are secondary really so its not a deal breaker. Keep watching and I'm sure something will turn up. My main worry is having to rebuild all the emulators and links again. The upgrade itself seems straightforward. DP
David Parkinson Thanks for the reply. I agree it will be a pain if everything has to be rebuilt again. The other thing that looks odd is that the instructions I found want you to install a new USB driver which I'm not really sure we need to do since I just connect the JXD to my pc to transfer roms to it and that works fine. www.jxd.hk/download.asp?id=1215&selectclassid=020001 BTW, I like your solution for a case; I'll have a look for one of those.
Cool - the foam is tricky to cut - first attempt not gone so well. I'll likely just use flat strips, which will work better than trying to cut the exact shape.
I really liked mine at first. However, I encountered my first problem a few weeks ago, and it has been sort of downhill since. I was about halfway finished with Willow (NES) and when I went back to it, a few hours later, it crashed and wouldn't let me back on. Then, about two days ago, the sega genesis emulator stopped working! Does anybody know why it would do this? Is there an easy way to get this back without having to go through a process?
I want to run DOS Box to play old DOS games like darksun shattered lands and I also want to play a few neo Geo games, Sega Saturn gaames., arcade games mame etc and of course everything else. Can it be done???
Hi - all apart from DOS - yes. DOS is possible, do a google search for Android DOS emulators, but have never tried. The A is the 8gb model and the b the 16gb.
thanks i finally know the difference between the 8 and the b. Im torn now between the gpd q9 and the jxd7800. The gpd xd has the better screen of all of them but its smaller and im looking for the larger screen since for smaller screen im going to get a psp go as my second emulator and since it has a bluetooh im going to rig it to my car stereo system and or the occasional rig from my phone to it if possible but yea i look forward to your answer im about to make my decision, your answers would help.
Hi - personally I would look at a newer rig - the JXD is a little old now and the memory limitations for newer games, like Android games, can be a pain. The issue of the 16GB being shared and not splittable easily means you can run out. SNES etc, its fine. A firmware update helps, but does not solve. Looking at the Q9 the memory looks the same so you need to be aware.
+David Parkinson hi I decided on the jxd because most of the issues I read is solved by software fixes and it's resolution size is larger than the gpd xd and even the gpd q9 plus the games I want to play should all running it I'm not into the more modern games ps3 and above so this has everything I need. I also got the PSP go new all last night. thanks for your help!
Luigi Gonzalez There is a website that explains how to fix this and the link to download all the software missing. I did the same. www.jxdofficial.com/firmware
Skangster76 Depends on the game. If the native game allows you to show or hide them, yes. If not you just use the map overlap and map your buttons as you like. The controls stay on screen but you use controls. More a feature of the app than the unit.
exiledwolfx They have a gig of internal RAM and 15G of onboard RAM. You can then add more via mico USB. The new firmware allows you to split that to change the internal RAM and make higher. This is as some Android apps and utilities will only install to there and you cannot move to the 15 - meaning you can run out of space quickly. All very android.
exiledwolfx Ah, sorry, I didn't realise it was a leading question. Yes, I do know what RAM and ROM as well as "hard drive" space. You're right though in that I have interchanged them here - my bad. Lets ignore ROM. Because of the way the device splits up the onboard memory module it can get confusing. The device has 2GB DDR as RAM. This is pure RAM and just used as such (as in when it reboots it clears). It also has 16MB "storage" which is actually a single memory chip on the motherboard. In software this is split up as 1GB "internal" and 15GB "external" storage - even though its the same chip. As I say - this can get limiting as some software will only install on the internal piece and you can run out of space. There are various firmwares to solve this and an official one now that lets you set the onboard to up to 3 or 4 GB (cant recall which). As I mainly just use for Emulators its not an issue for me but it can be with some play store games. Hopefully thats more detailed and corrects my previous mistake.
All the ones shown in the video apart from C64 and Amiga. The N64 one I dowloaded myself, I prefer it to the one bundled and the Happy Chick version. All the older system ones are fine speed wise. DC and N64 depends more on the ROMS than the EMU's. The popular ones work fine. As said I've not bothered with PSP and PS1 yet. No need to.
I kinda disagree - I'm not very experienced with Emulators, but I found it all easy. Also, N64 is okay on mine, Goldeneye is quite bad, but Mario Kart, Mario 64, OoT and MM are working fine. Also, thanks - I didn't know it could play GameCube!
Guess it depends. I've been using for my stuff, mainly older roms since I got it, with zero issues. If you want to have larger games and you get into space issues, PS1 or Android 3D games then you will need one of the customer firmwares to reallocate memory. Loads about. Even an official one. I just haven't bothered because for my stuff it works fine.
Small suggestion - work on planning what you want to talk about *before* you start filming. This video is 45 minutes long and the first 20 minutes are you talking about accessories you bought on eBay, complaining about Android and spreading around bad information (google task killers on Android and you'll find dozens of articles explaining why you don't need them). You're reviewing an Android device. The people watching this video are thinking about buying an Android device. Your bias against it and preference for iOS really doesn't need multiple mentions. We really shouldn't have to watch a review of a gaming tablet for over 20 minutes before we see even a hint of game footage. Otherwise good information. Just a lot that could have been left out.
CoruscantSunset Don't disagree. Thanks for the feedback. The video though is my personal opinion about all things Android and iOS - so I do defer to me being able to say what I like in my own video. Fully agree on editing and conciseness - some do like - you, and myself, think it could be shorter. Next time.
+David Parkinson Naturally you can say anything you like! I don't care if you like Android or not; I think both platforms are great. The issue is just you back your opinion up with information that isn't true (the stuff about task killers). Cheers!
Matt Willoughby Slow ish - depends on the game. Ones like Sonic and Crazy Taxi, fine, some a little jerky. Depends on the ROM you have as well - try different versions.
Very good video
+bloskarch 23 Cheers :-)
Thanks for the video, can you please do a video demonstration on installing roms onto the MAME4ALL app. for the JXDs7800b..? THANK YOU.
Great review :) have you tried reicast on it? If so how does it run?
Matt Willoughby Hi Matt - I have - best I can say is its not bad. Not all games work. The popular ones do though (as no doubt those ROMS are tweaked to ruin on emulators better). The ones that did though (Crazy Taxi, Sonic, Resident) ran well.
would love a laymans walkthru video of upgrading the custom firmware ie improving the smoothness etc
Not had this out for a while - may get it out and do that - cheers.
yeah thanks for the reply, had the thing for about 2 years and heard about the custom firmware upgrades from dingoonity forums about making it operate quicker and smoother, but could never find a video walking through the process. As i am new to android and all the jargon i dont want to brick the device as i love what the happy chick provides at the moment... Would be great if you decide to do a video though
Can you list the emulators you used and for which consoles they are for?
Also where did you get the roms from if not happy chick?
And any recommended firmware to upgrade to? Mainly to solve the partition issue
EjitWebDesign Hi - all the emu's are named in the Video and their consoles. There are many sites out there offering ROM download - a quick Google will show them. I cant add links here for obvious reasons. For the firmware - I have not updated still, no major need. If I did I would use the official one.
Sold!
I was thinking about getting one, but I'm concerned about the system's quality/durability. I've seen a LOT of boards where systems completely die after a month, or internal solders disconnecting. Do you have a good feeling about the system, or should I not expect much?
Lasjah Hi - Its fine for me - zero quality issues. This anyway is why I bought from a website and not ebay - you have a 1 year guarentee.
Also what are the differences between the a and b model ??
I made the exact same mistake as you did, I just got mine today and accidentally wiped all the pre installed stuff. How did you get it back? Many thanks!
+Theo White Head to the JXD site here, download all the stuff and restore it on - bit of a pain and the different drives a little confusing, hence why I stuck a folder on the drive to identify which is which. www.jxd.hk/s7800-firmware%EF%BC%89/ - also as your right at the start of setting it up think about sticking the latest ROM on - will give you better memory flexibility for onboard - on same page 4.4.4
can i drag all the roms from my micro sd onto this. Also, how do I know which folder to put each into? Are there separate rom folders for each system?
Azwel I did all the ROM moving offline with a usb adapter and my Mac. For folders its trial and error. I setup a folder for each system. Some systems only read from the external SD. Some from internal. Have to play with each and move to where works best.
thanks foe the reply. One more question before I buy it. I see the internal storage is 16 gb max... but if I buy a tf card, I can get 32 gb more, so 48 gig max storage for roms? Am i correct?
Right enough. The internal is 16 but its really a hard soldered SD card on the motherboard. That means, with out the box 15 is for the system and only 1 for storage. Which becomes a pain. With the latest OS update though you can move them about and have bigger internal storage available. Why? Some emulators will only allow you to use the internal storage, not external. PS1 and Android for instance. So no matter how big the external (I think you can use up to 32) you can only use internal for some emulators.
You don't have a link to where to get the box from. Ebay yeah but there is a lot... thanx in advance.
Skangster76 www.ebay.com/itm/40-CD-DVD-Aluminum-Wallet-Carry-Case-Ideal-gift-Home-Car-Caravan-/360807875430?hash=item5401d34366
Dear David,
did you find out what we can do about turning controller ? its so annoying, I don't understand the reason behind the design of it this way?!!
LondonSport2012 "turning" controller? You can mod settings in the controller screen for games or if you want to hook it to your TV you can connect an Xbox old school controller to it via the supplied cable. Not tried latter.
I bought me one recently and factory reset my gamepad deleting everything. Now I don't have anything. How do I restore at least the happy chic program?
got to honest - havent turned this on for years.
Did you find out any more information about the 4.4.4 upgrade? Have you tried upgrading?
Not yet. Nothing useful about the official upgrade on the forums yet. TBH the games and emulators work fine, the UX and Android are secondary really so its not a deal breaker. Keep watching and I'm sure something will turn up. My main worry is having to rebuild all the emulators and links again. The upgrade itself seems straightforward. DP
David Parkinson Thanks for the reply. I agree it will be a pain if everything has to be rebuilt again. The other thing that looks odd is that the instructions I found want you to install a new USB driver which I'm not really sure we need to do since I just connect the JXD to my pc to transfer roms to it and that works fine. www.jxd.hk/download.asp?id=1215&selectclassid=020001
BTW, I like your solution for a case; I'll have a look for one of those.
Cool - the foam is tricky to cut - first attempt not gone so well. I'll likely just use flat strips, which will work better than trying to cut the exact shape.
Can you post link to USB power cable that works
I really liked mine at first. However, I encountered my first problem a few weeks ago, and it has been sort of downhill since. I was about halfway finished with Willow (NES) and when I went back to it, a few hours later, it crashed and wouldn't let me back on. Then, about two days ago, the sega genesis emulator stopped working! Does anybody know why it would do this? Is there an easy way to get this back without having to go through a process?
TBH most of those issues down to emulator and ROM rather than the unit. Tried another ROM?
are you didn't know how many applications in video maker or some think like that are give you a cut options sorry for my bad english
Hi - yes, I know how to edit. Cheers. DP
I want to run DOS Box to play old DOS games like darksun shattered lands and I also want to play a few neo Geo games, Sega Saturn gaames., arcade games mame etc and of course everything else. Can it be done???
Hi - all apart from DOS - yes. DOS is possible, do a google search for Android DOS emulators, but have never tried. The A is the 8gb model and the b the 16gb.
thanks i finally know the difference between the 8 and the b. Im torn now between the gpd q9 and the jxd7800. The gpd xd has the better screen of all of them but its smaller and im looking for the larger screen since for smaller screen im going to get a psp go as my second emulator and since it has a bluetooh im going to rig it to my car stereo system and or the occasional rig from my phone to it if possible but yea i look forward to your answer im about to make my decision, your answers would help.
Hi - personally I would look at a newer rig - the JXD is a little old now and the memory limitations for newer games, like Android games, can be a pain. The issue of the 16GB being shared and not splittable easily means you can run out. SNES etc, its fine. A firmware update helps, but does not solve. Looking at the Q9 the memory looks the same so you need to be aware.
+David Parkinson hi I decided on the jxd because most of the issues I read is solved by software fixes and it's resolution size is larger than the gpd xd and even the gpd q9 plus the games I want to play should all running it I'm not into the more modern games ps3 and above so this has everything I need. I also got the PSP go new all last night. thanks for your help!
I accidentally formatted the internal sd.. -__- any guidance on how to fix this?
Luigi Gonzalez There is a website that explains how to fix this and the link to download all the software missing. I did the same. www.jxdofficial.com/firmware
How's it working now?
A question: Can you get rid of the on-screen controls?
Skangster76 Depends on the game. If the native game allows you to show or hide them, yes. If not you just use the map overlap and map your buttons as you like. The controls stay on screen but you use controls. More a feature of the app than the unit.
Must work on my editing!
how much does it cost?XD
iSabrina In the UK about 120, I've seen them Stateside for about $180.
i live in the uk and thanks man :)! subbed great video :D
iSabrina I am currently waiting for one of these to arrive so that I can compare it to the Archos Gamepad 2. :D
:D
When you say it comes with a gig of ram... does that mean i gig of space? i thought these came with 2 gb of ram
exiledwolfx They have a gig of internal RAM and 15G of onboard RAM. You can then add more via mico USB. The new firmware allows you to split that to change the internal RAM and make higher. This is as some Android apps and utilities will only install to there and you cannot move to the 15 - meaning you can run out of space quickly. All very android.
I don't think you know what RAM is...
exiledwolfx Ah, sorry, I didn't realise it was a leading question. Yes, I do know what RAM and ROM as well as "hard drive" space. You're right though in that I have interchanged them here - my bad. Lets ignore ROM. Because of the way the device splits up the onboard memory module it can get confusing. The device has 2GB DDR as RAM. This is pure RAM and just used as such (as in when it reboots it clears). It also has 16MB "storage" which is actually a single memory chip on the motherboard. In software this is split up as 1GB "internal" and 15GB "external" storage - even though its the same chip. As I say - this can get limiting as some software will only install on the internal piece and you can run out of space. There are various firmwares to solve this and an official one now that lets you set the onboard to up to 3 or 4 GB (cant recall which). As I mainly just use for Emulators its not an issue for me but it can be with some play store games. Hopefully thats more detailed and corrects my previous mistake.
Where did you get the nice box from?
+Skangster76 Ebay. Its a CD box - I removed the CD plastic sleeves and put some foam around the outside. Box and foam about 15 pounds all together.
Thanx! I found one.
How many emulators does it come bundled with? Do they run smoothly?
All the ones shown in the video apart from C64 and Amiga. The N64 one I dowloaded myself, I prefer it to the one bundled and the Happy Chick version. All the older system ones are fine speed wise. DC and N64 depends more on the ROMS than the EMU's. The popular ones work fine. As said I've not bothered with PSP and PS1 yet. No need to.
Did they Bundle Master System and Game Gear games buddy?
Yup
Was it MasterGear David?
GenPlusDroid - first one I show in the video, Alex Kidd and all that.
Is there a lot of glare? It was distracting me in the video.
No. Thats just the camera and my ceiling lights.
i cant get in to my chick downloader or emulator store
I kinda disagree - I'm not very experienced with Emulators, but I found it all easy. Also, N64 is okay on mine, Goldeneye is quite bad, but Mario Kart, Mario 64, OoT and MM are working fine. Also, thanks - I didn't know it could play GameCube!
+GameWarp Oh wait... That was DS... ;(
+GameWarp No bother - I found the emulators easy but getting the ROMS in the right folders for some a pain, esp MAME. Glad to have helped.
how well does this work as a phone
Not at all. It has no phone features.
Device needs a custom rom. Is crippled without imo.
Guess it depends. I've been using for my stuff, mainly older roms since I got it, with zero issues. If you want to have larger games and you get into space issues, PS1 or Android 3D games then you will need one of the customer firmwares to reallocate memory. Loads about. Even an official one. I just haven't bothered because for my stuff it works fine.
Small suggestion - work on planning what you want to talk about *before* you start filming. This video is 45 minutes long and the first 20 minutes are you talking about accessories you bought on eBay, complaining about Android and spreading around bad information (google task killers on Android and you'll find dozens of articles explaining why you don't need them).
You're reviewing an Android device. The people watching this video are thinking about buying an Android device. Your bias against it and preference for iOS really doesn't need multiple mentions.
We really shouldn't have to watch a review of a gaming tablet for over 20 minutes before we see even a hint of game footage.
Otherwise good information. Just a lot that could have been left out.
CoruscantSunset Don't disagree. Thanks for the feedback. The video though is my personal opinion about all things Android and iOS - so I do defer to me being able to say what I like in my own video. Fully agree on editing and conciseness - some do like - you, and myself, think it could be shorter. Next time.
+David Parkinson Naturally you can say anything you like! I don't care if you like Android or not; I think both platforms are great. The issue is just you back your opinion up with information that isn't true (the stuff about task killers).
Cheers!
+CoruscantSunset I think both platforms have their place - different strokes for different folks. Thanks for the feedback - some positive points. DP
David Parkinson
You tend to mumble a lot.
Likely my accent (and cold) Sarge.
Great review :) have you tried reicast on it? If so how does it run?
Matt Willoughby Slow ish - depends on the game. Ones like Sonic and Crazy Taxi, fine, some a little jerky. Depends on the ROM you have as well - try different versions.