Blogging live to you and yours! It’s your boy TWOTALL4UFOOL! So for my recent retro game review I played the game using a GPD XD GamePad. I’ve had this thing a little over a year now. Since I’m on the go a bit more these days I find myself using it a bit more. So I figured I would review this product for you guys. They have an updated one you can get on Amazon called the GPD XD GamePad Plus. I’ll leave an affiliate link at the bottom of this post.
So the GPD XD is an Android tablet loaded with a bunch of emulators. It can emulate the Sega Dreamcast and anything older than that. I’ve never tested a Dreamcast game on the thing but I’m sure that some of the games will be a bit of struggle to run. As for N64 the few games from that console I’ve played on it have run fine. And if it can do that fine the PS1 and anything older will run pitch perfect (with the exception of Sega Saturn). Now this thing has its stock emulators that you can use or you can download emulators from the Google Play Store or just side load them. The stock emulators work well but I prefer to download the ones I’m use to. For the N64 I use Mupen64Plus FZ. Very good N64 emulator. For everything else I just use RetroArch. Using RetroArch for all the old stuff is really good. Even with the PS1 it is good. Aside from playing games you can do pretty much anything you would do on a tablet. Watch videos on apps such as YouTube and Netflix, play Android games, surf the web, listen to music, etc,.
Now this device is designed as a clam shell handheld. Very similar to the Nintendo DS family of handhelds. In fact it is the same size as my New Nintendo 2DS XL. It only has Android 4.0 on this device. The newer Plus version has Android 7.0. It uses micro USB to charge, and you can put in a micro sd card which can be expanded up to 256GB. Possibly more but do you really need that much space? It has a 3.5mm jack to plug in for headphones, and it has HDMI out. This thing is really sweet. The only thing that sucks is there is no Bluetooth. So if you do plug it into a computer or TV you can only play every game as 1 player. You can’t even connect wireless headphones or bluetooth headsets to the thing. I think that is a bummer but maybe they fix that in newer versions of this thing. We can only hope right.
As for the buttons it has two analog sticks. One on the right and one on the left. Four action buttons. A, B, X, and Y. Start and Select buttons. A D-Pad. A back button. A home button. An L3 and a R3 buttons separate from the analog sticks. Volume control buttons, a power button, a button that can clear/kill all your apps, and a button for button overlays (which I hate). On the top you have your two shoulder buttons and next to them you have your two trigger buttons. The top buttons are placed similarly just like they would be on a Nintendo 3DS/2DS.
Now this device does come preloaded with some ROMs. But it is coming from China and the copyright laws in China are a bit different there than they are in other countries such as the United States. If you plan on reselling this wipe everything out before you do. If you don’t like the selection of games that come with the unit you can add your own games. I’m not going to tell you where to find them because of legal reasons. However if you make Google your friend you should find something. If anyone out there wants to further information on how to install ROMs on GPD XD let me know in the comments and I’ll see if I can put something together.
Overall I’m very impressed with my GPD XD GamePad. I think it’s a great alternative for playing retro games on the go. And you can play more than just NES games on the thing. LOL! If you want one I would try to get it as cheap as possible. There really isn’t too much of a difference between the original one and the plus version they have on Amazon. Definitely check where you can get it for under $200 before going with them. The color I have is black and they have red and blue also if you can find them. So I want to know what your thoughts are on this small gaming tablet! Are you thinking about picking one up? Do you have one? Let me know in the comments below. Until next time! Blogging live to you and yours! It’s your boy TWOTALL4UFOOL! Remember that TOGETHER EVERYONE ACHIEVES MORE! Thanks for reading folks. More great content coming.
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