Got a new toy recently.

No, this is not a Game Boy Advance Micro. Since it has 4 face buttons instead of 2. This is the Dingo A320 Portable Entertainment Device by Dingoo Digital, as it's stated in the back.

So... why the heck did I go get a device by some unknown company in China? Am I looking for something cheap to entertain WZ on the go? Not quite, but first let's see what we have here.

So that there's the audio jack and the 'power' button. I say that because... that thing doesn't always work as a power switch. Giving the power switch a single flick doesn't suspend the device as you expect. And holding the power switch for a while doesn't always turn off the device. Sliding the power downwards in the HOLD direction will lock the controls from accidental presses.

Yes, like any good chapalang Made In China PMP device the A320 is able to act as a voice recorder. The result pin hole is a headache because there are a lot of reasons to reset the device, and the fact that it's a pin hole instead of a button means you need to have a pin handy to poke it. Also, since the battery is built in and non removable this reset pin hole is the ONLY way to reset the system in case it hangs while doing something.

The A320 sports top L & R buttons too, means it has as many buttons as an SNES! Neat ain't it? And in case if you're wondering, no.. the A320 does not come packaged with a paper clip bent poorly into a shape of a stand.

The bottom is where the 2 shiny speaker grills are. A USB Mini a port for charging and data transfer purposes. A card slot, and the VIDEO OUT jack. Yes, like most higher end chapalang Made In China PMP, the A320 can be connected to a Video source via a standard composite Yellow, Red, White cable. And now for the thing that bugs me the most about the A320, which is the fact that other than the built in 4GB onboard storage, the A320 uses these for expansion.

Yes... that's a MINI SD card, and not a standard SD, or the now typical Micro SD, but the almost forgotten MINI SD form factor. What's interesting is that, the slot supports SDHC cards, cause I can stick a 8GB Micro SDHC card into the device and it'll read it properly. It's almost as if they got a bargain on Mini SD slots to build to the device but they still wired it to a SDHC capable controller! I'm lucky I managed to get a MicroSD to MiniSD converter (That's why it says MICROSD on the card in the picture) a while back, just never realized I'd actually NEED IT!

And now.. what can it do? Well, it IS a Portable Media Player, so it supports the usual MPEG4, AVI and RMVB video formats. For audio, other than the usual MP3 and WMA suspects, it also supports FLAC files which seems to be the cool thing for music files these days.

It can also be used as an image viewer and has a radio tuner too. What's impressive other than the format variety is that it seems to be quite capable of handling high bitrate files, dropping frame to try and keep the audio and video in sync. Definitely the most capable Made In China portable video player I've seen.

But.. I didn't get the A320 because for it's video playing capability. From the look of the device you know that the A320 is meant for GAMES and not for video or music. Now, a lot of Made In China PMPs already tout game support by being able to run NES or GB ROMs... POORLY!

But I don't care about POOR NES or GB emulation. On product pages for the Dingoo it list that it's capable of CPS1, CPS2, Neo Geo, SNES, MegaDrive, NES, GB, etc. etc. Basically it wants to be a portable console emulator system that puts it in almost the same standing as the GP2X Wiz! I didn't believe that a cheap Made In China PMP was capable of such power but.. after looking around YouTube for videos of the device in action. I had to get one and try it out.  The results?

IT WORKS!

Some games can't run at full speed, but generally they still remain playable. Plug the thing to the TV and you'll be reliving some fond childhood memories (if you were born in the arcade generation). But then you realize that certain parts of the implementation suck ie:- The power button doesn't work when playing games, you can't just suspend the unit when you're playing the game by sliding the power button; No accesses to DIP switches, performance of the lower emulators ie. not CPS1/CPS2 sucks ass. But there's a solution to the poor emulator performance problem, in the form of...

Running Linux on it! So some of you might be thinking Ahhh.. look at the Hypocrite, always saying Linux is not usable but now HE's using it! My issue with Linux is when people try to market it as an OS for the general user, BUT... as an OS which is basically installed as a hack and then used as a specialized shell for other stuff to run? That's fine by me.

A community has already grown around porting other Linux handheld apps (seems to be porting from the GP2X community as well, not too sure about that) And better emulators and programs for running under Linux, and most importantly.. MAME was ported. For those of you who know what MAME is, that should already push you over the edge to get the A320.

I've only got the device for 2 days, still trying out stuff on it. But right now if you can get over the fact that it's using an obsolete storage format (or get a Micro SD to Mini SD converter!) and you like the idea of carrying a portable emulator around. The A320 will work out nicely for you.

I *think* the better choice is the GP2X Wiz, but.. that's more expensive and harder to get. Whereas I got the A320 via COD from a guy on Lowyat.Net.