Handheld – Page 2 – Obscure Handhelds

Hot on the heels of JXD’s new models comes word of two new machines from Yinlips. Actually, info on the YDPG27 has been floating around for a while – but now we also have info on another new and previously unseen model, the YDPG29. Word has it that both consoles are running Sunplus GP3033 SoCs which are based on a single core Cortex A8, PowerVR SGX 531 GPU and 512MB RAM. This looks to be the same configuration used in the lower end JXD S7300A and 5600A models. Nothing to write home about, but perfectly capable of running most games on consoles pre-N64 and PS1 era.

Brian decided to pick up both machines and has kindly provided a couple of photos (including innards!) and a short comparison video of the two units.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past god knows how many years you’ll already know that Sega sold the rights to a lot of its hardware to other manufacturers when it gave up on the games console market. This means that 3rd party companies are now able to manufacture the Mega Drive (Genesis for you yanks) with the original Sega specification (i.e. not an emulation machine and not a reverse engineering attempt either).

Well one company named Blaze (www.blazeeurope.com) have been churning out handheld Mega Drives for a few years now and whilst I’ve always been tempted, the major drawback for me was that you are limited to the games that Blaze decide to preload onto the machine. In other words, you made do with the selection of games it came with and that’s it. Bummer.

Thankfully though, they’ve come to their senses and released a new model for 2011 with full SD card support for your own ROMs.

Yinlips Joins The GamePad Party

The 2011 Mega Drive Portable From Blaze.