The Supaboy - New SNES handheld from Hyperkin

[nusilver]

As a matter of fact, I have a video on my phone of me engaging in the final battle of Earthbound on the Pokefami DX - no freezing, no SRAM erasing. All good. I'll try to upload this quickly today so people who don't believe a clone can possibly get around this issue can ...erm...believe it. I'll put up a better video over the weekend, once I've had time to shoot and edit an actual review.

Also - a few more observations:

-I tightened the screws on the device and the power switch works properly now - no more shutting it off simply by touching the switch.
-Apple headphones work fine...mine are just busted.
-I left the Pokefami DX running the title screen of Super Mario World (with the sound off, since we were sleeping) when I went to bed last night around 1am. When I woke up at 6:30, it was still running. I'd been testing it for about an hour before that...so you're looking at a battery life that is *at least 6.5 hours!*
-Almost every game has visual distortion when using the included speakers....like the RF interference kind of distortion I mentioned seeing in Yoshi's Island on the Supaboy. However, plug headphones in or plug the unit into a TV, and the problem goes away completely. Obviously this is an issue with space, as the louder you turn up the sound, the more distortion occurs.
-Again, headphones or no, the sound is fantastic out of this device.
-I put in my copy of Kirby Super Star last night - the one that never booted on the Supaboy - and it ran. I turned it off, then went on to test other carts. Then I tried to test Kirby again, and couldn't get it to boot again. I tried re-inserting it around 30 times...no dice. I hear this is a common occurrence amongst users of clones. The cart still works fine on my SNES.

I'll upload that Earthbound video shortly.

Actually, I just realized from looking at other videos online that you have to finish the first part of the battle with Giygas before the freezing/crashing/SRAM destroying happens. I'll have to test again tonight as I don't have Earthbound with me.

I DO, however, have a short video of me walking around before the battle, and you can see there don't appear to be any more enemies than usual. I can upload that now if anyone wants to see.

*also* - I set the Pokefami DX on the SMW screen again (this time via Super Everdrive rather than real cartridge) and let it go for a bit, to see how long it would last. It died after about 5 minutes. No weird hazy, flickery screen, but no warning, either. The battery light doesn't change color either - it just shuts off abruptly. All told, the battery lasted probably around 7 hours on a single charge, at max brightness. 5 of those hours were without sound - so I'd say you're going to get a good 6-7 hours off a single charge on this one. (Also, the battery is huge, and the battery cover is the same size/shape as what's on the RDP).

[Satoshi_Matrix]

any chance you could open her up so we can see the internals?

[nusilver]

That was the first thing I tried to do when I got home last night, but there's some glue holding the top of the unit together somewhere, and I didn't want to break something trying to figure out where. I will probably give it another stab this weekend.

If I can find the post on whatever site it was where the guy took his Supaboy apart, I can probably ask him how he dealt with the glue, because I ran into the exact same thing with that unit.

[kedawa]

Glue? What kind of bush league manufacturing are they using for this thing?

[nusilver]

Maybe it's not glue, but there's definitely something still holding it together, and I can see glue when I peek inside - possibly meant to stabilize the LCD. As I said, I'll take another look soon.

[kedawa]

Ah. There are probably just some plastic clips that need to be pushed.
I've seen glue used to hold parts in place, but never to seal the shell.

[nusilver]

Ah. There are probably just some plastic clips that need to be pushed.
I've seen glue used to hold parts in place, but never to seal the shell.

Alright, alright, alright.

So there were actually two more screws hidden under a sort of rubberish strip that was attached to the system near the cartridge slot. I figured they would be hiding there and ripped the strip off, for the sake of all of you guys. It's kind of mess and I'll have to finish cleaning it up later. Also, the only glue inside was holding the speakers in place. Easy to deal with.

So I got the Pokefami DX apart and snapped shots of everything that I figured was important (tried to get model numbers for chips, etc). A couple of things:

1) I couldn't get the red stuck pixel to settle with vigorous rubbing or tapping. This is one I may have to just live with. Hopefully it goes away after awhile (unless someone can link me to an SNES rom that will run on real hardware that will rapidly color cycle...which I would take graciously as payment for opening this guy up!)

2) You can't swap out the buttons for any other buttons (at least without some modification that I don't have time to perform right now), except probably the Retro Duo Portable. The face buttons are smaller than any Nintendo-brand buttons (I tried Gameboy and SNES); the Gameboy d-pad doesn't work; the SNES d-pad does fit and feels great until you put it together again and realize that the PDX's rubber pad and the SNES d-pad just don't work well together (I had to press really, really hard for directions to register).

And with that, the pictures.


The rubber stuff blocking the last two screws.


The first shot of the inside.


On top is the back of the board which contains screen, sound, and controls. Notice the sound processor in the very top/middle: It sits directly behind the screen, separated only by a medium thickness black rubber strip. This is likely what causes the screen interference when using built-in speakers.


Front of board mentioned above, with screen "in position". Notice the SNES Test rom playing in a Wario's Woods cartridge. Psyche! Super Everdrive!


Same board with screen flipped up.


Closeup of sound processor.


Closeup of main board, right side. The yellow epoxy is holding in the external controller connector.


Same board, left side.

Alright, I wanted to test Earthbound before bed, but I've got a powerpoint deck to throw together for tomorrow. I'll try to get that finished quickly so I have time to test Earthbound more thoroughly, but I'm not promising this will happen tonight.

Man. I think this is one of my favorite handhelds ever...shame about that stuck pixel. Even with that, I'm probably not going to end up getting the RDP after all.