Good place to buy a gamebox advance sp?

[understatement]

Why no love for Deal Extreme?

[Greg2600]

http://s.dealextreme.com/search/gamebox

Interesting product. My guess is they used the repro GBA SP shells for these. If the LCD's are well backlit, you're at worst getting a GBA SP-101 for $43. The "console" unit is a decent buy at $53. Cons might be that it's only composite video, and not sure how advanced a MAME game can be played with that hardware?

[Tupin]

So does it play GBA cartridges or not? If so, how does it do it, just emulation?

I wonder if it's available from DealExtreme's US warehouse. Shipping from Hong Kong takes forever...

[Greg2600]

This review on the website seems to be the most informative...

Pros:
- Looks like a real GBA SP
- More than 140 GBA games in the memory, and they aren't repeated. Also, a few CPS1 games. - GBA and CPS1 games work at full speed. Only 2 or 3 show a little slow down. - Play games from a microSD, just drop the .gba files on the SD root folder - USB charging mode - USB connection with PC - You can erase built-in games and load yours. Just include them inside GAMES folder. Savefiles go on SAVES folder. - Adjustable brightness level - In-game special menu. Includes savestates, Tv mode, Game guide, and soft-reset. - TV connection works great, games look just a little deformed, but speed is ok. - Save your games normally (.sav file) or you can use savestates through in-game menu - In game guides!! - Soft Reset Function - AVI and MP3 playing is ok.
Cons:
- Battery life is short, moreless 2 hours of gameplay.
- Buttons are a bit noisy and a little hard to press. Just a little. - Golden Sun 1 and 2 are hardly playable because the slowdown in combats. - Can't connect earphones without an special adapter. - Cannot read Gameboy Color carts - When you insert an original GBA cart, the save file gets erased. Be careful! - MP4 playing worked bad for me, maybe the file was very big.
Other Thoughts:
- I think that this is the best GBA clone you can buy around here. I'm really surprised.
- I think the only real con is the battery life, too short. But you can buy an alternative battery here in DX, or use one of your old original GBA SP or NDS phat. - I didn't try the link cable for multiplayer games, but I bought one, so I will write a post on the forum when I have the results.

I'd figure the bottom line is if you want something that looks like a GBA SP, this is a nice product. But there are probably many other handheld devices that will emulate the same kinds of stuff.

[c0ldb33r]

Why no love for Deal Extreme?

I've bought from them a few times and I've eventually received my items, but it took MONTHS!

[StealthLurker]

I got one of those fake GBA SP's with the "brighter backlit" screen a couple months ago from DealExtreme. Yes it does play real GBA carts. It also has 100 builtin-in games ranging from NES, SNES, GBA and homebrew. It's actually very nice, especially for the price.

By the way, they also just recently came out with another GBA clone however its modeled after the shape of the very first gameboy advance. However it does have a backlit screen. I ordered one of these about 2 weeks ago. Seems like a cheaper and easier alternative to modding a real first gen GBA with the afterburner backlight kit.

BTW, the stuff I've ordered from Dealextreme took about 6-8 weeks... not months lol.


.

[kedawa]

I usually get my DX order in less than a month, but I don't order much from them these days, on account of them no longer selling ninja stars.

[Aussie2B]

I found shopping with DealExtreme to be a nightmare. I've only done so once, but I don't intend to ever use them again if I can avoid it. It was around 4 months before I finally got my item. Around 2 months for the first to arrive, which was packed like shit, and it was either broken or defective. Then, after terrible communication and jumping through hoops to prove that it wasn't working, I had to wait another 2 months to get a replacement, praying that it would work fine, which thankfully it did. I consider myself understanding when it comes to problems and patient when it comes to shipping (after all, I usually opt for SAL from Japan), but that was RIDICULOUS.

[c0ldb33r]

I can't find anywhere but DX to get one of these - I guess I'll have to bite the bullet and get it there.

I appreciate the free shipping, but is that why it sucks so bad? I'm happy to pay a few bucks to speed things up!

[understatement]

I order stuff from DX all the time and with about 200+ orders I’ve only had two take over a month (one was on backorder and they hadn’t updated the site to show it) and only a hand full of DOAs there returns have gotten a lot better so only a few of them were a pain.

I can't find anywhere but DX to get one of these - I guess I'll have to bite the bullet and get it there.

I appreciate the free shipping, but is that why it sucks so bad? I'm happy to pay a few bucks to speed things up!

Also to the people that it took a long time for shipping did you add the “Drop Shipment and Gift Service?” Most of the time it only takes a few days for the package to get here from China but then it spends most of its time in customs. Adding this greatly reduces the time in customs most of the time.

I think that the normal shipping has incorporated most of what this did (like declaring as gift and not saying what the contents are) but customs know the DX name and hold most of the packages from DX to check them for illegal lasers, cell phone blockers, and what not. So if you drop the DX name you reduce the chance of this happing.