GamePark’s GP2X Caanoo Review

GamePark’s GP2X Caanoo has create a big buzz around the net since its debut at E3 2010. Does it stand up to all the hype? Check out the full review we have for you inside!

The Caanoo has been a long sought after device that is an update from the very popular Wiz handheld from Gamepark. The Caanoo allows you to play your favorite games on the road and run classic games via an emulator. You can also play brand new games developed for the Caanoo platform and can generate some revenue if you submit the game to FunGP to enter into their store. Let’s get into the review starting off with the hardware.

Hardware

Hardware wise the Caanoo is a solid build device with a light but tight feel. The buttons feel good when you press down on them and the analog stick feels good when in use but sometimes it feels weird to use when you are playing a game that was originally built for a D-Pad. it will take some time to get use to that in some cases but its not too bad.

The screen is a 3.5in 320×240 LCD with a resistive touch screen that makes the 16-bit style games look awesome while still giving off good quality when playing video and pictures. The touch screen is ok but not the greatest but a stylus is available to make the experience easier. I’m sure a resistive screen was chosen to lower cost and its not a main feature that will be used on the device so.

The 533mhz processor runs find for most games but there can be slow down in some games that are heavy on the animation with a lot enemies on the screen. The dual stereo speaker are nice and loud and have good quality sound. The build in Wi-Fi is used to allow you to play network enabled games against friends and upload your high scores. Storage is done via SD card which support up to 32GB of storage and you download content on the device via the proprietary USB cable included. Overall the hardware package is solid and gives you what you need to have a good experience.

As far as size is concerned its on par with most current gaming handhelds in terms of size. We did a comparison of the DS Lite and DSi XL in terms of size. Check out the photos to see.

Software

The UI of the Caanoo is a Linux based system that is an open platform so anyone can develop for it. The system allows you not only to play games you can also listen to music, view pictures, watch movies, use apps and read e-books via text. The Caanoo supports your most comment files with music that supports MP3, WMA, WAV, OGG files and for video the device supports Xvid, Divix, Avi and MPEG 4. Pictures support is JPG, BMP, GIF, and PNG files. E-Books are supported via text only.

Games

The system comes with games preloaded such as Hellfire, Rhytmos, Snow Bros 2 and other games made by FunGP. The system also comes with an MAME emulator and Neo Geo emulator as well with preloaded games. Games do load up fast and play well although some games will run a bit slow when there is a lot of sprites on the screen but its nothing that you haven’t experience before in the 16 bit era of gaming. Flash games are also supported as well.

Overall

Overall the Caanoo is a great and fun experience and I have fun playing games that I haven’t played in a long time and playing games that I wouldn’t normally have played before. Its nice to be able to have this type of experience in a portable platform. The current price is $149.99 and available on www.play-asia.com and the new FunGP store will be launched this week as well. All together this is one solid gaming package I would recommend to anyone that is a gamer.