This is the Pocket Retro Game Emulator (real imaginative name guys).  It's actually called the dingoo a320 by the Chinese company that makes it, but was repackaged by ThinkGeek and there ya go.  

Anyway, this little handheld device is preloaded and designed for a NES, SNES, Genesis, Neo-Geo, Gameboy Advance, and CPS1 and CPS2 (Capcom arcade boards) emulators.  It has an internal memory of 4 GB, and allows for an SD slot for even more storage.  Aside from the games it has an FM radio, image viewer, etc.  It's a pretty cool little system and for $99 it's a damn good price for all of it.  The screen is a little bigger than the original DS screen so it's not huge, but it would get the job done.  

As I said I'm not real big on emulators and have really touched one since 2000 (used it to play a translated Secret of Mana 3).  This little device is a pretty sweet deal so I'm going to have a little moral arguement go on in my head.  But like I said, for $99 it's tough to pass up.  Plus if nothing else it would give me the chance to play games that'll never show on the VC.  And I'd get a chance to play the old Willow arcade game that'll never be seen in a compilation again.  

You can get more details about it here:  http://www.thinkgeek.com/electronics/retro-gaming/bd6f/

Foolz said:

But...isn't that illegal?!

the thing itself is probably legal as i am sure it can load homebrew applications etc (and such devices have existed for a very long time and would be relatively easy to shut down if there wasn't any legal loophole) as well but the roms of licenced games which you would need in order to play them, certainly are illegal.

anyway, it looks really neat.  the gadget geek in me wants one but i'll try to resist it

Well scratch that. I chickened out.  Since it was on backorder for another week or so I figured maybe I should hold off and cancelled the order.  Instead, I picked up a new DSi.  I figured since I already needed a new DS (the boy has damaged but not broken the red brick DS) I should just pay the extra $70 and get one of these instead.  

This isn't entirely off the radar though.  I may revisit it at some point when I have some money to blow.  But the DSi made for a heck of a father's day present so I'm quite content for now.

Well apparently I got this thing after all, though I'm very confused.  I bought it while on back order, and then a week prior to it shipping I cancelled it.  Three days later I got a confirmation message that it shipped, but when I logged into the ThinkGeek account it said I had no pending orders, no placed orders, and no shipped orders.  Today it arrived.  My credit card still has not been charged... very strange.

Review for it is coming up soon.

bugsonglass said:

wow how awesome would it be if they screwed up and you ended up getting it for free?

Unfortunately the charge finally went through *doh*.  Can't say I wasn't expecting it though.

Okay so here's the review now that I've had a full day to play with it.  It's okay. Nothing great, and frankly nothing you can't live without.  It's a good cheap media player more than anything else.  It plays video and MP3s and displays images pretty well.  I've had some problems with some large .avi's but the .wmv files play very well.  The menu system isn't as intuitive as a Zune or an iPod but it's still a lot better than most generic MP3 players I've seen out there.  Screen 2.8 inches and is nice and bright too.  No problems there.  

So with a 4 GB harddrive and an available mini SD slot, it's a nice little media player.  As just a media player though it's more expensive than similar models. Philips has a comparable model for the same price but a 3.8 inch screen.  So it's not quite worth it as just a media player... fortunately there's more.  It plays games. . . sorta.

As a gaming device on the other hand it's been a mixed bag.  Let me do a rundown on each system its supposed to play.

NES - Works like a charm.  Perfect sound and video.  Not a huge task considering the age of the NES now, but all the same it's great.  Great tool to play all those old Capcom Disney games like Duck Tales that will never show up on the Virtual Console.

SNES - So far this is okay but far from perfect.  Some games work fine. Others don't.  The translated Dragon Quest both seemed good, as did Act Raiser and Super Metroid.  Secret of Mana on the other hand played, but the sound was completely messed up (possibility that it's a bad ROM though).  Super Mario RPG, Mystic Quest (shut up I like the game), Mario World 2 - Yoshi's Island did not work at all.  Very disappointed about this. In some cases I suspect the problem is with bad roms but there's no question that there's some emulator issues here.

Genesis/Master System - Not good at all.  Sound is a little funky and the screen gets real messy whenever the action got fast.  Sonic 2 was a mess for instance.  I guess this emulator can't keep up with Blast Processing!!!!

GBA - So far so good. I've tested The Minish Cap, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, and Super Mario Advance.  Overall pretty good.  The screen is a little distorted as the GBA screen doesn't quite match up with this one, and the colors are a little washed out. Everything seems brighter.  But the gameplay is there.  Nothing I can't easily overlook on this.

EDIT - Apparently there's a setting on the options that allows you to set the screen to the original GBA dimensions.  That fixes a lot right there.  Okay so GBA emulation is now damn good.

Neo-Geo - Haven't touched it yet.

Capcom Play System 1 - These were the earlier Capcom arcade games. Knights of the Round, Strider, Captain Commando, original Street Fighter 2 games, most everything in the Capcom arcade classics collections.  Mixed bag here as well, but not as bad as the NES. Worst problem I've seen is slowdown in a few of the game.  It was only real noticeble in Willow.  Everything else seemed to play fine.  

Capcom Play System 2 - These are mostly Capcom's fighting games that got so prevelent in the 90's. Street Fighter Alpha/Zero games, Marvel vs. Capcom,  Street Fighter vs. X-men.  Most of these haven't been so good.  Pretty slow and choppy with some audio issues.  For whatever reason SFA and SFA2 play extremely well with just very minor slowdown.  The real problem is these controls.  It's tough to actually pull off any of the moves as this control pad is not the most responsive thing in the world.  Of course trying to pull off any of those kinds of moves with a control pad of this size is a challenge in and of itself.

So overall. . . well I could take it or leave it.  I didn't have a media player or even a decent MP3 player (just a cheap $30 one) so this filled a void for me.  Had I just got it for the gaming I'd be disappointed.  Still there's just enough functionality here that I can't complain too much.  NES and GBA games are are solid, as are most of the Capcom gen 1 games.  And there's enough SNES games that I can get some use out of it too.  

So my final recommendation lies on whether or not you're looking for a decent media player.  If so, go ahead and get this.  It'll do everything you need plus allow for some gaming that you might not have access to otherwise.  But if you just want it for games, go ahead and pass.