Thought the GP2X Was Dead? Think Again…

Author: Vince | Date: August 26, 2008

If you’ve been over to GP2X.co.uk recently, you will have seen the message saying:-

“It’s been fun, but the GP2X is no longer manufactured – It’s time to prepare for the Pandora handheld – The most powerful handheld in the world.”

Well, it seems that the GP2X guys have decided they are not going to give up the fight that easily, as they have just announced the GP2X Wiz. Boasting a 533mhz ARM9 processor, 64mb RAM, 1Gb onboard flash storage plus expansion via SD card and a 2.8 inch OLED touchscreen. The system runs on GamePark’s own version of Linux.

As for functionality, the wee beastie can run GP2X software with a little recompiling, meaning emulators for just about every system out there. On top of that the Wiz has some built in games, a built in flash player and GamePark are releasing some official games every month, some of which look quite good! Games aside, the Wiz also doubles up as a mp3 player, e-book reader, photo viewer, video player and more.

As you can see above, the unit ships with a stylus, USB cable, headphones, an SD card reader and the SDK included on the CD, yes you read correctly the SDK is included to allow you to make your own games straight out of the box! I quite like the idea of the 4 buttons (A/B/X/Y) being laid out in a d-pad formation on the left, although an analogue stick would have been nice! It also includes the obligatory 2 trigger buttons.

Can this give the Pandora a run for it’s money? I guess we’ll see soon!

Check out the official brochure here, and the official website here (mostly in Korean)… The GP2X Wiz is due to ship on October 8th for $180 stateside, or via Play-Asia.com for £92 for us Europeans!