MP5 - 4.3" Portable Handheld Video Game Console Player

[RickR]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/322457459704?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&var=511431511646&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

 

Well, I took a little gamble and purchased one of these on Ebay.  The part that intrigued me was that it will play NES and GBA ROMS that you can install on the device.

 

It arrived today, and here's my impression so far:

• It does indeed play NES and GBA ROM files just fine.  They are easy to load on the unit using a USB cable.  I've been using the NES emulation mostly, and it seems pretty spot on.  Sounds are good. 
• It mentions SMS compatibility too, but I haven't tried that.
• GBA games also work great. 
• The screen is very nice and bright.  It looks great.
• Sounds are good too.
• You can also use it as a media device.  Music and video files play fine.
• It has a camera.  Have not tried it.
• The case design is a blatant rip-off of the PSP (see my pic below).  
• It's very lightweight and feels a little cheap.  Very similar to the 2600 flashback portable.
• Mine may (or may not) be defective -- It's been charging for about an hour but won't turn on without it being plugged in.  I'll let it charge overnight and see if that's what it needs.
• Documentation?  Not a single word.  You're on your own figuring this thing out.

Assuming the battery works, I think this thing is really cool.  My plan is to load up a ton of NES and GBA roms and take it with me on the go.  There are some GREAT games for those systems.

 

Picture below is the MP5 unit on top (in blue) and a real PSP on the bottom. 

 

[greenween]

I came so close to ordering one of these last night! Went with the Sega Ultimate Portable instead.

[greenween]

What's with the 10,000 games built in??

[RickR]

What's with the 10,000 games built in??

Total hogwash.  There are a bunch of GBA games "built-in", but nowhere near 10,000. 

[DCG]

I saw one of those a while back.  Should've bought it.

[Rowsdower70]

Seems like a good deal for the price point, as long as it holds together.   I'm curious about the charging issue.  It might just be a bad battery, I guess.

[Atari Creep]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/322457459704?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&var=511431511646&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT

 

Well, I took a little gamble and purchased one of these on Ebay.  The part that intrigued me was that it will play NES and GBA ROMS that you can install on the device.

 

It arrived today, and here's my impression so far:

• It does indeed play NES and GBA ROM files just fine.  They are easy to load on the unit using a USB cable.  I've been using the NES emulation mostly, and it seems pretty spot on.  Sounds are good. 
• It mentions SMS compatibility too, but I haven't tried that.
• GBA games also work great. 
• The screen is very nice and bright.  It looks great.
• Sounds are good too.
• You can also use it as a media device.  Music and video files play fine.
• It has a camera.  Have not tried it.
• The case design is a blatant rip-off of the PSP (see my pic below).  
• It's very lightweight and feels a little cheap.  Very similar to the 2600 flashback portable.
• Mine may (or may not) be defective -- It's been charging for about an hour but won't turn on without it being plugged in.  I'll let it charge overnight and see if that's what it needs.
• Documentation?  Not a single word.  You're on your own figuring this thing out.

Assuming the battery works, I think this thing is really cool.  My plan is to load up a ton of NES and GBA roms and take it with me on the go.  There are some GREAT games for those systems.

 

Picture below is the MP5 unit on top (in blue) and a real PSP on the bottom. 

I was working at a reverse logistics firm testing and repairing electronics, mainly laptops and gaming systems. These and others like it came in ALL the time. Neat little deals. 

[RickR]

The battery is fine. It turns out, to turn on the system (without a charger attached), you turn on the power switch AND hold down one of the tiny buttons on the face. Did I mention no documentation at all?

 

I'm going to do more testing in the evenings. I want to try some Genesis ROMS to see if those work too.

[greenween]

Any luck with Genesis roms Rick? My Sega portable arrived today, but it seems the roms need to be .bin  files and all mine are .smd files so I'm not having any luck.

[RickR]

I haven't tried yet.  Sorry.  I'll get to it soon though. 

[greenween]

I think I'm going to order one of those just for the NES. Thanks for sharing the info.

[RickR]

The NES emulation is flawless to my untrained eye.  I'm too busy with work, but will try the Genesis as soon as I have a spare 30 minutes. 

[RickR]

A special update just for Greenween.

 

I tried the Genesis emulation.  SMD = Sega Mega Drive (duh).  So it should work.  I put 2 SMD files on the unit.  Altered Beast worked great.  Double Dragon did not work.  So with that limited sample, I'd say it's going to be hit and miss.  Still, Altered Beast worked perfectly for my standards.  It's possible my SMD file for Double Dragon is just bad.  I'll try more as time permits. 

 

I say for $26, the NES, GBA, and Genesis capabilities of this item are a great bargain -- even if there are some games that end up not working.  Also of note is that the screen is really bright and nice. 

[RickR]

And wait...there's more:

 

I loaded about a dozen SMD files for Genesis and they ALL work fine except for Double Dragon. 

 

I also loaded a few SNES ROMS, and guess what?  They work too!  SNES is a little bit choppy.  But still....very cool. 

[greenween]

Yo Rick! I ordered one of these a few days ago, looks very cool for NES and hopefully some Master System games. I finally figured this Sega Portable out today. I put about 100 roms on it today and they play great!! Sound is a bit weak but not terrible, the graphics are near perfect, highly recommended.

[RickR]

I saw the Sega portable at Target and almost bought it. 

[TrekMD]

For the price, this doesn't seem to be a bad deal.  It's also not the first rip off of the PSP design.  I've seen similar units sold in Amazon that are pretty much identical in looks to the PSP. 

[greenween]

Mine arrived today. These things keep selling out quickly. They only post 15 at a time. It said it would arrive in an epacket but came in a legit box, everything sealed, manual, ear buds and usb hook up. Love it so far. It comes with about 100 games, mostly GBA. I loaded all my NES roms and they seem to work great, which is really the only reason I bought it. I had the same issue with realizing you had to hold down start to get it to boot up. So far it's a great purchase for $25+ free shipping!

Edited April 26, 2017 by greenween

[greenween]

Hey Rick!! The Sega Portable is great!

[aliasfoxkde]

Thanks for the Post, I'd like to add some info here if I could. I've tried a few different ones and I like the look and feel my MP5 (but it isn't the same as yours). I also purchased an X6 that looks like yours and I had the same problems and it also feels cheaper. The buttons are also less intuitive to me. I included a few pictures which might help people when buying one. They look similar but you can make out some differences. Even on first glance I think my MP5 looks nicer (more rounded) which is the Red Handheld. I'd recommend staying away from the X6, which is the blue one pictured.

 

According to documentation I found, and the product description of the one I purchased specifically, support is stated for the following (some true and some not so much):

 

Specs:

Price: Roughly $30 USD on Ebay or Aliexpress

Native Resolution: 480*272 (Varified to be correct)

Camera: 0.3MP (Confirmed, works better than expected)

Battery: 1000mAh Rechargeable (Unconfirmed but seems to work well)

FM Radio (Could not get it to work at all, signal maybe week dispite trying several headphoens as antenna; the internal antenna is probably crap, though that's easily fixable)

TV-OUT (Untested)

 

Video Formats: 

RM/RMVB (Untested)

AVI (Untested)

MKV (Does not work, regardless of encoding)

WMV (Untested)

VOB (Untested)

MOV (Untested)

FLV (Untested)

MP4 (Works well but does not support H.264 or later codecs)

3GP (Untested)

ASF (Untested)

XVID (Untested)

 

Audio Formats:

MP3 (Works well at any bitrate)

WMA (Untested)

WAV (Untested)

AAC (Works through encoded video, so should work)

OGG (Untested)

FLAC (Does not work)

APE (Untested)

 

Notes: I don't notice a considerable difference between anything over a bitrate of 96kbs, which is probably due to the speakers. So all video I encoded for it, I optimized to 480x272 and 92kbs audio and all audio I optimized to 92kbs. But this was for a $25 budget gift and I didn't want to spring for a expandable Micro SD card.

 

Picture Formats:

JPG (Works but JPEG does not so check your extensions)

BMP (Untested)

GIF (Untested)

PNG (Untested)

TIF (Untested)

 

Notes: Keep in mind, pictures are stretched/smashed to the native resolution of 480x272, so if you copy pictures to it they may look distorted and extra resolution can just waste space.

 

ROM & Game Formats Supported

NES Nintindo (Tested, working)

GBC Gameboy Color (Tested, working)

SMC Super Nintindo (Tested, working)

SMD Sega Genesis (Tested, working though some games run "slow" but the fact they work at all pleasantly surprised me. Notes, many Sega Genesis roms come with *.md extension, they play but I just renamed them *.smd which also worked)

GBA Gameboy Advanced (Tested, working)

BIN Unknown (Tested, inconclusive; BIN is a generic format/term and I tried some roms that use that extension but none worked, further testing or documentation needed)

 

Notes: The device will not read from ZIP or archive files, so you have to extract them the way you usually get them, which is a shame because compressing roms yields about 50% space savings. Also, I tested different Generation Atari roms, none worked. I also tried other game roms, none of which worked but many ROMS came in ZIP files and contained multiple files inside the archive, which I'm not sure could work.

 

Claims:

720p support (while 720p videos "work", they are scaled down to the native resolution).

32GB TF Card (Untested, but will in the future up to 128GB)

 

 

Tips & Tricks

 

Fast Forward and Rewind:

For the life of me I couldn't figure out how to fast forward video. Clicking the right button would go to the next video and left to the previous one. The trick is you have to hold down the left or right buttons to fast forward, and you can change the Seek speed using the menu (pressing the square "[ ]" button, the leftmost button on the right).

 

Customizing the Menu Backgrounds:

A little hidden gem I found was the ability to change the main menu background image and file menu background. The light rain drop background made it hard to make out the font. So I used the Red/Black image (see attachment), which makes the think so much cooler. You apply the backgrounds through the picture viewer with the menu by pressing the square "[ ]" button, the leftmost button on the right (same as above).

 

Customizations I wish you could do:

The buttons take a little getting used to, many buttons don't actually do anything (like the L1 and R1 buttons), and some are just duplicates (like the toggle joysticks). What I would have liked to see is a way to customize the buttons and or emulator settings. If anyone knows a way to do this or how to flash the firmware of the device, please let me know. I'd be very interested in hacking this thing a little and maybe make a tutorial.

 

Food for thought:

I purchased both an X6 Portable 8GB Handheld and an MP5 8GB Handheld, in my case both used the same firmware and had the same game, video, and audio support. However, the X6 Portable Handheld is less intuitive on the buttons (many do the same things and some make no sense) and my unit will only turn on with the cable connected (which turns it on despite the switch being "on" or "off"). Once on, you can disconnect the unit from the cable and as long as the switch is "on" it'll work. So I'm not sure what the issue is, but it's not the battery itself, probably just poor engineering.

 

Final Thoughts:

This is a complaint that you will find many places online, but the packaging and product description usually states there's 1000 games, which is crap. Many of the games aren't proper english titles (my my region, mileage may very) and there's really only like 80-100 games and then they repeat. I'd be fine with that, but there's no way to update the built in game library. However, you can add more by adding them to the internal storage when connecting it to PC (I can't remember the steps off hand but will update later). I packed the system with ~350 NES Roms, ~150 SNES Roms, ~50 GBA Roms, ~50 GBC Roms, and ~20 SM/B (Sega Genesis) Roms) with room to spare (which I filled with other content). Overall, per the price, I have few complaints.

 

Hope this helps and I look forward to updating the post.

 

Best,

 

Micheal

Edited January 4, 2018 by aliasfoxkde

[Duke]

I just load some play station games on it  work perfect just did a bin file and that’s it 

[locke]

is it possible to hack one of these to run different programs on it???

[candiclaw]

On 4/4/2017 at 7:56 AM, Atari Creep said:

I was working at a reverse logistics firm testing and repairing electronics, mainly laptops and gaming systems. These and others like it came in ALL the time. Neat little deals. 

I ordered one of these for my brother and I just got it today. What i cant figure is , do you charge it with the usb??  And then it says not to charge while unit is on , well it flashes all these game pics so i cant tell if its on or not ....i assume it is off .  Then I get it plugged into computer , the screen flashes  a battery charging and then reverts over to connecting to pc.  whats that about , which is it doin or is it doin both????     A manual wouldve been helpful instead of a paper talking about all its cool functions (just not the ones to get it runnin!!!)

[MaximumRD]

9 hours ago, candiclaw said:

I ordered one of these for my brother and I just got it today. What i cant figure is , do you charge it with the usb??  And then it says not to charge while unit is on , well it flashes all these game pics so i cant tell if its on or not ....i assume it is off .  Then I get it plugged into computer , the screen flashes  a battery charging and then reverts over to connecting to pc.  whats that about , which is it doin or is it doin both????     A manual wouldve been helpful instead of a paper talking about all its cool functions (just not the ones to get it runnin!!!)

 

I will just say this about what I have noticed with similar devices over the years. Regarding plugging into a computer, I cannot answer if it is "doing both" because that simply depends on a couple things. Keep in mind USB ports on a computer generally DO supply POWER to whatever USB device you've connected to it. Now, the computer may not supply power to those ports if your computer is OFF however in some cases it still will and sometimes this option can actually be set in your computers BIOS. I can only assume since you've indicated that the device screen flashes a battery charging indication when you first connect it that it is indeed charging. When it THEN reverts over to connecting to PC, here is what "that's about", IT'S CONNECTING TO PC. 😉 Many devices like this, when connected to PC USB port will quickly be recognized by the PC as an EXTERNAL USB DEVICE or STORAGE DRIVE by the operating system. It will literally treat it as an external USB drive so basically you should be able to see the devices internal storage, inserted SD card contents etc, just like anything else connected to your PC. This just gives you an extra option to transfer files, roms etc, between your handheld device and the PC. In the meantime, because it is still connected, it SHOULD still be supplying power to the device and charging. Now, if you are looking to only charge the device then the only option is to plug the handhelds USB cable into an external USB charger, the device screen would then show the same charging status you mentioned and continue doing so (OR the screen may just go blank at some point to preserve power and continue charging, I don't know the particular details of your specific device of course) the difference of course is it will NOT switch over to the PC connecting screen since it is not connected to a PC port but just a simple USB charger. Basically, without a detailed manual / instructions which sadly these cheaper devices are famous for, not knowing or having experience with your particular device it might be hard for anyone else to guide you further, I suggest you keep in mind what I have told you here and simply try things, fiddle with it and hopefully you will sort things out. The only other thing I could suggest is providing more info about the device, the exact name, model number and image IF possible, maybe link to where you bought it? At the very least the could help people attempting to assist you. It is difficult to give exact proper instructions otherwise since these devices sometimes vary in features and operations from one another, unlike a standard gaming handheld, where the same instructions would apply for everyone. Only experience over years with similar devices allows just a small bit of help as I've attempted to provide, OF COURSE should anyone else have any other recommendations or ideas for you they can feel free to chime in.   

[RickR]

On mine, it charges when I plug it into a USB cable connected to my computer (and you can also transfer files as MaximumRD stated).  You can also charge by using a USB phone charger.