JXD S7800b - An android tablet with built in gaming controls!

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posted by Conker2012 on May 25, 2015:

I've bought an JXD S7800b, and it's great. It's an android tablet with built in controls; two thumbpad sticks, four shoulder buttons, a D-Pad, and four other buttons in a rough D-Pad shape (but they are separate buttons).









It also has six other buttons, that you can use for Android functions (such as go back one level, and go straight back to the dashboard), but you can define some of them to use in games too. You see, one of the best things about the JXD S7800b is that you can very easily define the controls to do what you want. You know how tablet games tend to be touch control (which I hate...), since of course most tablets have no other input? Well, the JXD S7800b allows you, at a touch of one of the system buttons on the tablet, to conjure up icons for each of the physical controls. Then you drag the icons over to the onscreen controls, so that, when you press the accompanying physical button, then the accompanying part of the screen is virtually pressed! So, for example, if you want the rightmost shoulder button to fire in a game, then you first drag the icon for the rightmost shoulder button over to the fire button on the game's control display, and then pressing the rightmost shoulder button on the JXD S7800b's case triggers fire in the game. It's easier to understand than it is to explain, it's very easy to set up. And of course you can then hide the JXD S7800b's controller icons, even though they still work (of course), and the icon's positions are saved for each game or application, so you only have to set them up once for each game. It really is everything you could ask for on a gaming tablet.




Plus as an Android tablet, it seems great too, being fast and responsive, and doing everything I've tried so far, though admittedly that's not a lot (web browsing and comic viewing, using the brilliant Perfect Viewer, from the Playstore) as I've just got it. The screen quality is great and responsive, the sound seems OK (though my hearing isn't great, so others can judge that better), the tablet has 16GB of onboard storage and supports Micro SD cards too. It even has HDMI out, though I've not tried it. All that for £129, brillliant!

Sadly, it's not ideal - the two problems I've found with it are:

1) The thumbsticks work fine, but aren't as good as on a dedicated joypad (such as the XBox 360's, or the PS3's joypads), but are still OK, and infinitely better than using the touchscreen for gaming.

and

2) The speed of the device. Even though the tablet is fast enough for N64 emulation (which is why I bought it, and it's great for that, though I need to use two different versions of Muppen to play different games, some games work on one but have problems on the other, still both versions are free, so it's not really a problem) and is great at web browsing and comic viewing, at the moment I can't get Blood working with DOSBox at a playable speed, it's running at a few frames per second. This might be down to me needing to alter some settings in DOSBox (though I've done what I can think of trying, and yes the frame skip isn't helping), or maybe down to the fact that Blood is one of the most demanding DOS games ever made. But the JXD S7800b can run (some) PSP and Dreamcast games at full speed, so I'd imagine that DOSBox could run Blood at full speed.

But even if I can't get Blood (or other really demanding DOS games) running at full speed on the JXD S7800b then I'd still *really* recommend the tablet. It's great as an Android tablet, and as a portable emulation system (everything from the Atari 2600 (or simpler) to the Dreamcast! And some of the emulators even come with the controls predefined for the JXD S7800b!), and is solidly built and is almost everything I could ask for in a tablet.

Finally, gaming on a tablet is possible for those of us who hate touch-screen controls!






Here's a video review:




Here's where I bought it from:

http://www.funstock.co.uk/jxd-s7800b-android-gaming-tablet



More reviews:

http://www.retrocollect.com/Reviews/hardware-review-jxd-s7800b-android-gaming-tablet.html

http://www.trustedreviews.com/jxd-s700b-android-gaming-tablet-review

http://www.amazon.co.uk/product-reviews/B00EN399GG
 

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posted by DSwizzy145 on Mar 26, 2015:

Have you tried changing the CPU clock settings or something like that? Cuz i had a similar problem with my DosBox Wii and some of my games were very slow till i messed with it. So, yeah try adding about up to 1080 or so and see what happens.
 

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posted by Yakumo on Mar 26, 2015:

I've been on the fence about buying one of these but the thing that gets me is its much weaker than my phone which can run PSP and DC games full speed. I think the biggest issue is not the CPU but the lack of RAM. My phone has 3GB which really does help with speed in emulation. The JDX only has 1gb or is it 2gb now? Either way 3 is ideal.
 

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posted by Conker2012 on Mar 27, 2015:

DSwizzy145 said:






Have you tried changing the CPU clock settings or something like that? Cuz i had a similar problem with my DosBox Wii and some of my games were very slow till i messed with it. So, yeah try adding about up to 1080 or so and see what happens.

Thanks, I'll try that.

Yakumo said:






I've been on the fence about buying one of these but the thing that gets me is its much weaker than my phone which can run PSP and DC games full speed. I think the biggest issue is not the CPU but the lack of RAM. My phone has 3GB which really does help with speed in emulation. The JDX only has 1gb or is it 2gb now? Either way 3 is ideal.

2GB, but I think an earlier model (JXD S7800, i.e. it doesn't have the 'B' at the end of the name) only had 1GB from what I've read. More RAM would be nice (as would more CPU power), but the main selling point (for me, anyway) is that it has physical controls on it. I really wish it could run Windows games, but from what I've read, an x86/x64 CPU would require much more power and throw out a lot more waste heat, and no doubt the resulting Windows tablet would cost a *lot* more. Still, probably in the future we'll be able to run Windows games on a tablet (with physical controls!) and that will be brilliant!
 

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posted by StriderVM on Mar 28, 2015:

The only reason you should buy this thing is because of the Physical buttons, nothing else, sadly with how fast things change in the phone hardware business this device is now quite outdated.

Although I do have a JXD S5800B and I love it til death (Of the phone) , it has emulation, it has physical buttons, it's an Android phone.
 

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posted by Conker2012 on Mar 29, 2015:

StriderVM said:






The only reason you should buy this thing is because of the Physical buttons, nothing else, sadly with how fast things change in the phone hardware business this device is now quite outdated.

Absolutely true. I only bought it because it has physical buttons. I do hope that future tablets take note of the JXD S7800b's ideas, and incorporate such (or better) real controls.
 

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posted by StriderVM on Mar 29, 2015:

There are tablets with physical buttons, but they are also quite expensive. They typically go in the $300+ range at minimum. Too expensive for me.
 

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posted by kyo86sg on Mar 29, 2015:

Have you guys considered the Nvidia Shield (1st gen) ?

Its my emulator workhorse for now~
 

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posted by HEX1GON on Mar 29, 2015:

This device looks slapped together, and not worth it. Lack of hardware would be a major issue, emulators are always heavy.
 

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posted by StriderVM on Mar 29, 2015:

I've been playing emulators on my JXD S5800B. It's specs are : 1.2Ghz Quad Core, 1GB RAM and Mali-400 (960x540). Spec wise it's kinda like a Quad-Core Galaxy S2.

Here's my experience on emulators on this phone :

NES = Full Speed
Genesis = Full Speed
SNES = Full Speed, with some exceptions.
PC-Engine = Full Speed
PS1 = Full Speed on software, on hardware depends on game due to upscaling and unsupported graphical effect.
Neo-Geo = Full Speed
MAME = On 0.3X core based emulators, full speed, varies when using the newer MAME core.
Nintendo 64 = Varies on game.
Dreamcast = Varies on game.
GB/A = Full Speed
Nintendo DS = Full Speed.
PSP = Varies on game.