My son gets all the good stuff. The Rio Karma, the PS2, the GameCube. Every time some cool gadget comes along, someone in the friends-and-relations gift mill buys it for my son. Hell, sometimes it's me, as in the case of the Karma. That, of course, was part of my open-standards education program for him, since the Karma had support for Ogg Vorbis format audio files. So, I don't begrudge him his teenager toys.
I do get jealous, though.
The one that hurt the most was the Playstation Portable (PSP). My wife happened to be at Target the day the PSP was released, and happened to ask the electronics clerk about it, and he happened to have one that hadn't already been claimed. So we had one in the house on the day of release. I wasn't allowed to claim it for myself, because my wife already had it on my son's gifting schedule.
It's just as well, because it's my turn now. The GP2X is coming out in October, and I've already pre-ordered. I'm a long-time Linux hacker, and now a portable game machine with a Linux kernel and bundled SDK comes along. At the risk of employing an overused geek codeword, w00t!
And yes, I know about the DRM, as reported on BoingBoing. The UK folks have posted a reasonable explanation, and I'm going to take them at their word.
So, it should be here sometime next month, at which time I'll report on it. And, in case I didn't make this clear: This one is mine, son.
UPDATE: Officially, it's called the GP2X, not the GPX2, so I fixed that.
Tags: gp2x
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3 comments:
Thank's for the info you put on
my blog.
I mentioned there that there is some closed source code, which, in a way, is still true, except it's in the chipset they are using. It would be nice if they also provided a version of GPX2 without this chipset (and without the licensing certain media format) and allow their customers to install these things themselves.
Also, what do you think about the lack of an IR port? This device looks like it would be cool to use as a universal remote.
What are your plans for using the GPX2? Mostly for games?
Scott:
I agree. If Gamepark Holdings built two models, one with the DRM in place and one without, I'd buy the DRM-free one. But I think we sometimes hold Linux-based devices to a higher standard than normal purchases. I buy DVDs, and they're DRM'ed (badly, but they are).
As far as IR, that would be nice, but I'm going to try to get wireless 802.11b working through the USB port. I'll probably play games on it, but for the most part it will be an experimentation machine, and probably my music player for the car. I'm still using a 16meg Diamond Rio (yes, the original one) as my MP3 player.
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