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This article was published on January 18, 2013

The Gameboo looks and feels like a Game Boy… but oh, it’s so much more


The Gameboo looks and feels like a Game Boy… but oh, it’s so much more

At first glance it may look like an ordinary classic Game Boy. Wait, but it has four red buttons instead of two! That should be your first hint, but this mod goes much, much deeper than that.

This hack is dubbed the Gameboo, since it replaces the Game Boy’s internals with a Dingoo Technologies A330 emulation hardware. After nearly eight months of work, the result is amazing: the device is capable of playing a hell of a lot more than just Game Boy games (almost any ROM available for the NES, Super NES, Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Color, and more).

Once you play with it, you’ll note that the additional buttons aren’t the only new thing visible upon first use: the Gameboo also has a color LCD and screen bezel. If that’s not enough though, you can always plug it into your TV:

In case you missed something, here are all of the Gameboo’s features:

  • Plays games in 8, 16, and 32 bit.
  • Supports emulators, both official and homebrew, for heaps of retro game consoles, including GBA, GB, GBC, SNES, NES, CPS1, CPS2, NEO-GEO.
  • 2.8″ colour LCD screen.
  • 4GB Internal Memory, with an expansion slot for a Mini SD card (officially up to 8GB, but users have reported up to 16GB working).
  • TV-out to component (Red-Yellow-White) cable at “DVD” quality (nothing like DVD on a HD TV, but good enough).
  • 2.4GHz Wireless Receiver, allowing you to play games wirelessly via what looks a lot like an Xbox controller. It allows the unit to be used as a console, sitting below/near the tv, and you on the couch.
  • FM Radio, MP3 Player, Video Player, Picture Viewer, Sound Recorder, some sort of E-book reader
  • Mini USB interface to computer.
  • Rechargeable Li-ion battery.
  • All cables included, including USB wall charger (US plugs, although apparently it is such bad quality it poses a serious risk of burning/short circuiting).

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For more details about this mod, head over to Casing The Joint.

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