The bootleg Game Boy Advance : First look and teardown

I love dealextreme. It's a quirky HK site that carries all kinds of
fun grey market goods like cell phone jammers and sim copiers.

Browsing the site the other week I came across item number
23834: A bootleg Game Boy Advance with 92 built in games.

As a long time collector of bootleg consoles, I knew I had to have
one, so I bit the bullet and paid the very steep $57.25 for a
cloned GBA.

$57 will get you a very decent GBA system (not the expensive AGS-101
"new brighter screen" model), or a DS. The only thing it really had going for
it was the built in games aspect, and the fact that it was a clone acting
as an equal to the original.

Three weeks later, it arrived at my door.






The Box was flimsy like all hong kong cardboard. What awaited inside
shocked me. Except for some small differences, I had what felt and seemed
to be a a real Game Boy Advance! It even came with a GBA charger, and
it uses a GBA battery! The shell even had the OEM logo on the top.




The only clue that this was not a real Nintendo system was that the screen
was not widescreen. The screens and opening are the same size, and the
shells are the same, only the aspect ratio is different.

I fired up the system and this is what greeted me:

<object height="344" width="425">


<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Y_zU09lC3vA&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="425"></object>

I was very impressed by the quality of the screen. It was better than the
original GBA SP, but a tad under the expensive quality of the last generation
AGS-101 SP. The AGS-101 with the best screen still sells for upwards of
$70, used. The 92 built in games were nothing short of incredible in that
there were no repeats, and some games were quite good. The aspect
of booting the built in games, and still being able to accept GBA cartridges
deserves a better look.



Here's video comparison of the two systems side by side. It's hard to tell at first that it's fake.

<object height="344" width="425">


<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Wi-C21ZRjpE&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="425"></object>

Simply amazing what they can copy these days in China. It's a bit scary
really! What next? Real copies of the Wii?

Next I tried some compatibility tests. The unit is unable to play GBC or GB
games and loaded the menu every time. I tried using a Play Action Replay,
and that did not work either. I later found a neoflash cart, but the
battery was dead. The system did hang on load, so I assume that it would
work.

Curious about the inner workings of such a great copy, I pulled out my
tools and got to work. I decided to compare the two side by side for best
visual result. What followed was some of the most unpleasant screw removal
I've had in years. Both machines had super soft metal screws that wanted
to strip if given a chance.

After much cursing and feeling in the carpet for dropped screws, this
was revealed:




The Batteries are the same. The boards have similar architecture and the
Chinese ARM clone is based purely on reverse engineering and is quite an
accomplishment. If the designer ever reads this, I take my hat off to him.

The clone features some major changes, namely the two 128Mbit chips,
and an unknown Hynix chip (no docs or whitepapers available from hynix)
seen below.

w9812g6xh-6 (two) sdram 8x16
hynix hy27uto84g2a



So now for the bad news: It runs slow. About 15% slower than a normal
GBA. If they had fixed the speed, I would have said they had a blockbuster
on their hands! The slowdown is noticeable, and for $57 it had better be just
as good as the original! Sadly this shortcoming hurts it badly at that price.

The other shortcoming is the change in aspect ratio. The square screen
(while excellent) squeezes the graphics causing some pixelization.

All of these things would have been tolerable if not for the extreme price.
Until the price comes down to the $40 range or less, I cannot recommend
this product to anyone but the collector who needs to have what is sure
to be a rare machine from the minds in China. This is the new Game Axe;
worthy but ultimately crippled by price.

 

You can see it in the video.
Dai Makaimura
Final Fight
Choro Q, etc

 

possibly? the design of the mainboard makes me think not, it's too similar to the gba

 

I've been playing more of the games, the selection is excellent.
the slowdown, I think it is some emulation as there are occasional artifact glitches.