JXDS5110B First impresions

JXDS5110B First impresions

Update: Here is the complete Review (in spanish) of this device

There is a Spanish version of this article here.
This analysis has been created thanks to the device that Geekgoo.com sent to me.

Note

This entry IS NOT A PROPER REVIEW. This is an article with my very preliminary feeling and impresions of the JXDS5110B that i'm testing just now.

Please take ti in mind that, as i told, this is only my impresions of the device, and in few days i will post a proper and full review of this, and most probably i will change my oppinion about some aspects of the device itself, because i will get more time to do testings.

It´s posible that i will use 5" devices such Gamedroid, Yinlips or JXDS5110 (the original version) to do comparisons about the device to help giving a clear idea about what i mean.

I'm not english spoken, and most probably this article (not a google translated this time) may have so much mistakes, but i hope the main idea and contents will be understandable.

General quality of the device

(First boot of the device and a quick check)

For people that know the original JXDS5110, they will get with a similar product talking in quality.

For those that don´t know this device, i can tell that the finishing and qualities are good in general, giving a very good feeling about materials and manufacture. The device apears to be "hardy", and is not a typical chinese device that do "cracks" when you press a little strong on it.

Para quien conozca la original JXDS5110, se encontrará con un producto muy similar en cuanto a calidades. Para quien no la conozca, decir que en general los acabados y calidades que se pueden percibir dan buena sensación, siendo los materiales robustos y que la consola en general "no suena" si la manipulo con las manos y la intento doblar (no se nota de plástico barato)

There is something that i realize and when i move hard the device (shake it), i can feel that there is something loose inside, that may be the battery pack, but this "sound" i only feel when shake strongly.

Slots and ports

My first test was insert and read a MicroSD Sandisk Ultra 64GB (red and gray), because we found lots of problems with this when using in the JXDS7300B.

Fortunately, there is no problem with the device, and can read and use normally this MicroSD. I can boot with WIFI On and there is no problems too to mount correctly the memory card.

In another hand, i found there is 2 audio outs, in similar way that another products such Yinlips devices. If i plug 2 headphones, i cannot get any difference in audio, there is no lost of volumen, power or quality.

This time the usb is MiniUSB port, same as old device S5110. You can charge the device by this port too.

MiniUSB is OTG enabled.

The device have a dedicated port for charging, and this is a good feature, because you get free the USB to plug something such a Gamepad, and play on the device connected to a TV, and can plug to charger at the same time.

TV output this time is only MiniHDMI, that works flawessly. The device do a image-clone (device screen is the same that TV output) and the response is so quick (i cannot percibe any lag between TV screen and device)

The old analog tv output of JXDS5110, was replaced by the new second audio output. There is no chance to get analog TV output with this device.

About controllers

As usual in most of these kind of devices, the included driver of the device to handle the sticks and buttons is own of the manufacturer, and is not recognized as a proper josytick by the system. This implies that any software that can try to handle the analog sticks, will fail because don´t know how to talk with them, and user must use the keymappero of the device to map on screen virtual controls to interact with these softwares.

The buttons keeps the usual nomenclature of previous JXD devices, and are the same that we can found on PSX controllers (tirangle, square, circle & X)

There is no Android buttons, and for this reason we must use the controls of the system bar (Home, Back, Task List)

As usual on 5" devices, there is no L2 & R2 triggers. If we inspect the device, we can see that [POWER] and [VOL+] buttons are in a good location to think on use it as:
[POWER] = L2
[VOL+] = R2

I commented this with TheXSample team (they are working now on a custom firmware and joystick driver for the device) and they will study the feasibility of this idea, but is not sure that will work, because [POWER] generally have events/behaviors associated that probably cannot be handled.

DPAD

The DPAD is a REAL DPAD, this mean, a single plastic piece that conform the dpad control. I not tested so much yet, but appears to respond well. There is no accidentally presses of directions. In example, if i press Right, there is no accidentally press Up or Down when keep Right pressed.

There is when i will highlight the first "evolution" about android devices in general: the DPAD is separated from Left Stick (and right). This is true that there are few devices that have separated these controls (DroidX360, Gamedroid), but there is no a good implementation about this. (usually, mappers don´t incorporate visual elements for DPAD and Sticks in separated ways, or simply the system "join" by software these two controls, duplicating functionality)

The Mapper handle the DPAD as 4 separated buttons, that is good (because are separated from stick), but is bad too, because handling this control as separated buttons, cannot generate "diagonals" from the digital DPAD.

Sticks

I can confirm that bot sticks are real analog sticks.

These sticks are handeld by the system only throught the own JXD driver. This implies that are not visible in standard way for all the apps, and taht implies to use the mapper tool for mapping controls to screen, and interact with the virtual on-screen app controls.

Without this mapper, the DPAD, Left stick and Right stick are linked and works all together as a single DPAD, and this we can understand that they are linked by sofware in the driver level, but this occur only when the mapper is disabled. In this stage, all these controls works as digital (there is no rangle reads that can be handled or interpreted as analog movements)

Fortunately, Tincore is working on a new driver for this device to give a proper Joystick driver, and adjust their keymapping tool to this.

In general, sticks are soft to the touch and respond in very similar way that PSP analog stick do.

Buttons

In general are hard to press, but there is no "clack" sound when are pressed. I figured that with some usage will be soft, but i doubt these buttons will be softly than JXDS7300B are, that i consider better in general.

Triggers are hardest than buttons, but in the same way, i figure that will be soft with some usage. (JXDS5110 was so similar in this way)

In another hand, [POWER], [VOL-], [VOL+], [SELECT] & [START] are so softly and comfortable to press/usage.

Screen

In the same way that rest of JXD devices, the screen have the same "problems" with the border of it, and this make hard to touch the borders of the screen with the fingers.

Screen is capacitive, and respond well. There is need to take care about the screen when you quit the plastic protector that come with the device, because this plastic leave glue residue, and may be hard to usage normally.

The vision angle is similar to another TFT devices. When you see the screen from behind, you lost the image.

Device performance

This day (hours) i basically played some android games, and most of them runs without issues (all using the JXD mapping tool), excepto few of them.

(N.o.v.a.3)

Nova3 have problems to boot normally. In my case, i can see the intro vid for some seconds, and the image freeze, and the game cannot start. Most probably this is a framework issue, and may be solved updating/modding it (custom firmware)

Asphalt 7 fall in a boot licence. Skelton who is doing parallel testings told me that he can get this to work, but the game downloaded Ultra-Hight Definition graphics, and looks incredible on the device, but is unplayable because cannot handle propertly. (the device cannot run the game in a playable way)

Another games such Mass Effect Infiltrator claims that i´m in a region that not allowed to run. Most probably, these games obtain some info of the device and determine i´m on china, where most of these games are restricted.

(Ravensword)

This game generally i get some issues when i try to run. Most problems i get are related to graphics glitches or on screen controls/buttons/mouse.

In the JXDS5110B, the game run normally, react correctly to touches on screen, or virtual touches generated by the mapping tool.

In general speaking, emulators runs wihtout need to do so much on them, but not softly. There is need to do some configuration, or optimization on the firmware to get them running fully smooth.

Hope for the review i will get more info about this.

Speakers

There are 2 grids in the back side, that appears to be audio outputs, but really is a monoaural speaker (taking the device in whith the screen to us, the speaker is in the right side).

The another grid most probably is for cooling porpouses.

Mapping Tool

I know there are so much people waiting for a Tincore driver and keymapper for this device, i must comment about the stock Mapping tool that get a (necessary) update from previous versions, adding these main features:

• Add support for separated controls Left Stick, Right Stick and DPAD (This in 4 separated buttons)
• The mapper now have autoprofiles. Now when you change between apps (games), the mapper saves automatically the current layout and load the new. (much in the same way as Tincore or Archos mapper do)

I found some problems with the mapping tool:

• There is no support for [SELECT] & [START] buttons
• The "camera" view mode is not envelope, this means when the virtual touch get te border of the screen, the movement stop, and this will means that is impossible to do acontinuous 360º spin around in FPS games.

The following video shows the mapper and some problems i talked about.

Summarizing of this first contact with the device

The system appears to evolves so much, taking as base the original JXDS5110 device. There are some interesting features that we can list in:

- Dual-Core CPU
- 1GB RAM
- Capacitive Screen
- Dual Sticks
- Real analog Sticks
- Separated DPAD and Sticks
- Sinlge piece of plastic for DPAD (real DPAD)

What we lost?
- Analog TV Output, but this was lost in original S5110 with the Android 4.x update (JXD did not released a software or support for analog tv output, and the only way to use is with 2.x android version)

In general speaking, and as preliminar commentary, i think the device itself meet many requeriments of users from previous devices, and with a custom firmware, and a proper joystick driver, this device will be a base point to compare next devices will be released in future, talking about Android Gaming Consoles of course.

All depends now by the manufacturer and his disposal to meet with the scene, and repeat the success of JXDS7300B

I Hope write and publish the full review of this device quick as possible.

Please, take this as a preliminary guide about the device, and no way about absolut and final info.

Zalu2!
Deen0X