Good Cell phone for emulation.

[samsonlonghair]

In the next few months I'll be in the market for a new cell phone, and I'm considering buying one for its emulation abilities. I need this phone to be a GSM phone compatible with AT&T. Ideally it would have a real D-pad, an SD (or microSD) card slot, a regular size headphone jack, a screen with a decent size and refresh rate, and most importantly a robust emulation scene. I'd like to spend less than $125 dollars used. I don't like touch screens. I also don't like monthly 3g connection plans. Wifi would be nice, but it's not necessary. I like the D-pad on the Ngage QD, but I'm worried that the emulator scene seems a bit sparse. I like the power of the N-81, but the price is still steep.

Recommendations?

[8-bit Legend]

I would like to know the same but for Sprint

[CRTGAMER]

I don't like high monthly charges so I got a very good non-smart phone, a Samsung Impression. It is a Touch Screen, however with slide out keyboard still can use number pad as movement. Not the perfect direction pads but I can choose either method. There is also talk about a Gameboy EMU on this phone.

I have noticed on cell phones you can't put the Java JAR games on the SD memory. The JAR files have to go into the internal phone memory. Look for a phone with lots of internal memory. I'm happy with Samsung Impression internal memory, plus it does take a micro SD for JPGS and MP3's.

I play Loco Roco (Yes that one!) on my Cell.


You can even play this guy on your cell:



I wrote an article here on Racketboy:

Cell Phone Tricks and Retro Games
http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopi ... 15&t=18659

Additional links are there that have downloads for all sorts of tools for Cell Phone Gaming and Emulation.

[Anapan]

If you get one with Windows Mobile, it'll have a whole bunch of emulators available. It'll have a touch screen, but you can get many phones with keyboards too. I use an HTC P4000 (Tytn II). It's got a 320x240 screen, and a slide out keyboard. I just map the controls to the WASD keys on the left, and the OKLBksp on the right. Effectively a D-pad and 4 buttons. It can take MicroSD cards up to 16GB.
Pic
With Windows Mobile, you can get emulators for NES, SNES, GB/C, Gen, MAME, DOS, PS1, FinalBurn, Doom, Descent, Ultima Underworld, Warcraft II, Simcity 2K, Age of Empires, PlamPilot apps, Cellphone Java games, and thousands of native games.

They don't make P4000s anymore, but I'm sure there are similar ones with a nicer form factor (Mine's kinda a brick)

Edit:
Figure I might as well list which emus I found to be the best (probably outdated by now but they work)
NES: PocketNester 0.7 (Oct 24 03)
SNES: Pocket SNES 1.12.200 (2007-02-02)
GBC: PocketGnuboy 1.21 (Aug 05 06)
Gen: Genesis Plus 1.06
MAME: PocketCult Mame 0.4a
Dos: DosBox PocketPC Port by n0p
PS1: FPSeCE 0.09.6
FinalBurn: FinalBurn WinCE by Hao Zhang

I should mention that emulation isn't actually that good on some emulators tho your mileage may vary. Mine runs at 400Mhz, and can be overclocked. Still, SNES needs to be tweaked per game for decent speed usually. The Genesis games run pretty decent if you turn the sound quality down. MAME only recognizes a small subset of the oldest games. Dosbox can run some old 386 games - best to disable sound entirely to make the most games playable. PS1 emulation is OK on a few games, but it's lacking - on many games you need to strip/patch the isos to get them to work. Finalburn is pretty much perfect. I still carry my Dingoo for gaming, and mostly use the phone for mobile internet with Netfront and .NET VNC 1.0.1.16. Also the cellphone abilities of the phone are not quite as reliable as a real phone...

[CRTGAMER]

If you get one with Windows Mobile, it'll have a whole bunch of emulators available. It'll have a touch screen, but you can get many phones with keyboards too. I use an HTC P4000 (Tytn II). It's got a 320x240 screen, and a slide out keyboard. I just map the controls to the WASD keys on the left, and the OKLBksp on the right. Effectively a D-pad and 4 buttons. It can take MicroSD cards up to 16GB.
With Windows Mobile, you can get emulators for NES, SNES, GB/C, Gen, MAME, DOS, PS1, FinalBurn, Doom, Descent, Ultima Underworld, Warcraft II, Simcity 2K, Age of Empires, PlamPilot apps, Cellphone Java games, and thousands of native games.

Very slick!!

[ieatramen]

I have Little John on my palm centro: http://www.little-john.net/
It runs nes, gameboy/color perfect. Once I installed Lightspeed to overclock the phone it ran most snes games pretty smooth. Genesis the same except no sound for most games.

[AARST]

All I want is Civilization II and Sim City 2000 on my smartphone. It will make me the happiest dork on the planet. I will never be bored again.

[Betamax001]

Is it just me or does Atari 5200, Colecovision, and Intellivision emulation seem like it would work insanely well with a cell phone?

"A Cell Phone would probably be a better controller than the 5200 controller that does not work."

[Anapan]

All I want is Civilization II and Sim City 2000 on my smartphone. It will make me the happiest dork on the planet. I will never be bored again.

Civ 1 plays ok on Dosbox, haven't tried 2 but 4 has been ported natively. Sim City 2000 is a native app, and is awesome. On my X50v it runs at 640x480.
You could look into these:
http://freeciv.wikia.com/wiki/Install-WindowsMobile
http://smart.herocraft.com/en/games/revival-deluxe

[lisalover1]

The iPhone has a pretty big homebrew/emulation scene, but to tactile buttons, SD card slot, but is obviously compatible with AT&T. I recommend an Android-based phone with a physical keyboard, like the G1 or Droid. I used to have a G1, and the last time I checked, there were a few more emulators than the iPhone, and most of them run quite well. It also supports microsd, but only 256 MB of storage for apps. However, there is a hack that you can use to run and store apps on the MSD card. The keyboard will give you tactile controls, and works fairly well as a D-Pad.