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I like brackets.

Dude, if you wanted an open system, then you shouldn't have bought the GBA and, instead, should have bought yourself a GP32.

Depends on the reader to be honest. I've used my GamePark32 to read at least 5+ books. The ONLY thing I have to worry about is battery charge but 2 AA rechargables last for at least 4+ hours of book reading. Not to mention I can easily bookmark where i'm at and carry an entire library's worth of books in my pocket. (128mb smart media cards, they are incredibly small, I carry a bunch of them in my wallet, very convenient). The bootup time is lighting fast as well if you use the bios hack that boots straight to windups "OS" (which has a built-in e-book reader). I've also used it to read web pages on the go (copy and paste the text to notepad, save the images seperately, there is an image viewer for gp32). For the size (the same size as a gameboy advance) and the benifits (some e-book reader's for gp32 allow you to play mp3's while listening, ability to carry a library's worth of books IN MY POCKET) I personally don't see THAT many benifits to paper versions. Sure you can carry them around but they are bulky as hell. E-books are far from being perfect yet but they are also far from useless. And btw, the format of the e-books I read on it are just simple .txt files. Cheers :)

If you are looking for a handheld console that has a free SDK, can be used with any development environment on Linux, Mac or Windows then have a look at the GamePark 32 which is available in Korea and soon into Europe.

I recommend looking at the GP32 site though as it has better descriptions, reviews, news and gives you a great overview of what is possible. It is the first 'Open' console that's been produced and already has quite a 'bedroom' community that has sprung up around it.

Not only it is open, it just happens to be the most powerful handheld console out there and there's ports of Doom, Heretic on it already as well as Atari ST, Gameboy, SMS, PC Engine and Megadrive emulators. It has a built in MP3 player and you can also plays DivX movies if you pay a small fee (3.50/$6) for the player. All the commerical games for it are very cheap too - most in the 7/$12 bracket.

In short it is superb and runs on standard Smart Media Cards so once you've bought the console you aren't tied to buying proprietry hardware like the Gameboy.

So, you have no excuses now - buy one, start developing and make money! :)

(from http://engrish.gamepark.com/)
I personally can't wait to "Sign Up to be GP32 Mania!"

-r

When GP32 came out, people accused it of being too similar in design to Game Boy Advance.

Now, it looks like Nintendo has decided to borrow Gamepark's design for the GPi , a notebook-style GP32 device (not yet released) that has a touchscreen, built-in mobile phone, and runs Linux.

See for yourself:
-- GBA SP
-- GPi

Another interesting thing about this is that both devices are updates to existing platforms: GBA SP from GBA, GPi from GP32. Perhaps Nintendo sensed a potential threat from Gamepark and decided to become more competitive?

Well maybe you should have a look at this It's not a GBA it's a GPi, a GP32 (korean handheld by Gamepark) merged with a cellphone. It uses Linux 2.4 kernel, can run GP32 games/utilities and homemade software (including stuff like ScummVM), play divx and mp3s, connect to the internet, etc etc The only drawback is that it hasn't been released yet, at least to my knowledge.

The gameboy advance is nice and the GP32 is better, but both lack horsepower. The Dell Axim is close, but even at $199 too expensive.

How about an Axim with the most expensive bits replaced? Replace the touch screen with a non-touch screen, the lithium ion battery with "AA" types and Pocket PC with a stripped down Linux?

Maybe add a chip to improve 3D performance, rotate it 90 degrees and put in decent game controls. Aim for a $99 price.

Just think of the games that could be ported to that baby!