Originally posted by: geddon_jt
Hey guys, I thought it may be helpful to some of you either waiting on this item, or perhaps interested, if I offered some of my initial impressions. My AVS arrived today (I am in Florida, and placed my order the day preorders went up), and I've had a few minutes to sit down with it and check out some games now that the kids are in bed. I preordered the standard edition unit without any games
A little bit about me, I've been a long time collector of many systems, not just NES. I'm pretty close to finishing the licensed NTSC NES library so I'm pretty serious about the system. I also happen to own 2 Analogue Nts and I love both of them. One is an HDMI model and the other is an RGB model. So, clearly I'm probably not like most people. My HDMI NES gaming is going on a 65" Sony LCD screen, selected by me last year because it was the model with the least input lag in game mode.
So here we go. The box was kinda heavy! The pictures and videos I watched on the AVS made me think it was lighter than it was. It has a good heft to it. One thing that doesn't come across well in the pictures is that grey plastic feels VERY much like the grey plastic on an original NES, kind of rough to the touch. Very cool. The unit has nice rubber feet which are a godsend if you have a glass media center like me, keeps it in place quite nicely when inserting and removing carts. Box and packaging is very simple - you get a USB cord, USB power adapter, the AVS, and an HDMI cable. The USB power is actually a very, very convenient option if you're like me and have a million wall wart power supplies. My AVS is actually being powered via the USB port on my wireless router! Pretty darn cool. The controller ports seem slightly less tight than those on the Nt and the cart slots seem a little bit tighter, both for NES and Famicom. Getting the games in and out either way is a snap and I actually quite like the look of the system overall. The lid being up with famicom carts inserted doesn't bother me in the slightest.
So, upon powering up the unit, we get the AVS menu prior to a game loading. I was a little apprehensive about this first as one of the beautiful things about retro games is none of the software front end stuff we see today. Fortunately this menu is very unobtrusive, no startup logo or sound, you basically just push start to start the game if you don't want to mess with the options. Once you've done that, if you reset the game that's in there, it just resets the game but does NOT bring back up the original menu. That's a very thoughtful touch I thought. The AVS defaults at a resolution that leaves space on the top and bottom and sides of the screen, that appeared to me to be slightly larger overall than the frame I had ultimately settled on with my HDMI Nt. No scanlines initialized. But, at default settings, it looks and plays fantastic. Turned on some scanlines and it looked even better. Just like my Nt, but UNLIKE the Retron 5 / Raspberry Pi and other emu boxes, I was not able to really detect any input lag, notwithstanding the fact that my TV is upscaling the 720p output to 1080p. That was nice. Played Mega Man 2, Batman Return of the Joker, Crisis Force, and Little Samson, and all appeared to me to be perfect in terms of graphics, gameplay and sound. Very impressive, soon I will try a game or two that uses expansion audio and see how that goes.
The graphics and sound options are not as deep or detailed as the Nt, but the critical stuff is there. Screen height and width adjustments and darkness of the scanlines can be adjusted. I didn't see an option for palette swaps, and unforunately the adjustments are all represented by simple sliders without corresponding "number" values, which makes it hard to remember old settings or share your settings. But overall, I think 90% of people will be fully satisfied with how this thing looks and plays right out of the box.
I guess my overall impression of the unit can best be summarized as follows. The AVS appears very focused in what it is and what it does. When your box arrives, you are playing games basically immediately and they look and sound great. That is very cool and admirable, and I think what you get for the price is really something. The aesthetic of the console itself is better in person than what comes across in pictures IMHO. I think the overwhelming majority of people will be highly satisfied with this unit, and personally it exceeded my somewhat modest expectations. For 95% of all retro gamers, one of these and an everdrive will keep you happy forever. Great job retroUSB!
Very thoughtful review. For regards to pallet options, it is coming in the next firmware. Still waiting for mine due to the bundled "launch" games not being available yet...