As it is the tradition in the sector, I hope the industry will listen to player communities and agree on better sunsetting standards so communities can continue to meet and play together.
lol. lmao even.
10 years ago i bought a used PS3 for 50 bucks pretty much only for GT6. I liked it a lot and even got myself a Logitech G27 racing wheel. I remember that h-shifting with a clutch kinda sucked because of an artificial delay you needed to maintain so the shifts get registered. Like i understood the idea behind it that real cars dont shift instantly and the gears need to fall in place or whatever. But as a european i knew how to drive with a stick. At the time i havent even driven an automatic car at all. That forced delay drove me crazy.
Anyway otherwise its a great fucking game and i really want to get back in to it. But not on the og PS3. I want some upscaling and i remember it couldnt hold the framerate that well even on og hardware. The last time i checked GT6 was still kinda janky on RPCS3 but maybe its time to finally check it out.
When it comes to racing classics i had a really good time with emulated PS1 and PS2 games with retroachievements in the last two years. Colin Mcrae Rally, NFS, Midnight Club 1-3, Test Drive Eve of Destruction, Test Drive Unlimited (PS2), GT2, GT4 Spec II Mod, Enthusia etc.
The 5th and 6th gen era just has so many bangers and the emulation is just rock solid and with retro achievements i have an additional carrot on a stick to actually finish them. 7th Gen emulation is still a bit hit and miss in my experience. Atleast if you also want your games upscaled and with 60fps hacks. But the first Forza Horizon on Xenia is also pretty awesome. But needs a bit reading up and fiddling to get working alright. It actually has a good single player progression unlike later titles in the series.
TDU on the PS2 deserves its own shoutout. I would compare the driving physics to the very best the PS1 has to offer but in a PS2 game with a insanely big map for that hardware. The trade-off is a bit ugly and samey graphics but its good enough. But casually playing through the game until the big race around the whole island was a blast and took me around 10 hours. Completing every single race in the game is a bit of a drag with ~35hrs of playtime from what i’ve read. But i just didnt do that.
Enthusia is also kinda a hidden gem. The career/progression system is a bit odd imho and infirior to GT4. I cant even explain it right now. Atleast its kind of a bit of fresh air. But the driving physics are insanely good and fun.
The dim 400nit 720p lcd screen is the biggest no-go for me. Especially on a 6,6" device. I had a budget 5" 720p phone many years ago and it just sucked even back then. The brightness wars got a bit silly recently with screens with claimed peaks up to 3000nits. But having ~1000nits is pretty neat under direct bright sun light.
The SOC is pretty mid. I’m sure it will do normal phone stuff adequately but a phone i had seven years ago had better and higher clocked prime cores and it was 50 bucks cheaper back then. Mediatek devices tend to have practically no custom rom support which also isnt great. But tbh the custom rom scene isnt in a great spot atm either way. It isnt a negative in my book but also doesnt tip the scale to the positive.
8GB of ram is okay at that price and the current market conditions. 256gb of storage is pretty good. But no mention at all what kind of storage? So in the best case UFS 2.1 which would be okay or at worst EMMC which would just suck.
Idgf about selfies. But if you do that front camera will look like ass. That secondary 2mp macro at the back is just utterly useless and a waste of space and ressources. 50mp on the mainshooter doesnt sound to bad but look at that tiny lens. With that the sensor must be tiny too. Combined with a shitty camera app of a tiny manufacturer i predict the pictures will look like they were taken in the last decade.
Most people dont give a shit but i do: USB 2.0 in 2026 should be illegal.
Headphone jack: exists, which is good.
In regards to the software: idk, man. Over the years i’ve seen a lot of big privacy claims by niche companies. The privacy focus was IMHO almost always just a marketing device. The actual implementation was either lackluster or straight up misleading. Yeah, and just reading the usual marketing blurbs doesnt give me any confidence its different this time. Especially if they claim their rom is completly degoogled but Aurora Store is preinstalled. Technically correct but you wont believe which service owned by google Aurora accesses. :D
For 350 bucks i rather buy yet another used Pixel and put Graphene/Lineage(if its older and unsupported by Graphene). The hardware on Pixel devices isnt even that great considering their flagship pricing on new phones. But even a Pixel 6 runs circles around that Brax3.