Back when people still didn’t know what the Switch was going to be, there was the Morphus X300. It looks awfully similar to the Switch, except that it plays Android games instead of Mario Kart. And as I found out at CES this year, it might actually end up in Australia one day.
In case you’d forgotten about the Morphus X300, it’s basically a tablet with detachable wireless controllers and twin analog sticks. There’s also an option to play content in 3D without glasses, which I’m sure wasn’t inspired by the 3DS whatsoever.
It’s actually not that bad to hold in the flesh, although the stand didn’t have any games for me to play at the time. But the controllers detach and reattach quite nicely:
The controllers side by side.
They’re quite light, and particularly thin as well.
All the fingerprints in the flesh.
There’s also inbuilt software to remap buttons for games that don’t support external controllers, which is kind of cool. It’s on the aging side as far as hardware goes though: the ARM Cortex A7 1.7ghz CPU is a bit long in the tooth, 2GB RAM is half of what most smartphones have these days, and the 1280×800 IPS screen is pretty lacklustre when it comes to mobile screens.
But the joysticks were nice to play with, and the buttons and triggers were functional if not amazing. The Morphus X300 currently sells for $US300, at least on the Aikun website. I asked the Aikun rep whether the totally-not-Nintendo-inspired tablet would ever make its way to Australia, and he told me that they were in talks with partners and distributors, although nothing had been finalised.
That said, playing with the tablet only reminded me of how much I want to see the Switch in the flesh. I’ll get a chance to do that on Saturday, however, and you’ll read what I think of it early next week.
Comments
8 responses to “That Nintendo Switch Lookalike Android Tablet Might Come To Australia”
And of course it’s featuring a racing game on its advertising 😀
What could be played with those specs? I mean, reasonably. Is this the device that was running Doom 3 like it was a technical marvel?
I’m currently playing Doom 3 as well. It’s great.
Though this was quite a bit older than the Switch?
This is why it’s going to be interesting to see how the Switch goes because this is not a new idea. Controllers for tablets and devices that can stream tablet content to a TV aren’t new and have been a fairly niche market (Think AppleTV and Chromecast) so far.
Continuing 3DS sales show there’s still a vast market for dedicated handheld gaming devices but the Switch is now a lot more like a tablet with controller peripherals and TV streaming capabilities. That means it’s going to be a little more confusing for parents who look at it and say “Is this a tablet?” or “Am I buying controllers for a tablet?”.
*Puts finger over lips*
Ah-pup-pup-pup-pup… Zelda.
I just want controllers in this vein that attach to my Surface Pro 3. Preferably one that supports XInput (i.e. acts as an XBox controller). Coupled with XBox One streaming or Steam in-home streaming, this would lead to a very switch-like experience (albeit without being able to take Xbox games or very demanding PC games with you outside of the house)
What you have described is the Wii-U experience, not Switch experience. LOL.
Completely ignoring the dual-screen gaming aspect, essentially yes.
Also lower-specced games will run perfectly fine on the Surface minus streaming, so I could get my Stardew Valley on on the bus, for example, hence the Switch experience.
*sigh*… all I want is a new version of the Xperia Play with decent specs.