ECube
1G GBA : EZF Advance
ECube is the next generation of EZF Advance card. Great
new linker set with huge memory and completely new features not
seen in other EZFA products like USB-Disk and possibility to
randomly erase/replace files.
ECube 1G, 2G, 4G and 8G - backup flash card kit and linker
SMS,
USB, RTC, 1M save, U-Disk (GBA/SP) EZF Advance, GBA Flash Kit
(linker)
Cart size
62*62*21mm. Why the name change from EZFA to ECube - I guess Borden got frustrated
with people imitating his EZ-Flash brand name with names like EZFA
II , EFA and so on and decided to go with the name ECube that would
help this new flash card to stand apart from the rest of the older
cartridges.
The E-Cube is the successor of the popular EZFA, and it features an enormous 1 gigabit of storage. I must admit, at first this cart disappointed me. I was basically expecting an EZFA with 1 gigabit of storage; a simple, but to the point cart that is reliable and speedy. Instead, I got a cart with 1 gigabit of storage that was slow, had problems with running certain games, and had a very different software then the EZFA. However, after looking at this cart from a more objective point of view, therefore eliminating the whole EZFA parallel, I found a good 1 gigabit cart with a great cheat system, an embedded SMS, and a generally lower price then its competitors.
PACKAGING
The E-Cube comes in a nice little wooden red box, which is oddly sprinkled with sparkles, something which I have yet to understand. Inside is a thin plastic cart holder covered in velvet, insuring the cart's safety during shipping. The USB cable was coiled underneath the plastic layer. Other then the strange sparkles, I have nothing to say against this superb packaging.
SOFTWARE
Installing the drivers was very simple using Windows XP; when I plugged the cable I was immediately prompted with a “detected new hardware” screen, from which I was able to find and install the drivers which I had downloaded from the official site. This process was very similar to installing an EZFA and I encountered no problems.
When I opened E-Cube Wizard 2.01, I treated it as if it was an EZFA client; I connected the USB cable to my GBA SP, which contained the E-Cube cartridge, and opened the GBA while holding start and select. Sure enough, the Nintendo logo appeared, but I was then greeted by a black screen. Wondering if I had done something wrong, I looked at the software to see any indication of an error. Oddly, the software connected with the cart and everything seemed ready to go. I found this very strange, and I really don't understand why the peoples at E-Cube did not feel like adding a simple splash screen while connected to the PC as every other flash cart without linker does.
The cart is connected with only a USB cable and a GBA, and it does not use a linker like the EZ3. The lack of a linker had pros and cons. A linker does take more space and can be annoying, but a direct connecting between the GBA and the cart does drain your GBA's batteries a bit.
I then began exploring the software. A neat feature that wasn't in many GBA flash cart clients was the “default directory” option. This allowed me to choose a directory where the program would always point itself when I would browse my computer to add games. Although this is not revolutionary, I found it well thought of and I was happy they added that option.
This cart has a similar cheat system as the EZFA, and it uses IGF. Although it may be a bit complicated to get started with, it is a very useful system, and my personal favorite. I was quite impressed by the cheat function for the E-Cube.
This software also has neat little features such as the option of a logo, an auto-ROM stripper, and a “file folder”, which is basically a storage area where you can store files of any format, turning your E-Cube into a portable hard drive.
I was quite disappointed to see that ROM compression was not included in the software. This was a great feature on the EZ3, and I was disappointed that the E-cube couldn't manage to do the same with their cart. Hopefully this feature will be implemented soon.
Writing speed was certainly disappointing. The E-cube has two writing speed options: “Compatibility” and “Full”. Full speed does not work with some computers, so if that is the case you can use the “Compatibility” mode. Thankfully, my computer worked with “Full”, which is a very good thing as “Compatibility” is considerably slower. Also, when burning is completed, an eerie Asian women's voice is played saying “Job finished”. It sure scared the hell out of me the first time I burned something, especially because I had my speakers cranked to the max and I wasn't expecting it...
As I did with my two other carts, the EZFA and the EZ3, I burned a 64Mb game onto the cart and timed it. On “Full” mode, it took 2:04 minutes to flash a 64Mb game. In “compatibility” mode, it took 3:14 minutes. A huge difference, but both times are very poor compared to other carts.
E-Cube Compatibility: 3:14 minutes
E-Cube full: 2:04 minutes
EZFA: 1:17 minutes
EZ3 EZDisc: 1:02 minutes
Overall, I was rather disappointed with the software. I was expecting something more like the EZFA's client, which is quick and to the point. There are no silly options like “full” and “compatibility” speed, because burning is fast, period. The design is easier and more attractive. The word “burn” is used instead of “Update all”. However, this software does get your games from the computer to the cart slowly but surely (except that one time when it froze on me) and the cheat system is great.
BOOT LOADER
The boot loader was nothing special. It had an ugly, hard to read font and a plain white background. There wasn't anything flashy, and there weren't any icons or a folder structure, but it did get me from the loader to the games quickly and efficiently. Isn't that the point of a boot loader?
However, things didn't look so good when I started testing out the games. Many games, such as Golden Sun 1 and Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers would hang when they were loading, leaving me with nothing more then a white screen. I then tried them both on my EZ3 and Visual boy Advance, and the games worked fine on both. Browsing around the official forum I found that many games have fallen victims to the white screen, however many of them can be fixed by fiddling with the IGN properties, formatting the cart and re-burning, or downloading another dump of the game. This was a huge let down, perhaps the biggest flaw in the cart. I don't feel like having to screw around with the games to figure out why they aren't working, I want to flash them and have them work right away, like they do with my other carts. And even then, certain games do not work at all. Apparently this problem is being worked on, but for the moment this is a major annoyance.
A very good part of this cart was the save system. A SMS (Super Memory Stick) is embedded in the cart, and the saves are written to it and stored there. This means that even if your cart's battery runs dry, your saves will not be deleted as they are stored in the SMS' flash memory.
CONCLUSION
Although I was a bit disappointed by this cart, it does hold its ground. If you are expecting a 1 Gigabit EZFA, you will be disappointed. The software is nowhere near as stable, as simple, or as quick as the EZFA, but it does have a SMS function for the game saves, and it features 1 gigabit of space. This makes a fair cart, despite certain small issues, such as slow burning times and game compatibility problems.
There is certainly room for improvement, but this cart isn't all that bad, and as it is usually lower priced then its competitors in the 1 gigabit range, this could be a cart to consider.
- Big volume product, with 1G, 2G products
- Operates
on a single USB to GBA link port cable. ECube
Likker most portable fashion device for your package, GBA and
GBA SP compatible. (Use the same Flash
Advance Linker that EZF Advance used so if you have it you
only need the new ECube GBA Flash Card and software.)
- RTC - Realtime clock and calendar built-in, perfect for Pokemon,
Golden Sun and future RTC compatible games that need to keep
track of the time, and also ideal for third-party PDA-like
applications.
- Play small games no greater than 2M directly from GBA internal
memory, no cartridge needed, best solution for software developers,
can be used for example to play NES roms emu games and eBook
applications
- Full Hardware Save Game support, perfect support for all
kinds of current and future game save types, and all games.
- 4-Key reboot to game loader in game; software reboot after
burning finished, avoid to turn GBA off and on frequently.
- ECube use the same cable as EZFA .The download cable is ready
to go for future GBA-Internet interactive applications, more
fun you can have with your ECube
- 4-key reboot
to current game will be supported
- Super Memory Stick for Save Games - SMS function is embedded
in ECube cart. Total saver size is only limited to the
volume of cart. And game saver is backuped to Flash automatically.
Users don't need to worry about saver lost during battery
power lose
- USB-Disk Function, make your cart store any PC
files, works as USB-Disk. With the future zip processing,
it could be used as a big-volume U-Disk
- In ECube, games can be deleted and replaced by another gba
rom file randomly. Not like previous flash cart required you
to erase all of the gba roms to be able to add new rom compilation.
- Logo image update is supported.
Summed up:
+ Inner battery charges while laying GBA
+ Can be used for NON gba files.
+ Good power consumption
+ RTC - RelaTime Clock
+ 1024Mb version and bigger
+ Cheat support
+ Innovative cart concept
- No Pogoshell support
+ Embedded SMS stores saves
+ Great cheat system
+ RTC
+ 1 Gigabit of storage
- Slow burning speed
- Game compatibility problems
- No ROM compression
- Plain boot loader
GBA ECube 1G EZF Advance Features review:
- 1 Gbit of flash memory (it's a lot space for many games and
files!)
- This is the next generation of best seller EZF Advance, made
by same people and factory.
- GBA and GBA SP compatible.
- Operates on a single USB to GBA link port cable.
- ECube use the same cable as EZF Advance, the download cable
is ready to go for future GBA-Internet interactive applications.
- NEW! U-Disk Function , make your cart store
normal files, worked as a U-Disk. With the future zip processing,
it could be a big-volume U-Disk.
- NEW! Games can be deleted randomly (not
like in previous flash carts).
- Real time clock and calendar built-in, perfect for Pokemon
and future RTC compatible games, and also ideal for third-party
PDA-like applications.
- Play small games no greater than 2M directly via cable, no
cart needed, best solution for developers, FC emu games and
ebook applications.
- Hardware saver support, perfect support for all kinds of
current and future saver types, and all games.
- 4-Key reboot to game loader in game; software reboot after
burning finished, avoid to turn GBA off and on frequently.
- 4-key reboot to current game will be supported.
- SMS (SuperMemory Stick) function is embedded in the cart.
Total saver size is only limited to the volume of cart. And
game saver is backuped to Flash automatically. Users don't
need to worry about saver lost during battery power lose.
- Support for logo image update.
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GBA ECube Software
