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I bet you haven't heard a whole lot about this one until now. EWIN Flash is probably best known in Asia, heck sofar only one western supplier is selling this
copier, 01media based sweden. The question now is if the EWIN just is another EZ-Flash spinoff/ripoff. We probably won't get the answer in this review, or will
know if it really "burn dreams at will!", but please continue reading review anyway, please?.... ok? :-)
PACKAGING
Packaging is always important. Yes, it becomes quite useless once the copier device has been removed from it, but packaging sells, and this packaging is the
most shiny red one I've ever seen. It states that the device is for Gameboy Advance/SP, which is great as I'm trying to review a GBA copier here. The box also
claims that EWIN will "burn dreams at will!", whatever that means, as mentioned.
What makes me wonder now, is what relation the EWIN has to another GBA copier called "Smart Card", as it also uses the exact same slogan. Who knows, maybe they
just used the same packaging designer. The question has yet to be answered, but I doubt it ever will be.
Smart Card also "burns dreams at will"
Yes, this is a box
Okay enough fecking about, the box looks really cool and does the job perfectly, protecting your valuable purchase on it's way to your doorstep.
Inside the box is, very surprisingly, the EWIN flast cart can be found. The cart comes in either a 256 or 512mbit version, eventhough the box also claims that a
128 and 1024mbit version exit, these have yet to be seen on sale anywhere. The cartridge is manufactured in 6 different colors, red - yellow - blue - pink -
black - white, I've only ever seen the red and black ones though, but would've loved to get a yellow one just for the heck of it. Inside the box is also the
linker (aka. EWIN Burner), in true EZ-Flash design, a USB cable, a CD with an outdated driver and software and a manual written in chinese only.
EWIN doesn't really need a manual though, there's one cable to connect which can't be attached incorrectly unless you're extremely, erm stupid. The windows
software is fortunately released in english, making the software installation a whole lot easier, heh.
CARTRIDGE AND LINKER
As mentioned, the cart comes in various storage sizes and colors, heck even with different cartridge labels, depending on the storage size.
The EWIN cartridge - let's you burn dreams at will.
The cartridge menu is based on the infamous Pogoshell, featuring all sorts of nice things such as easy use of emulators for the gba, and even features
customizable background, which seems disabled in the EWIN version though?. The cart also features RTC (Real Time Clock) and even has a SMS
(save storage) built-in.
The pogoshell menu works like a charm, it's very easy to use and works a bit like the Windows file explorer, I believe that was the whole idea behind Pogoshell?
The linker. better known as the EWIN burner, is designed in true EZ-Flash ripoff style. A led on the linker indicates when the linker is idle (green) and
active (red blinking). Some linkers sometimes have a hard time detecting the flash cart, the EWIN burner has no such problem.
EWIN Burner
The linker is USB 2.0 compatible which should allow for some nice upload times, but uploading 32mbit binary to the cart takes no less than 41 seconds.
I'd say it could be worse, but not in the better end of the flash card scale either, isn't that what you call average?.
WINDOWS SOFTWARE
Anyway, the latest software available when this review was made, was EWIN Client V0.72a. At first glimpse the software seems very simple, which is a great thing
for new GBA copier users.
EWIN Client software
Pretty much what you see on the screen is what you see in the cartridge GUI, pokeshell. The software offers various options such as "eeprom to sram save"
patching, reduction of overdumps, intro remover and even a soft reset using a button combination of your choice.
But that's not all, included is also a list of all scene releases. It is a bit outdated though, the latest release is number 1923, but as far as I know there's
more than 2000 releases now. The list also shows a couple of screenshots for each game, but it looks like they quickly got tired of making screenshots, as only
about 20 games have screenshots.
The Real Time Clock (RTC)is easy ans simple to set, using a the clock button, also shown in the screnshot above.
Should the client software be unable to detect the cartridge, which could be caused by a corrupt card, there's an extra small program included which will allow
you to format the cart. The format feature is of course also available in the client software.
The software has two modes, "Hard mode" and "Easy mode", by switching to easy mode, you're able to upload just one file to the cart and not use the pogoshell
GUI. This feature is brilliant as it allows the user to run NDS homebrew using the EWIN, you of course still need a PassMe adapter though. But stil a great
included feature by the programmer, maybe this is what "burn dreams at will" actually means? :-)
Besides the obvious support for GBA games, even zipped (nice!), the EWIN also seems to support for NES, GB and PCE games, support for multiboot files to be
loaded from the GUI, as well as picture and ebook viewers. Please note though that the plug-ins for all of these features aren't installed
by default, you have to upload them to the cart yourself. The plug-ins are located in a "plug-in" directory, created in the directory the EWIN client is
installed in. However, even when the plug-ins were installed, I wasn't able to run any nes or gb roms.
SAVE TYPES SUPPORTED
I was originally going to to the game test that I've done with most of my recent copier reviews. But it looks like the EWIN doesn't allow for EEPROM saving.
To make up for this missing save type, the software features something called "EEPROM to SRSM patching", meaning that by switching on this option,
all EEPROM saves are converted to SRAM saves.
The feature is great, very useful, but I would much rather have the game save using it's native save type. It's clearly a must if you're one of those who
exchange saves with others over the internet.
Flash saving seems to be working flawless.
FINAL WORD
I never really figured out how to burn dreams at will, well except for the NDS homebrew maybe, or how the Smart Card and EWIN copiers are related, since
they share the same strange slogan. Fact is though, that one isn't a copy of the other. The Smart Card and EZF-Advance III copiers are identical though.
I was surprised by the good quality of the EWIN and it seems a bit strange to me that it isn't available on more than one European website.
There are only a few bad things to say about the EWIN. One is the lack of EEPROM save support is a serious problem. Suppport from the manufacturer doesn't seem
to be of very high standard either. No new client software has been released for a very long time, i mean why bother including a scene release list in the
software if you don't intend to keep it updated. But fact is that the software works really great and is of much better quality than most of the client
software I've seen for other copiers recently. Also, no english support is available on their website.
With this said, I have to say that the EWIN is one of the most reliable copier I've ever used, the windows software works great, uploading times are average
(not bad) and the cart does what it's supposed to, well except from running anything that requires a plug-in, hehe.
+ Nice looking packaging, gives a feel of quality :-)
+ Incredibly great and easy to use Windows client software
+ Burns dreams at will! (Best reason to buy this one)
+ Zipped ROM support in the client software.
- Lack of EEPROM support
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