Remember the OUYA Kickstarter project and how for a brief moment in time, people actually believed that Android gaming would suddenly become a thing? Well, that project failed, and since then we’ve seen an infinite number of companies offer the exact same product. There was the Mad Catz MOJO, NVIDIA Shield, the GameStick, the MOJA controller, the iConsoleTV, and the list just goes on and on. For some strange reason, Huawei has decided that they too want a plot in the Android Gaming Cemetery, so they’ve announced “Tron”.
What exactly is “Tron”? It’s an NVIDIA Tegra 4 powered tube shaped device that runs Android 4.3 and has a controller that’s obviously a clone of Microsoft’s XBOX controller. According to Engadget, “Tron” will cost less than $150 when it starts shipping later this year, and it’ll only be available in China. Makes sense when you think about it, Huawei probably isn’t paying for the right to use the “Tron” brand, which I’m sure is owned by Disney or something.
What should you buy if you actually want to do some serious Android gaming? That’s easy, either the Nexus 5 or the Nexus 7. Both devices offer an excellent specs to price ratio that you won’t find anywhere else. Yes, there are phones and tablets with more RAM and higher resolution screens, but they cost twice as much.
And if you really want something to connect to your TV, do the trick that all parents have known about for decades: Buy last generation’s console and a boatload of used games. You’d be surprised how cheap an XBOX 360 costs these days.
