After I messed a bit around with an Evercade SD adaptor, I reached out to the guys from EverSD, and asked for a review copy of their product. They were kind enough to send me a free review copy if I covered the shipping cost.
I have spent some time playing with the product so in this review I will share my thought about it and in the end conclude if it's any good and if it's worth the money.
First, let me describe what the EverSD is, and what its purpose is. The EverSD is a cartridge for the Evercade / Evercade VS system, that makes it possible to copy software directly to a micro SD card and then insert the micro SD card into the EverSD cartridge. After that, you just insert the EverSD into your console, and it runs the software on your system. This way you are not limited to the software that Blaze has released on the official cartridges. Instead you have the option to run anything you want on the Evercade systems. Or at least that's the theory.
Solutions like this exists on a lot of different consoles. It always seems to split the crowd into two groups. One group argues that these solutions glorify pirating games and as a result causes a drop in sales of the games for the system. The other group however focuses on the whole homebrew aspect instead.
When it comes to the EverSD, I don't think that this solution opposes the sales of original Evercade games in any way. The main reason for that is that the entire Evercade concept doesn't attract people who just want to play pirate games in the first place. Instead collectors who enjoy the full cartridge / manual / box collecting thing. People who don't care about collecting would probably just have chosen a Raspberry Pie solution or similar, right away. In those cases the entire EverSD aspect would be irrelevant and you would simply be able to insert the micro SD card directly into the system. I cannot imagine anyone buying the Evercade only to use it with an EverSD to play pirated games. The reasoning behind that argument is that there are so many better options out there, if that's your thing.
For the purpose of this review, I tested the EverSD with some ROMs for different systems, and the result was as expected. Some games worked fine, other games would not start up at all. A couple of games had issues with the controls ingame whilst other games froze or switched to black screen while loading. However this is not the EverSD not working, but instead compatibility issues with some games that are not optimized for the Evercade system in the first place. I tested the same games with the micro SD adaptor that I build, and I had the exact same issues. Without having opened up the EverSD unit, I assume that the internal PCB is just a micro SD adaptor, with a similar layout to the one that I built myself, just in a more sleek way where the micro SD slot is soldered directly to the cartridge PCB.
With that in mind, the hardware part of the EverSD does the job when it comes to providing the right connections between the micro SD card and the Evercade unit. I would assume that it is possible to mess around with RetroArch and different cores for a lot of different systems, and in that way achieve better compatibility results.
Up until this point, the EverSD does the job regarding the goal of letting the player have full control of what software is about to run on the Evercade. That said, there are some trouble when it comes to the patching of the firmware, that effects the use of the EverSD. The reason for this is, that the EverSD in theory uses the same technology as an official game cart. The official game cards use an SD chip that is soldered directly onto the PCB instead of using a micro SD cart that is removable. The big issue here is that the official SD chips has a lot less storage space (<512 MB), which is used as part of the copy protection provided in the official firmware, to deny the use of SD cards that are larger in capacity. That means that the official firmware has to be patched, to let the system unlock the ability to use larger micro SD cards, ignoring the capacity cap check.
In practice, it does mean that the user dependents on the EverSD software. Since Blaze is updating the official firmware from time to time, countering the EverSD patching software in the process, the user has to be sure that there is an updated patch available on the EverSD download page, before updating the official firmware. At the time of this review, the official firmware is at 2.0.4, and the EverSD patch only supports up until firmware 2.0.1. If the user therefore updates the firmware to the latest version, the EverSD won't work, until EverSD releases a new patch. Since my Evercade VS has the latest firmware installed, I haven't had the opportunity to test the EverSD on my VS. All the testing has therefore been done on my Evercade handheld.
When it comes to the software, EverSD offers some user-friendly programs to patch the firmware and to transfer games to the micro SD card. Overall, EverSD does a fine job on the software front. That said, I would still encourage EverSD to prioritize releasing up-to-date patches regarding newer firmware versions.
Now I would like to talk about some things that I don't like about the EverSD, and that is the finish of the product itself. When you look at the pictures on the EverSD website, the unit looks sharp, clean and beautiful. I am aware that the pictures are screenshots from the 3D software, that EverSD has used to draw the unit, but to me, they appear misleading compared to the actual product. The problem is that the real unit itself looks and feels like a cheap piece of SLS print, which immediately results in a big disappointment as soon as you unpack it. The different in the overall finish, compared to the product you saw on the website, is simply huge. Especially if you have just bought the EverSD for the full price, I would assume that the disappointment would be big. In my opinion, EverSD should upload some real photos of their product, to avoid this disappointment for future customers.
Another issue that I have to talk about is that fact that the EverSD cartridge seems to use slightly different measurements, than the official cartridges, which leads to trouble inserting and removing the EverSD in the Evercade handheld and VS units. I had to use a good amount of force when using the EverSD, which seems like something that could damage the system (and EverSD) in the long run. I don't understand why this is even an issue in the first place, since it should be straight forward to take some precise measurements and copy these numbers. A product that don't fit or only fits badly, is a serious problem in my book, and I would recommend that EverSD steps up there game, when it comes to quality control.
Now to the conclusion. Is the EverSD worth your money? At the time of this review, EverSD is asking €40 + shipping for the EverSD card. Depending on your understanding regarding what the EverSD actually is, and your skill set to make a micro SD adaptor yourself, it may be an okay option, if money is no issue.
At this point, I think that EverSD is a mixed bag and all over the place. It is a great concept and a very useful product, but with an awful finish regarding the surface of the product and the inaccurate dimensions. The software is easy to understand and user-friendly, but there are major problems with patches that are out of date and need updates. The website is beautiful and offers great info on the product, but misleads at the same time the costumer when it comes to what to expect of the hardware itself.
If EverSD takes care of these issues in the future, I think they could have a strong product well worth the €40. As for now, I think the issues are too serious to ignore, and therefore I don't think that the EverSD is worth the €40.
Lastly, I would like to share some thought about the EverSD and how I think the product could improve. After fixing the existing issues mentioned above, it would be awesome if the EverSD would be packed in a box and with a manual similar to the official Evercade games, instead of just an simple antistatic bag. The box could be the exact same as the ones used for games and the cover could be something in a different color, with the mentioning of homebrew or development kit, or something like that.
The manual could include some introduction to some easy and user-friendly development software, that the user could dive into with the purpose of developing homebrew games for the system. It could even be some cooperation with companies who makes development tools for retrogames. A small guide book with some tips & tricks regarding entering the homebrew scene.
Here at the end, I would like to make a shout-out to the guys from EverSD, and to thank them for providing me a review sample. I hope you guys will improve the EverSD in the future!
Update 25. april 2022:
I just noticed that there has been released a new EverPatcherVS (version 1.3) on the EverSD website. Back when I wrote the review, one of my complaints was the missing support for the Evercade VS, once it had been updated with newer firmware. With the release of the EverPatcherVS 1.3 I decided to see if it would work. I had the newest official firmware installed (2.1.0), when I attempted to install the custom EverSD firmware with EverPatcherVS 1.3. Once the firmware was installed, it was time to test the system again!
And here were are again... The mixed results. The firmware - the software - itself works! I can confirm this with my microSD adapter cartridge, that I build myself. The problem is, that I don't see any games when I'm using the EverSD unit. Since the EverSD is most likely the exact same build as the microSD adapter cartridge, I would assume that there is a hardware problem with the unit. Therefor, I tested the EverSD unit in my Evercade Handheld, with the new lineup of games that I copied to the micro SD card. On the handheld, the games show up, and the EverSD seems to work fine.
Since I know for a fact that the new custom firmware on the VS is compatible with the software on the microSD, and the EverSD work on the handheld but not the VS, I would assume that there is a hardware issue between the EverSD and the VS unit. As described in the review, I noticed that the EverSD fits very poorly in the VS unit, which make it possible that the connection between the EverSD and the VS has some issues. I can't say for sure, but I would not be surprised, if the problem has something to do with the poor measurements on the EverSD unit, that makes the unit fit extremely tight and imprecise in the Evercade VS unit.
With that said, my new conclusion would be that EverSD offers some great software, but as long as the hardware seems to offer imprecise measurements and poor build quality, I can't recommend spending €40 on this product, unless you really want to gamble and hope for the best. I hope EverSD will improve the hardware in the future!
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