ION iCade Junior Review
When I came across the cute little accessory for the iPhone and iPod I immediately fell in love. I mean, anyone who remembers feeding their lunch money into those arcade machines back in the day of Street Fighter, Mortal Combat, Space Invaders and even Pac Man, would definitely know what I am talking about when we take a look at this little gaming gadget from ION.
Introducing, the ION iCade Junior. Why “Junior” you may ask? Simple, he has a big brother that stands about a foot and a half tall that caters to the Apple iPAD and is called, “The ION iCade” (surprise surprise). So, what does this little marvel (i.e. The iCade Junior) do anyway?
In short, this little device allows you to play your favorite games on your iPhone or iPod touch through a miniature version of an arcade cabinet. There is even a application that you can download from the Apple Store called “Atari’s Greatest Hits” which is compatible with the ION iCade Junior as well as its big brother that allows you to play some of the great classics from the days of the ole wood grain exterior Atari 2600 days!
So, what are the features of this cute little accessory? In the front there is a little detachable joystick with the familiar red lollipop looking ball located on the top of the joystick. For those of you who want to use a D-pad instead can easily unscrew the joystick to get full access to the D-pad, which I must say, feels very good and springy (similar to the feel of a typical Nintendo GameBoy D-pad).
There are also four buttons on the front panel which can actually take long hours of button mashing (I have been reliving Space Invaders on my iCade Junior every lunch time at the office and the buttons are still holding up pretty well!)
Seeing that many of today’s modern games require lots more buttons, the good folks at ION have also given the iCade junior an additional four more buttons located at the back of the unit as well, so you can actually have the option of using these as shoulder buttons, just like what you would normally find on a gamepad.
The ION iCade Junior can comfortably hold an iPhone 4 or 4S sized phone when in portrait mode as well as an iPod Touch. There also is a little cradle located along the bottom of where you would place your phone in the event that you want to play games in landscape mode – and hence you can lie the iPhone or iPod Touch down on its side as well. That being said, if you want to use the slightly taller iPhone 5 and 5S phones you will have to leave the flap at the top in the open position.
At this point the ION iCade Junior is only compatible with Apple devices and it is a great gift idea for anyone who is a technology geek or serious video game enthusiast who wants to relive the good old days of zapping aliens and avoiding asteroids without having to empty their piggy bank of quarters.
Lucky for you, if you want to get one of these for yourself (or as a gift for a friend) you can buy them from Amazon from the link below.
I even did a YouTube video review of this nice little ION iCade Junior Apple accessory as well which you can view below.