The EZ Flash Omega is a GBA/NDS/NDS Lite compatible flashcart that enables you to play downloaded GBA, NES, GB, and GBC ROMs and homebrew. It is a newly released flashcart from the EZ Flash Team, the team that brought us the popular and affordable EZ Flash IV. This EZ Flash Omega Review will cover in-depth the pros and cons of this flashcart.
What’s the EZ Flash Omega?
The EZ Flash Omega was released in April 2018. This flashcart comes at interesting time, since several GBA flashcart solutions have been out for years prior to this one. So the question is, does this flashcart utilize the latest technology and improvements to warrant a 2018 release? Also, does it hold up to the competition? Let’s find out!
Features
- GBA game copy and play, no client needed
- Fast patch engine, instant game load speed, additional manual patch engine to support modified rom
- Hardware based direct save to Micro SD card
- Cheats supported
- Save states
- Real time clock
- Sleep
- Hotkey customizable
- 256Mb PSRAM suppot all games, instant load
- 512Mb Norflash, keep your favorite games
- GB/GBC/NES game copy and play
- System on chip level recovery mode, prevent upgrade dead
- Supports FAT16/FAT32/EXFAT
- Supports 128MB to 128GB Micro SD card
- Firmware and kernel both are upgradable
These features are substantial improvements over the EZ Flash IV. Fast load times, Real Time Clock (RTC) support, and the ability to use unpatched ROMs put this flashcart in line with top tier carts such as the EverDrive GBA X5.
This flashcart supports booting ROMs with add-ons which allows you to use features such as Real Time Save (RTS), Cheats, Reset, and Sleep.
Cheats work decently well. The drawback is that you must select the cheats you want before loading the game and they can’t be changed mid-game. You can turn all of them off or on at once. You’ll need to save and quit the game in order to change the cheats you want enabled.
Real Time Saves (RTS) are very buggy in their current state. It has been troublesome loading a savestate only to have the screen and audio glitch out. Sometimes, it even freezes the system. The amount and severity of bugs experienced varies by game. Hopefully we see improvements on this feature in future versions of the firmware/kernel.
Sleep mode works fine in the games that I have tested. I’ve yet to see if keeping the GBA in sleep mode when not playing helps conserve battery life. Reset lets you go back to the kernel interface which is a nice touch.
Do you know what’s the EZ Flash Omega ‘s Pros and Cons?
| Pros | Cons |
| Super quick loading times | RTS feature is buggy |
| Drag and Drop ROMs — no patching required | Saving requires you to wait 5 seconds to ensure the save file does not get corrupted |
| Built in emulators for playing NES, GB, and GBC ROMs | Non-removable lithium ion battery |
| RTC support | exFAT file system is limited to one folder in depth |
Tips:
Overall, the EZ Flash Omega is the cheapest top performing flashcart on the market. It boasts the features of the EverDrive GBA X5 at almost half the price. The flashcart is built very sturdily and fits snugly into any console thanks to the swappable plastic enclosures that are included in the box.
Though the Real Time Save (RTS) feature is lacking and often buggy and you’re required to wait 5 seconds after saving a game, the EZ Flash team is actively releasing new versions of the kernel to improve the flashcart’s functionality.
