As a gaming enthusiast and electronics technician (with a focus on keeping devices functional and running for as long as possible), the proliferation of retro handhelds over the last five years or...
Exemplary
As a gadget gaming enthusiast and electronics technician (with a focus on keeping devices functional and running for as long as possible), the proliferation of retro handhelds over the last five years or so has split my brain in two.
On the one hand, I'm happy that so many people are finding joy in the incredible advances in miniaturization and portable computing we've witnessed over the past decade. The revitalization of interest in old titles and the ability to keep obscure and previously inaccessible games alive and relevant is fantastic. I think gaming is an important and somewhat underappreciated cultural phenomenon, and the opportunity these sorts of devices provide to help keep the history of the medium from slipping away from us into the haze of time shouldn't be dismissed. Plus, the doodads themselves are just neat.
On the other hand, the electronics repair and sustainability side of my brain weeps. I won't pretend I have extensive experience with this class of product, but I do have some, and my opinion of the design philosophy that goes into their production is pretty negative. From my limited experience, they are usually designed with an emphasis on low production costs and maximizing UX above all else. That sounds fine by itself, but anyone who has tried building a gizmo of their own can tell you that every design element of compact electronics comes with its own set of trade-offs, and from what I can tell, the trade-offs most of the makers of these handheld devices choose is usually repairability and sustainability.
They simply have next to no incentive to make devices that can stand up to sustained use for longer than a few months, or that someone with the desire can reasonably be expected to maintain and keep functional. The priority is to keep costs low in order to keep their companies viable, and to implement a sufficiently user-friendly design to make them stand out among their peers. As a result, they're almost universally made to be only slightly less disposable than your average cigarette lighter.
Case in point: I have a friend (also a technician who is currently in the electronics recycling industry and admits to knowing better but being unable to help himself) who is into these sorts of devices. Recently, his Retroid's battery decided to become a spicy pillow. No problem, he thought, I'll just replace it. He got the device open and the battery out in order to get the part number, only to find that the battery was a custom build and the maker absolutely refuses to ship replacements. "Cannot be shipped due to safety" was given as the reason. The CSR didn't bother even attempting to justify that reasoning with the fact that Li-ion batteries are shipped in their thousands every day the world over. It's not worth it to them, so they won't consider it. As I said, my knowledge of the glut of options available out there is slim, so perhaps Retroid is particularly bad in this regard, but I have never personally seen one of these devices that was designed to be anything but disposable junk. Flashy, neat junk, but junk all the same.
The constant stream of new models every few months with little substantive improvements beyond slightly crisper displays or new implementations of familiar old form factors is, I think, a clue to the design philosophies they operate under. Many of these companies would rather you buy a new device every year than go to the expense and trouble to design and support devices that can be upgraded or repaired to keep them functional for very long. I can only blame these makers so far for this, because the incentives for the electronics industry are all fucked up from top to bottom, but "hate the game, not the player" is an argument that only goes so far with me.
I really don't like being a wet blanket, especially in this. Like I said, these devices really do represent a fusion of two of my passions in life, albeit imperfectly. I know that it's immensely tiring to have your every interest and purchasing decision turned into an ethical conundrum, and I get the impulse to ignore the ethical dimension just in this one tiny corner of your life. I get it. I really do.
But I implore you, I beg you, demand more from both the makers and yourself. Do not buy these gizmos unless you have good reason to believe the support is there and sustainable. Pull yourself back from the hype train and investigate: does the manufacturer have a history of supplying replacement parts? Are there Reddit posts asking after basic repair support from them that go unanswered? Is there a reasonably robust second-hand market for this model or make, and more importantly parts? Ask yourself what trade-offs do you think were made to reach the price point and features they're touting, and consider whether those features are worth it and if there might be alternatives that aren't as flashy or portable that might prove more sustainable as long-term devices.
I've made no secret of my admiration for the Steam Deck and its repair-friendly design, and while I understand that it's bulky and not designed expressly for the purpose of retro emulation, I think the trade-offs are reasonable and considered. Valve is an established company and is offering exactly the sort of support we should all expect for a device like this through their partnership with iFixit.
I can also understand being leery of Valve, with their virtual monopoly on PC game distribution and morally dubious (to put it mildly) participation in gambling mechanics, so I'll pull back from a full-throated endorsement of the Steam Deck.
I will ask however that you consider what it is about a prospective purchase that recommends it over something like the Deck or the Ally or similar–devices which can accomplish much the same thing, offer better support and longer lifecycles, but aren't tailored in their designs and marketing specifically to a niche demographic to which you belong. Is it really the features–the design itself–that appeals to you, or is it something a little less substantial?
[Edited "gadget" to "gaming," because that's really what I intended to say. I'm not a gadget collector really.]
Even as an owner of a Deck myself, I think their size and bulk is much more of an obstacle for people than may be popularly thought. The Switch’s form factor is probably the upper bounds for what...
Even as an owner of a Deck myself, I think their size and bulk is much more of an obstacle for people than may be popularly thought. The Switch’s form factor is probably the upper bounds for what the masses find palatable in a portable gaming device, but you’re not going to get that without repurposed smartphone hardware or dramatically reduced battery life and increased heat.
If Valve continues to target the current Deck’s performance levels, this should improve in time however. I could see a Deck 2.0 or 3.0 that leverages newer process nodes to deliver 1.0’s performance at much lower power consumption and heat levels, which would enable smaller, lighter form factors.
Yeah. I never take my Steam Deck on regular outings given its bulk, but I have taken my Switch because it could fit in one of my purses. One, because I have three small purses and it's too long...
Yeah. I never take my Steam Deck on regular outings given its bulk, but I have taken my Switch because it could fit in one of my purses. One, because I have three small purses and it's too long for the other two (despite actually buying one thinking it would be big enough). And even then, I think I usually have to remove one joycon if I want to zip it shut? Basically, the Switch is more portable than the Steam Deck, but it's still a hassle. Honestly I just take my 3DS on casual outings these days because it can fit in my coat pocket.
Given the games Valve wants to support, I'm not sure how much they can "shrink" the Steam Deck though. Most games are made with full computer monitors or TVs in mind these days, so a lot of detail could be lost or feel too cluttered on a smaller screen. Hell, plenty of games already have a problem with text being too small on the Steam Deck's screen right now. So there's a limit to how small they can make the screen, which limits the overall size.
I think that's part of why all these emulator devices are popping up. Older games are less demanding on hardware, and many of those were already made for handhelds or could be more easily shrunk to fit smaller screens. So the device can be very small indeed, and easily fit into a pocket.
I do use my RG35XXSP quite a bit as it can play a lot of my old favorites and new to me titles through Portmaster, but I understand the concern about sustainability. Should I run into an issue...
I do use my RG35XXSP quite a bit as it can play a lot of my old favorites and new to me titles through Portmaster, but I understand the concern about sustainability. Should I run into an issue with it, is there a recommended option for a small form factor, with a Linux/custom firmware option that's also sustainable without breaking the bank? The first thing that comes to mind would be something like a Pi conversion kit, but that seems to me like you would run into a lot of similar problems depending on the manufacturer.
Pi conversion kits are very often better solutions sustainability-wise. The necessity to supply the guts means that they're generally more amenable to repair, simply because you have to throw the...
Pi conversion kits are very often better solutions sustainability-wise. The necessity to supply the guts means that they're generally more amenable to repair, simply because you have to throw the thing together yourself in the first place. On top of which, they're much more likely to be designed with off-the-shelf components than bespoke ones.
I can't recommend a specific maker, but I can give you some tips on how to shop for something that stands a better chance of long-term viability. First, check the manufacturer's storefront to see if they offer replacement components a la carte. The components you're most likely to need to replace on a retro handheld are the display, the battery and the HIDs (control sticks and buttons, most often). After that, the plastics, the power management board, and the motherboard are most likely to shit out, so check for those next.
Second, put the full model name (not the marketing name, as sometimes they can be used for multiple models) into a search engine with "battery replacement" or "display replacement" appended, and look for forum posts on places like Reddit asking where to find replacement parts. It's a bad sign if the replies are all "I have this problem too. Plz help!" or no replies at all. It's also a good idea to check iFixit to see if anyone has posted teardowns or repair guides, though I've found that lately iFixit isn't as comprehensive as they used to be. I think compact computing has just blown up too fast for the repair geeks to really keep up. (I still highly recommend you pick up one of their toolkits though. Their 64-bit Mako driver kit is a fixture in maybe 3/4s of the IT departments I've been to over the years, and I've been to a lot. This one is my rec for regular users who want to keep their gizmos working.)
The bad news is that I think price needs to be your last concern. Like I said in my first post, electronics design is a game of trade-offs, and the prime motivator working against sustainability is price. That goes beyond simply the modularity or ease of repair as well. Sustainability is about more than just durability and repairability; for something to truly be sustainable, it needs to do its job well. A device is a piece of junk if it doesn't work the way you need it to, even if it's perfectly repairable. People generally don't go to the effort to fix things that kind of suck to begin with.
But now we're coming into the territory of those cliche signs you might see in an auto shop: "Quick, cheap, or done well: pick any two," only in our case, I think "small" stands in for "quick," and "repairable" for "done well." I suppose it's possible that some company somewhere might be able to crack the code and manage to unite the three with scaled production and a galaxy-brained engineering department, but I haven't encountered them yet.
This class of product itself is a particular challenge to repairability, because the overall size of the devices imposes limits on modularity of design, but that's a whole other rant. Suffice to say for now that this is the trait that most makes me critical of the device category rather than just the specific manufacturers who choose to make them, if that makes sense.
Good post! I think everyone who is considering buying one of these should at least try to repurpose their old 3DS/PSP/Vita they may have lying around into a emulation handheld. Those are more...
Good post! I think everyone who is considering buying one of these should at least try to repurpose their old 3DS/PSP/Vita they may have lying around into a emulation handheld. Those are more repairable and have better build quality.
Yeah i was pretty disappointed in my retroid pocket 3. The idea of the device is almost perfect, but it's already got weird behaviors and glitches (which...yeah it's basically a frankensteined...
Yeah i was pretty disappointed in my retroid pocket 3. The idea of the device is almost perfect, but it's already got weird behaviors and glitches (which...yeah it's basically a frankensteined android), and it wound up becoming more of a project than a toy, which then leads to "fuck it should I just buy a new one?".
If I could find someone making something bulletproof but small (and I care a lot less about power), i'd love it, but it's so so hard to tell with the reviews out there. They'll tell me framerates on Gamecube games with a zillion settings I'm never going to touch, but no one ever has a "ok 5 months later here's everything that lasted".
Hear hear. I love these devices but have limited myself to buying them second hand because I feel too icky supporting their disposable nature directly. I still feel guilty buying second hand! But...
Hear hear. I love these devices but have limited myself to buying them second hand because I feel too icky supporting their disposable nature directly. I still feel guilty buying second hand! But I can’t deny that these little devices have made me love video games again…
I’m glad to hear that the Steam Deck is repairable. I’d love to get one some day … when they bring down the size/weight and improve the battery life a bit.
Please, dismiss any guilt you feel about buying secondhand. The alternative is that the device doesn't get used at all, or at best, gets recycled. I spent years in the e-cycling industry, and I'm...
I still feel guilty buying second hand! But I can’t deny that these little devices have made me love video games again…
Please, dismiss any guilt you feel about buying secondhand. The alternative is that the device doesn't get used at all, or at best, gets recycled. I spent years in the e-cycling industry, and I'm here to tell you that recycling is such a distant third-best in the "reduce, reuse, recycle" litany that it's a joke. Buying used is the second-best thing to not having such a device at all, from a sustainability point of view.
Also, your choice to buy used is a single drop in a massive bucket of incentive for the OEMs to design durable, functional and sustainable devices. Considering the social and economic forces arrayed against repair and sustainability, we need all the drops we can get.
Oooh, I was hoping this would happen. I still own a PSP Go, but don't use it too often, given the poor emulation performance and the fact that it has a proprietary connector, but I would love to...
Oooh, I was hoping this would happen. I still own a PSP Go, but don't use it too often, given the poor emulation performance and the fact that it has a proprietary connector, but I would love to have something new in that form factor.
That said, I already have several of these types of devices, so I'm not sure if it would fit in or not. I could previously get rid of my TrimUI Brick for this, but either way, I'll probably wait until they work out the kinks before picking one up.
More of a breakdown has been released here. https://youtu.be/RzphzDAlc_M Disappointed it's an Android box, but still something of a neat form factor for a non phone.
Looks surprisingly huge and also surprisingly powerful. Both of which might be strikes against it for me. I like the slide form factor, which will absolutely make it pocketable, but too big and...
Looks surprisingly huge and also surprisingly powerful. Both of which might be strikes against it for me. I like the slide form factor, which will absolutely make it pocketable, but too big and you start getting into this "not really a portable I'll take around with me category." As an example, the Flip 2 and the Pocket 5 look like fantastic systems, but they're just a bit too large for me to realistically take places with me; not only are they eating up a huge amount of pocket space, but I'd feel awkward whipping out something so huge. One of the big reasons I like the Miyoo Mini and the TrimUI Brick is that they're so small, I can whip them out and play them pretty discretely.
Power is also a big issue for me: Realistically, even if I am carrying this thing around with me, I'm unlikely to be playing Gamecube or PS2 on it. Those games are just not built to be played portably. They're nice to have, for sure, but if I'm bringing a handheld out with me for some quick gaming sessions, I'll be playing stuff like Gameboy, GBA even NES; stuff I can drop into and out of very quickly and easily. Which means PS2 would likely be played at home, but if I'm doing that, I may as well play on my Steam Deck for the additional power and screensize.
Also, given the power shown, I expect this to be somewhere around the $250-$300 range, which just isn't realistic for me. I bought my 405m a year or so after release, because even $200 seemed like it was too much for that particular device (I paid $130, if I recall).
That said, Android is a huge boon for me. I actually prefer Android over Linux, because I'm very familiar with it and how to integrate it well into my network and life in general. I love that I can jump on my RG 405m, load-up Firefox (with adblock!), grab a ROM and then hit the races. Or even, grab a save off (or transfer one to) my file server and play where I left off on my Steam Deck or whatever.
I'll tentatively wait for Russ to review it and then think about it, especially if it's over $200 (which it definitely will be). Maybe I can pick it up in a year when it's cheaper and any kinks it has will have been worked out.
As a
gadgetgaming enthusiast and electronics technician (with a focus on keeping devices functional and running for as long as possible), the proliferation of retro handhelds over the last five years or so has split my brain in two.On the one hand, I'm happy that so many people are finding joy in the incredible advances in miniaturization and portable computing we've witnessed over the past decade. The revitalization of interest in old titles and the ability to keep obscure and previously inaccessible games alive and relevant is fantastic. I think gaming is an important and somewhat underappreciated cultural phenomenon, and the opportunity these sorts of devices provide to help keep the history of the medium from slipping away from us into the haze of time shouldn't be dismissed. Plus, the doodads themselves are just neat.
On the other hand, the electronics repair and sustainability side of my brain weeps. I won't pretend I have extensive experience with this class of product, but I do have some, and my opinion of the design philosophy that goes into their production is pretty negative. From my limited experience, they are usually designed with an emphasis on low production costs and maximizing UX above all else. That sounds fine by itself, but anyone who has tried building a gizmo of their own can tell you that every design element of compact electronics comes with its own set of trade-offs, and from what I can tell, the trade-offs most of the makers of these handheld devices choose is usually repairability and sustainability.
They simply have next to no incentive to make devices that can stand up to sustained use for longer than a few months, or that someone with the desire can reasonably be expected to maintain and keep functional. The priority is to keep costs low in order to keep their companies viable, and to implement a sufficiently user-friendly design to make them stand out among their peers. As a result, they're almost universally made to be only slightly less disposable than your average cigarette lighter.
Case in point: I have a friend (also a technician who is currently in the electronics recycling industry and admits to knowing better but being unable to help himself) who is into these sorts of devices. Recently, his Retroid's battery decided to become a spicy pillow. No problem, he thought, I'll just replace it. He got the device open and the battery out in order to get the part number, only to find that the battery was a custom build and the maker absolutely refuses to ship replacements. "Cannot be shipped due to safety" was given as the reason. The CSR didn't bother even attempting to justify that reasoning with the fact that Li-ion batteries are shipped in their thousands every day the world over. It's not worth it to them, so they won't consider it. As I said, my knowledge of the glut of options available out there is slim, so perhaps Retroid is particularly bad in this regard, but I have never personally seen one of these devices that was designed to be anything but disposable junk. Flashy, neat junk, but junk all the same.
The constant stream of new models every few months with little substantive improvements beyond slightly crisper displays or new implementations of familiar old form factors is, I think, a clue to the design philosophies they operate under. Many of these companies would rather you buy a new device every year than go to the expense and trouble to design and support devices that can be upgraded or repaired to keep them functional for very long. I can only blame these makers so far for this, because the incentives for the electronics industry are all fucked up from top to bottom, but "hate the game, not the player" is an argument that only goes so far with me.
I really don't like being a wet blanket, especially in this. Like I said, these devices really do represent a fusion of two of my passions in life, albeit imperfectly. I know that it's immensely tiring to have your every interest and purchasing decision turned into an ethical conundrum, and I get the impulse to ignore the ethical dimension just in this one tiny corner of your life. I get it. I really do.
But I implore you, I beg you, demand more from both the makers and yourself. Do not buy these gizmos unless you have good reason to believe the support is there and sustainable. Pull yourself back from the hype train and investigate: does the manufacturer have a history of supplying replacement parts? Are there Reddit posts asking after basic repair support from them that go unanswered? Is there a reasonably robust second-hand market for this model or make, and more importantly parts? Ask yourself what trade-offs do you think were made to reach the price point and features they're touting, and consider whether those features are worth it and if there might be alternatives that aren't as flashy or portable that might prove more sustainable as long-term devices.
I've made no secret of my admiration for the Steam Deck and its repair-friendly design, and while I understand that it's bulky and not designed expressly for the purpose of retro emulation, I think the trade-offs are reasonable and considered. Valve is an established company and is offering exactly the sort of support we should all expect for a device like this through their partnership with iFixit.
I can also understand being leery of Valve, with their virtual monopoly on PC game distribution and morally dubious (to put it mildly) participation in gambling mechanics, so I'll pull back from a full-throated endorsement of the Steam Deck.
I will ask however that you consider what it is about a prospective purchase that recommends it over something like the Deck or the Ally or similar–devices which can accomplish much the same thing, offer better support and longer lifecycles, but aren't tailored in their designs and marketing specifically to a niche demographic to which you belong. Is it really the features–the design itself–that appeals to you, or is it something a little less substantial?
[Edited "gadget" to "gaming," because that's really what I intended to say. I'm not a gadget collector really.]
Even as an owner of a Deck myself, I think their size and bulk is much more of an obstacle for people than may be popularly thought. The Switch’s form factor is probably the upper bounds for what the masses find palatable in a portable gaming device, but you’re not going to get that without repurposed smartphone hardware or dramatically reduced battery life and increased heat.
If Valve continues to target the current Deck’s performance levels, this should improve in time however. I could see a Deck 2.0 or 3.0 that leverages newer process nodes to deliver 1.0’s performance at much lower power consumption and heat levels, which would enable smaller, lighter form factors.
Yeah. I never take my Steam Deck on regular outings given its bulk, but I have taken my Switch because it could fit in one of my purses. One, because I have three small purses and it's too long for the other two (despite actually buying one thinking it would be big enough). And even then, I think I usually have to remove one joycon if I want to zip it shut? Basically, the Switch is more portable than the Steam Deck, but it's still a hassle. Honestly I just take my 3DS on casual outings these days because it can fit in my coat pocket.
Given the games Valve wants to support, I'm not sure how much they can "shrink" the Steam Deck though. Most games are made with full computer monitors or TVs in mind these days, so a lot of detail could be lost or feel too cluttered on a smaller screen. Hell, plenty of games already have a problem with text being too small on the Steam Deck's screen right now. So there's a limit to how small they can make the screen, which limits the overall size.
I think that's part of why all these emulator devices are popping up. Older games are less demanding on hardware, and many of those were already made for handhelds or could be more easily shrunk to fit smaller screens. So the device can be very small indeed, and easily fit into a pocket.
I do use my RG35XXSP quite a bit as it can play a lot of my old favorites and new to me titles through Portmaster, but I understand the concern about sustainability. Should I run into an issue with it, is there a recommended option for a small form factor, with a Linux/custom firmware option that's also sustainable without breaking the bank? The first thing that comes to mind would be something like a Pi conversion kit, but that seems to me like you would run into a lot of similar problems depending on the manufacturer.
Pi conversion kits are very often better solutions sustainability-wise. The necessity to supply the guts means that they're generally more amenable to repair, simply because you have to throw the thing together yourself in the first place. On top of which, they're much more likely to be designed with off-the-shelf components than bespoke ones.
I can't recommend a specific maker, but I can give you some tips on how to shop for something that stands a better chance of long-term viability. First, check the manufacturer's storefront to see if they offer replacement components a la carte. The components you're most likely to need to replace on a retro handheld are the display, the battery and the HIDs (control sticks and buttons, most often). After that, the plastics, the power management board, and the motherboard are most likely to shit out, so check for those next.
Second, put the full model name (not the marketing name, as sometimes they can be used for multiple models) into a search engine with "battery replacement" or "display replacement" appended, and look for forum posts on places like Reddit asking where to find replacement parts. It's a bad sign if the replies are all "I have this problem too. Plz help!" or no replies at all. It's also a good idea to check iFixit to see if anyone has posted teardowns or repair guides, though I've found that lately iFixit isn't as comprehensive as they used to be. I think compact computing has just blown up too fast for the repair geeks to really keep up. (I still highly recommend you pick up one of their toolkits though. Their 64-bit Mako driver kit is a fixture in maybe 3/4s of the IT departments I've been to over the years, and I've been to a lot. This one is my rec for regular users who want to keep their gizmos working.)
The bad news is that I think price needs to be your last concern. Like I said in my first post, electronics design is a game of trade-offs, and the prime motivator working against sustainability is price. That goes beyond simply the modularity or ease of repair as well. Sustainability is about more than just durability and repairability; for something to truly be sustainable, it needs to do its job well. A device is a piece of junk if it doesn't work the way you need it to, even if it's perfectly repairable. People generally don't go to the effort to fix things that kind of suck to begin with.
But now we're coming into the territory of those cliche signs you might see in an auto shop: "Quick, cheap, or done well: pick any two," only in our case, I think "small" stands in for "quick," and "repairable" for "done well." I suppose it's possible that some company somewhere might be able to crack the code and manage to unite the three with scaled production and a galaxy-brained engineering department, but I haven't encountered them yet.
This class of product itself is a particular challenge to repairability, because the overall size of the devices imposes limits on modularity of design, but that's a whole other rant. Suffice to say for now that this is the trait that most makes me critical of the device category rather than just the specific manufacturers who choose to make them, if that makes sense.
Good post! I think everyone who is considering buying one of these should at least try to repurpose their old 3DS/PSP/Vita they may have lying around into a emulation handheld. Those are more repairable and have better build quality.
Yeah i was pretty disappointed in my retroid pocket 3. The idea of the device is almost perfect, but it's already got weird behaviors and glitches (which...yeah it's basically a frankensteined android), and it wound up becoming more of a project than a toy, which then leads to "fuck it should I just buy a new one?".
If I could find someone making something bulletproof but small (and I care a lot less about power), i'd love it, but it's so so hard to tell with the reviews out there. They'll tell me framerates on Gamecube games with a zillion settings I'm never going to touch, but no one ever has a "ok 5 months later here's everything that lasted".
Hear hear. I love these devices but have limited myself to buying them second hand because I feel too icky supporting their disposable nature directly. I still feel guilty buying second hand! But I can’t deny that these little devices have made me love video games again…
I’m glad to hear that the Steam Deck is repairable. I’d love to get one some day … when they bring down the size/weight and improve the battery life a bit.
Please, dismiss any guilt you feel about buying secondhand. The alternative is that the device doesn't get used at all, or at best, gets recycled. I spent years in the e-cycling industry, and I'm here to tell you that recycling is such a distant third-best in the "reduce, reuse, recycle" litany that it's a joke. Buying used is the second-best thing to not having such a device at all, from a sustainability point of view.
Also, your choice to buy used is a single drop in a massive bucket of incentive for the OEMs to design durable, functional and sustainable devices. Considering the social and economic forces arrayed against repair and sustainability, we need all the drops we can get.
It appears to be a handheld (Android?) with a similar build to a PSP Go or an Xperia Play. There have been rumors and renders, but this is official.
I wonder how much screen will be under whatever bezel it has.
Oooh, I was hoping this would happen. I still own a PSP Go, but don't use it too often, given the poor emulation performance and the fact that it has a proprietary connector, but I would love to have something new in that form factor.
That said, I already have several of these types of devices, so I'm not sure if it would fit in or not. I could previously get rid of my TrimUI Brick for this, but either way, I'll probably wait until they work out the kinks before picking one up.
I see a lot of speculation about a PSP Go, but what if it has a second screen?
The psp go is one of my favorite consoles to travel with due to its size.
This handheld looks massive unfortunately so I don’t really see the point.
More of a breakdown has been released here.
https://youtu.be/RzphzDAlc_M
Disappointed it's an Android box, but still something of a neat form factor for a non phone.
Looks surprisingly huge and also surprisingly powerful. Both of which might be strikes against it for me. I like the slide form factor, which will absolutely make it pocketable, but too big and you start getting into this "not really a portable I'll take around with me category." As an example, the Flip 2 and the Pocket 5 look like fantastic systems, but they're just a bit too large for me to realistically take places with me; not only are they eating up a huge amount of pocket space, but I'd feel awkward whipping out something so huge. One of the big reasons I like the Miyoo Mini and the TrimUI Brick is that they're so small, I can whip them out and play them pretty discretely.
Power is also a big issue for me: Realistically, even if I am carrying this thing around with me, I'm unlikely to be playing Gamecube or PS2 on it. Those games are just not built to be played portably. They're nice to have, for sure, but if I'm bringing a handheld out with me for some quick gaming sessions, I'll be playing stuff like Gameboy, GBA even NES; stuff I can drop into and out of very quickly and easily. Which means PS2 would likely be played at home, but if I'm doing that, I may as well play on my Steam Deck for the additional power and screensize.
Also, given the power shown, I expect this to be somewhere around the $250-$300 range, which just isn't realistic for me. I bought my 405m a year or so after release, because even $200 seemed like it was too much for that particular device (I paid $130, if I recall).
That said, Android is a huge boon for me. I actually prefer Android over Linux, because I'm very familiar with it and how to integrate it well into my network and life in general. I love that I can jump on my RG 405m, load-up Firefox (with adblock!), grab a ROM and then hit the races. Or even, grab a save off (or transfer one to) my file server and play where I left off on my Steam Deck or whatever.
I'll tentatively wait for Russ to review it and then think about it, especially if it's over $200 (which it definitely will be). Maybe I can pick it up in a year when it's cheaper and any kinks it has will have been worked out.