Retro Handhelds

[Harrison]

Has anyone bought and played around with any of the recently released retro gaming handhelds?

There have been loads coming out of China in the last couple of years and this year we have finally been seeing some really nice, good quality products at great prices.

Retroid Pocket 2 - I grabbed this one on preorder and finally received it in November. Very nice build quailty and screen. Big battery and great hardware spec. It even has HDMI out, wifi, and bluetooth so you could pair controllers, connect it to your TV and use it as a full console. And unlike many other this runs full blown Android, so you have access to all Android emulation.

Brilliant system if you don't mind putting a bit of work in to get the most from it. It can emulate right up to N64, PSX and even Dreamcast and PSP.

The best part. It's only $80 and available in loads of colour combinations based on retro colour schemes. Best ordered directly from Retroid, but expect a wait to arrive.

Anbernic RG351P - Anbernic have built a reputation for brilliant build quality, surpassing all others, and very near to something from Nintendo. Anbernic offer great support and also have a great community supporting they hardware and we have seen a lot of releases and ports.

Their RG350 released last year was their first truly great retro handheld, but being quite expensive and a bit limited in some regards it wasn't prefect. The new RG351P builds on it and is a really nice handheld.

Unlike the Retroid that is Android based, the RG351 runs on a Linux based OS (and is inspired by and as with many retro handheld releases this year often referred to as a Odroid-Go Advance clone). It uses the Emulation Station frontend and is really slick and easy to use. There are already 3 different firmwares available to download and use from SD card for the 351, these being EmuELEC, 351ELEC or ArkOS. All use the Emulation Station front end but offer different things. ArkOS f.ex. is based on Ubuntu, has a more up to date file system, 64bit support and a separate partition for roms.

The hardware is really nice. Similar spec to the Retroid. One thing to note is that it's resolution is far lower than the Retroid. That has a 640x480 display, whereas the 351 has a 480x320 display. The display is actually higher quailty with wider viewing angles and better colours than the Retroid, just lower resolution. But for retro gaming it's exactly 2x GBA resolution so those games look superb. And most earlier systems fit within that resolution fine. Including PSP. Only once you get to PSX will you see it starting to be scaled down, and for the newer systems I would recommend the Retroid Pocket 2 because of its resolution and ability to handle newer system emulation a bit better.

The 351 is also more limiting in ports. Unlike the Retroid it didn't have hdmi out so is purely handheld. It also doesn't have wifi. The initial batch did, but they discovered the internal wifi antennas interfered with the display so they removed it. Wifi is still supported though and you can add it back easily using a mini usb wifi dongle.

Price wise it's more expensive than the Retroid. Full price is about $100. But I just grabbed one from DroiX.net for £72 advertised as a Christmas sale, which I didn't think was a bad price at all.

Which to buy?

If you want great build quailty, good manufacturer and community support, and a handheld that runs a frontend out of the box setup that just works buy the Anbernic RG351P. You won't regret it.

If however you like a bit more freedom. The ability to run anything Android based, including Retroarch. And want the higher resolution display. Then you won't regret the more versatile abd cheaper Retroid Pocket 2.

 

[Amiga Forever]

Retroid Pocket 2 and Anbernic RG351P? I havnt heard either of them and I will take look. thanks for Reviews

New Nintendo Switch Handheld? They might bring out next year of 2021 March or Summer with 4K Screen(4k upscale thanks to DLSS Graphics trick) with bigger screen and not sure about the Price thought.

Seem to be most people looking for Handheld that have bigger screen than Nes Switch Handheld!

What is JXD doing at the moment as before they were bringing some great Handheld like JXD S7800 or S192K

 

[Harrison]

We were going to buy a Switch, but with the rumours of a new 4K supporting version on the horizon we decided to wait.

The switch is very different to these handhelds though. These are directly aimed at the retro emulating scene, and also their communities. The 351 f.ex. recently saw ports of Doom and Quake which is quite mad.

With JXD they have been cheap, plastic and quite limiting spec. There are tons of never heard of makes of retro handheld coming out of China. You can get some really small mini gameboy format ones such as the bitboy, if you only wanted to play mainly handheld systems. But the 2 I features are far ahead of anything recently released and at a brilliant price point.

 

[FutureVariant]

I had the Odroid Go Advance (v1) and modded the dpad, buttons, and swapped out the analog stick for a Vita stick. It was an impressive handheld, but didn’t have quite enough inputs for later consoles; the RG351P is effectively the same hardware but with the additional shoulder buttons and thumbstick that make emulating the PSX simple as there is a 1:1 control mapping with dual shock once you have the additional stick.

I really like how open these platforms are - there’s a new OS almost every month, each trying to bring something new to the scene. The OGA and RG351P can’t quite emulate N64 and Dreamcast and PSP as well as the Retroid Pocket 2 can though - I’ve heard it’s a real performance powerhouse.

A lot of the auctions on eBay and Amazon even, often seem to ship with a card full of games - I’d imagine this trend won’t last!

 

[Harrison]

Yes the RG351P is based on the OGA, and we can thank them hugely for the original open source design. It is brilliant that in this day and age such things happen in a retro community style way.

But the differences between the 2 are huge. The OGA you have to admit was a diy project (yes you has to assemble it yourself) using very cheap components. It's transparent case was probably its best bit. The buttons, thumbstick and dpad were all very cheap and not that great. It did have a fairly nice TFT screen though. The RG351P is based on the same hardware but is a polar opposite in all other regards. Build quailty as I mentored above is superb, with very high quality buttons and pad, and thumbsticks identical to a Switch. And you get 2 thumbsticks instead of 1 with R3 built in. It's ports and other buttons are also laid out in a far nicer way, plus you get USB-C ports for both charging and data. The screen is also a superior IPS one. The CPU is also clocked slightly faster at 1.5 vs 1.3 GHz which will really help in newer games and emulators, but still won't match the Retroid Pocket 2.

There is a newer version of the OGA called the advance, that does look better, but it's about the same price as the RG351P so I know which I would buy.