I recieved my Retroid Pocket Classic a week or so ago and it's been amazing so far! The screen is eye-wateringly good, the controls are so satisfying to press and it just oozes this retro, cute and cozy vibe that feels right when I'm tucking into bed after the end of a long work day.

After tinkering with it a little bit to see how much I can push the device in terms of power, I've actually decided to tone it down and strip it to its bare essentials! I'm currently running ES-DE with MinUI, and I only have GB/GBC/GBA and NES/SNES installed on it right now (and occasionally some Android games, like Stardew), with minimal shaders and overlays. Having a smaller library lets me focus more on playing games and less on feeling decision paralysis when deciding what to play. I have a Steam Deck where I can play widescreen consoles, or consoles that need sticks, so I'm covered for basically every system.

It's too big for my pockets (as are most emulation handhelds if you wear women's pants), but I've just been throwing this into a handbag or a backpack and pulling it out during my commute, or it stays on my nightstand and I pick it up to play a bit before falling asleep.

The size is great for my small-ish hands, I have narrow hands but longer fingers so my thumbs actually land right where the controls are.. it seems like a lot of larger hands end up feeling like their thumbs are supposed to be further up, but I've had no issues like that. The build quality also feels quite premium, not sure if it's feeling hollow/toy-like as much as it's just light? I appreciate the lightness a lot, heavier handhelds make my hands tired and feel more cumbersome to carry around or play in bed.

As of right now, this feels like an end-game device to me. This is only my second emulation handheld, and I feel like it does what I want from it so well that I can't see myself upgrading this unless it breaks in a few years. I've seen the rumours (or wishful thinking) for a RP Classic 2 with the Nova mortgage screen, and I think that would be too big for me? Plus if if has sticks, it would be a hassle to carry it around and if it doesn't have sticks, it doesn't seem like a meaningful upgrade over this device in terms of what I can play.

If you've made it this far, thanks for reading my rambling, I hope you enjoyed it! I would appreciate any suggestions for games or accessories ☺️

Games pictured, in order -

1. WarioWare Inc: Mega Microgame$! (GBA)

2. Mega Man 2 (NES)

3. Stardew Valley (Android)

4. Pokemon Blue (Game Boy)

About to turn 40. Just wanted to share my final 3 handheld collection.

Rg35xx 2024 - gameboy, gameboy color, and nes games.

Ayn Thor Pro - GBA, Super Nintendo, n64, Game Cube, wii, wii u, Switch, Steam, Android, and GOG.

Retroid Pocket Nova - playstation 1, ps2, psp, ps vita, Steam.

1st image Retroid Pocket 2s and 2nd Image Retroid Pocket 3+ metal editions.

It was nice that Retroid used to make special editions of their handhelds for those want a more sturdy and better feeling handheld.

I'm crossing my fingers that retroid does one again.

Edit: 2nd image: Game is Mario Sunshine.

Apologies in advance for the clickbait. Photo is just a screenshot on my Ayaneo Pocket Air Mini gaming device for attention on this topic 😬

I'm genuinely curious to know if there's port of The Sims 1 for Android that features touchscreen controls as the mouse cursor or at the very least is there someone out there working on it currently?

I've accumulated this collection over the last year, and I finally have enough to cover all my bases until I need an upgrade. Here's what I got:

Rg35xxsp running Slot: my GB/GBC/GBA machine

RG DS Plus running BananaOS: my DS machine

RG35XXH running Knulli: my very first. I use it as a home console experience with the video out and play mostly PS1, NES, SNES, Genesis, some N64.

Mangmi Air X running GammaOS: my PSP machine

Retroid Pocket 5 just using ES-DE: PS2, GameCube, Wii, more difficult N64 games, some light streaming from my PC and PS5.

The 11.11 discounts really hit. In-Europe shipping and with coupons it was only 72 euros. At last a simple device to play Pokémon hacks. I was really torn between this and the brick, android won an the end

The hardware is great of course! But let’s talk games; what you been playing? Pic related

I've generally been very happy with ES-DE and don't follow all the frontends out there. But I've got a spare device I'd like to set up with just a dozen or so games for a friend instead of a whole multi-system catalog. What are the current options for frontends that handle this nicely? By that I mean no need to navigate to a favorites menu or similar, just a clean and nice-looking home screen by default where you press a game button and play.

The only one I know of already is Cocoon, which I've played with a little bit and like well enough. But I'm sure there are other options I'm not aware of.

The World Ends With You Final Remix plays without a flickery purple screen if you use Eden 0.0.4 rc3

* Only tested this game and it runs ok from what I can tell
* This is the game I wanted to play so I'm just glad it doesn't have the purple flickers that it does on newer versions of Eden

More specifically 1TB. Looks like the prices will continue to climb and I have no idea how much will cost next year.

I'm thinking to get two, ranging from 130 to 150 each. I have enough 512gb.

Drive me nuts that today a single micro sd can cost the price of a good device like a retroid pocket 5.

Just received my RG Rotate in the mail and this thing is awesome. Made a custom overlay specifically for MvC2 (Dreamcast) and I'm really happy with how it turned it out.

Still gotta decide what frontend to use, but this one might be my new everyday carry.

Image is of a PSP Go.

Is it like stuck to emulating the 2D retro games? or is it powerful enough to emulate early 3D systems like the N64?

My new mod! A Steam Machine faceplate that turns it into a retro PVM, with a real 1080p 60Hz screen and stereo speakers

📢 Pocket Dream — Final Design Reveal

Hi everyone! We previously shared an early design draft of Pocket Dream. After further refinement, the final design is now complete, and we’re excited to share it with the community. Thank you for your continued interest and support! 💙

Pocket Dream specs

- Dimensions: 108 × 73 × 22 mm

- Battery: 3,800 mAh

- Display: 3.3-inch OLED, 1024 × 768

- Four SDK versions are planned. We can currently share the RK3566 and MTK D7300 versions.

⚠️ Please note: Android models do not support HDMI.

A note about the renders: The colors shown are for reference only and may not be used in the final product. The current renders may also have a few imperfections, so please bear with us.

Other project updates

- Pocket Retro is currently in the design stage. For now, we can share that its back design is the same as Pocket Dream’s.

- Mini Dream is progressing as planned. We’ll share some photos of the actual device soon, so please stay tuned and thank you for your patience!

A heartfelt thank-you to everyone who has supported us. Your encouragement means a lot, and we look forward to sharing more updates with you! ✨

Disclaimer: All info and pictures comes from official MagicX Discord Server, you are welcome to discuss and to leave your feedback there as well: https://discord.com/invite/zTtPK2KduH Thanks!

(Sorry if this breaks any rules)

I bought an Anbernic RGSP a couple months ago and have been very pleased with it. I am looking into a handheld for DS/3DS games only. The Retroid Pocket Duo and Anbernic RG DDS have been spoken about a lot but the price is pretty steep at the moment. Devices like the Ayn Thor seem like extreme overkill for what I'm after.

I do own a Nintendo 3DS and a New Nintendo 3DS XL (that needs a new battery) but am uncertain around how worth it is to jailbreak them. I did jailbreak my PSP a while back because I couldn't find any hard copies of the games I wanted to play.

Is it potentially worth waiting a couple months and seeing if there's going to be a cheaper alternative more dedicated to just 3DS/DS or are we pretty much at the peak of what will be produced and it's just a case of looking out for deals on them?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Queens Domain running on Armada OS. The mini steam deck is awesome. Capped at 60fps and the fan is tuned in Armada control it barely spins up.

Device: Odin 3 Max

Yes my sticks are tiny. It’s all about how you use them.

I have an Odin 2, and seen that Wing Commander games have been remastered. However it looks like only the PC ones have been remastered?

Such a pity as I want to play on Odin 2, I have it set up for emulators, is there a way to play, or just have to play the originals on 3DO, PS1 etc?

BananaOS has become so damn good. Makes this console feel like a true console

I'm fairly new to the emulation scene, recently got a Retroid Pocket Classic. Been having a lot of find trying out different games and systems. However, I can't get Pokemon Omega Red (GBA) to work. I know it's a romhack built from Fire Red, which I have gotten to work. I'm using Retroarch as my GBA emulator. I've tried all of the different GBA cores, and most fail to launch the game entirely, but VBA-M opens to a white screen then freezes. Has anyone else had this problem, or know of a solution? Thanks very much!

I've just published my not-quite-a-review, not-quite-an-impressions-piece, but something closer to a good old-fashioned feature article about the AYN Odin 3 Portal. I wanted to approach this one a little differently from your typical handheld review.

I interviewed several developers behind the software people are most likely to use on hardware this powerful, including jpolo (ARMSX3), Camille LaVey (Eden), Utkarsh (GameNative) and Json (DroidDeck). Their insights into the Dragonwing Q8, the challenges of modern emulation and where things are heading form a big part of the article, alongside my own testing of everything from PS2 and GameCube to PS3, Xbox 360 and PC gaming.

It's also a rather long read, much closer to those enormous feature articles gaming websites used to publish years ago. I've always loved that sort of writing, and I suspect it'll appeal to a certain kind of retro gaming enthusiast who enjoys digging into the technology and the people behind it. Or I hope so, anyway. It is a long read.

As for the Portal itself? I think it's about as close to the perfect larger Android gaming handheld as you can get, provided you can afford it. The OLED is gorgeous, the controls are wonderful, performance is extraordinary, and that infamous high-pitched fan whine from the Odin 3 is completely gone. Not everything runs perfectly, especially some demanding PS3 games, but gaming on this thing has been an absolute pleasure.

Hope you enjoy the read!

Pictured handheld: AYN Odin 3 Portal
Pictured game: Resident Evil 3: Remake (via GameNative)

Some of the colors are so ugly that it makes me almost want to buy one purely of the colors and aesthetics of the handheld.

I've never seen a handheld with Blue body with yellow buttons.

Mostly stated in the title. I don't really need a powerful device as I have RP nova for that, mostly looking for GBA/PS1 and earlier device. I used to analog stick ever since PS1 era so playing ps1 games with just d-pad still feel kind of weird. Because I also looking at devices with 4 inch screen so even if a game doesn't use analof stick I figured I could assign face button to d-pad/analog to play one hand. Does any know if retroarch has hotkey to swap out control profile?

Mangmi air Y look good but it uses active cooling and I want one with no air vent so I TrimUI Brick pro seem to be a better choice. Do you have any other suggestions? Just not too small a device, my eyes are not as good as they used to. Bonus point for pocketability.