I finally joined the retro gaming handheld club!
I finally joined the retro gaming handheld club!
I’ve been interested for many years, but I keep ending up holding off because I want something that does a better job at emulation than my phone.
I’m not sure that “dedicated device with potentially better control scheme” beats out “the one to two generations old semi-flagship android I already have with an xbone controller clipped to it and wired in through an adapter”. When I do find something that has better performance, the price point usually puts me off, which is silly because I pay more for my phone whenever I upgrade… and then the cycle perpetuates.
So I guess it comes down to that I don’t want to pay again for something my phone can already do. Just wish there were more phones with microsd card slots for expandable storage, and a quality controller with the same relative form factor as the dedicated devices. Console controllers are big for a work bag. Thick. Especially with the clip to attach a phone to it well.
Right now I’ve been tidying up an old Game Boy Color (cleaned and reshelled, thinking about rechargable usb-c battery modding it) and saving for an Everdrive for it. If that ends up scratching an itch by being a dedicated device, it might push me over towards buying a dedicated emulation handheld.
Normally I would agree, but Wi-fi on this thing adds a lot to it. It allows you to scrape box art and a short video that gets shown when you hover on each game you have, and it lets you connect to retroachievements as well as easily transfer files from your PC wirelessly with FTP.
It’s definitely not needed but it makes things a bit more convenient for me IMO.
I have a couple of the vertical Anbernics and they’re a lot of fun.
I’ve been really enjoying rom hacks on them lately.
I have an Anbernic RG556. Does pretty good with PS2 (not perfect, but good enough for funk with most games ive tried), and does fantastic with the older gens of pretty much everything. Ive done some Steam Link stuff, but I dont love it and it can be finnicky with that – but it’s pretty cool to be able to play Borderlands 4 on a device i got for less than $200.
My advice to anybody on the fence is buy the best one you can afford even if you dont think you’ll want to play games that need those specs.
I need to look into it more, but if a Steam Deck can emulate, i might be looking at getting one of those someday and retiring my Anbernic.
Rg556 10/10 for value 7/10 for performance 3/10 for steam linking
I got the original STEAM Deck, and it has been a godsend for emulation.
It handles Switch titles with upscaling, and even PS3 games. It struggles with Skate 3 on PS3 though, which is the main one I’d like to play.
I’ve been rocking an RG35XX+. I think it’s the same chipset as what you have?
Love it. Got it hooked up to RetroAchievements and Syncthing. Wish it could handle N64, but ah well. It’s still the über-Gameboy I dreamed of as a wee child.