ALL THIS FOR $79?! - TrimUI Smart Pro in-depth Review

when I first got this device I was like who and then I played with a little bit and I was like oh gosh and then they updated some firmware and I was like [Music] hm in this video we'll look at some problems with this device but then also look at why this could be one of the best budget large screen Retro Gaming devices under $100 on the market today and before we get started I just want to thank Go Game Geek for supplying this device they've been very supportive in supplying devices the nice thing about the trim UI smart is that trim UI aren't selling direct so the only place you can get this are places like Go Game Geek and I think pal Kitty are selling them but they're all the same price I do recommend Go Game Geek cuz their shipping is quite quick and affordable they supported me so you should support them so the key features is it is one of the best design devices in the Retro space right now it really is beautifully designed and we'll look at that just now uh it arrived to me without production ready software and I was quite frustrated by that because you know as a reviewer I don't want to be a tester I want to get the device as a consumer and test it for you so I want to get it consumer ready and then test it before you get to use it so that was a bit frustrating however I did get to say to them look this is wrong that is wrong and me along with a bunch of other people who were sending reports through they have fixed a lot of these issues so that isn't as much of an issue now as when when I started making this video and you know their intention behind this device the you can see that this device was intended to be a sort of consumer level all in one package they use their own proprietary software which again pros and cons but the intention behind this device you know with the LED lights and all that they've definitely gone for something that's going to appeal to a consumer it's not the highest performing device got a nice big screen which is going to appeal to most people you know you can see that the intention behind this was just to make a really special device for Consumer level us users and then that's 4.96 in display so 5in display I'm going to call it a 5-in display for the rest of this video it's a 5-in display and it is pretty damn good the resolution I'll put on the screen now and it is a pretty decent resolution um I would say it Rivals the pitty x55 quite nicely and if you are looking for a large screen fairly budget device buy it now all right so a quick Hardware run through just like the main points is there's a lanyard hole here if you want to attach a lanard to it you can this is a power saver mode I thought this was a a turning off the rumble and the LED lights on the on the controls but it isn't it's it actually reduces the performance so you know if you're playing game boy or whatever ever you can switch this on and save some battery life this I think is to allow for more Wi-Fi uh this is the DC and data um USB port the mic which I don't think is actually usable uh SD card for all your ROMs and actually retroarch settings and that sort of thing audio input on the top we've got uh a host which is for external controllers we've got the power button we'll talk about the sleep merg just now cuz it is very good volume button also got some issues there which we'll talk about just now got our right and left trigger buttons which they have made these really small trigger buttons which you know someone was complaining about it but you know at least they've stacked and they've compromised on the length of these for pocketability which I appreciate I think they're fine and then overall you've got this matte finish which I really appreciate it's really nice to the touch um you know and there's just these refinements like trim I have developed a proper logo and it allows for some really nice branding on the device which makes it feel like a consumer level device um You've Got The Branding over here and then obviously the logo follows through and that logo follows through to the startup menu as well which is really nice you know when it starts up it's got the trim UI logo and it just creates this sort of unified nice um consumer level feel which I keep saying that consumer level thing because what I'm saying is you know a lot of these devices feel like hobbyist whereas this feels like something I could pick up at a chain store and then the dreaded Shake test for some reason it causes a lot of drama with people watching my channel but I like to just shake the device and test it now there's a fair amount of rattle but the worst part is that knocking sound now that means that the battery is loose inside here the pocketability test so I'm going to do this and affectionately call this the fch time so there you've got it it does look like something is hanging around in my pocket there these are slightly baggier pants and then let's compare it to the Retro pocket flip so here's the Retro pocket flip it's quite a bit thicker um and there's definitely more of a bulge with this one there's definitely a bigger bulge there and then SP shoulder buttons and um again I I just think retroid they have struck the perfect compromise with this because that is just less of a bulge um this is bigger let's do the this one is bigger sure not by a lot so they managed to fit that big screen on there anyway I think it's a t between this and the Retro F class which is actually saying a lot because we all went on and on about how pocket friendly the retroid pocket 3 plus is and how well crafted it was and cleverly crafted it was so I don't think us reviewers are singing the Praises of this device enough in terms of its pocketability and all that then let's quickly do a little weight comparison 23.7 G retro pocket 3 plus 282 got the Retro pocket flip coming in at 270 is nice and light the x28 which is obviously massive H RGB 30 205 G obviously much smaller screen so make of it what you will but I just think a weight comparison sometimes is interesting because a few little grams do make a difference in these devices and then to give you a reference if you are Nintendo 3DS fan that's 230 G almost identical to a 3DS My overall test like so that was more of an overview so what is my what is my rating for this is like a overall build quality versus ergonomics versus everything um and I would give it a 3.8 the competition is pretty stiff these days and the reason I give it a 3.8 is because the battery is rolling around inside there otherwise this is a near perfect device you'll see there are a few little strange issues which also give me a little bit of caution on this device so like I said this is almost identical to the 3DS d-pad a little bit bigger than the 3DS as you can see in this picture um but Dome switches here Dome switches here um and I like the fact that it's a bit bigger than the 3DS cuz the 3DS d-pad is quite small there I say this is better than the 3DS and it is it is a very nice d-pad it's Dome switches which is something like it or LP but I quite like the directness of these Dome switches on here you know if you're playing a platformer like this it is actually it is actually quite nice whoops it's not ideal for fighting games you know like the typical Street Fighters but you know this does follow suit to devices like the PS Vita Nintendo switch the r retroid pocket 3 plus standard Su is and like I said it it's a small d-pad but it is growing on me actually it I've been playing it now for about a week and and I'm really enjoying this d-pad just to demonstrate this d-pad so because it's so direct there are pros and cons so it's not as fluid as a membrane d-pad but I do have that direct feeling of I'm pressing this the forward and the up button together I know they've clicked in and then I get the direct feeling okay he's pointing the gun up or diagonally down I do feel like I have a little bit more Direct Control in these situations so even though it's kind of weird at first even if you are into these classic membrane based d-pads um this is something to enjoy and if you're a first- time user you won't even notice the difference but it it is nice and if you like I say if you're into the PS Vita or the 3DS this will feel very familiar to you so I was actually going to say that this is a bit of a problematic d-pad for fighting games but after a little bit of fiddling and testing it out I actually got to do all my moves with rayu on Street Fighter 2 so here I am doing those moves and you know it takes a little bit of effort it's a little bit of a different experience to using the membrane d-pad uh but I got it going quite nicely the action buttons are low profile so let's just get a shot there uh so this is a more retro style device and you've got some pretty decent travel there and I I got to say you know I've been testing this now for about a week like I said and um I'm kind of like I've gotten used to these and I really enjoy them now going back to that retro action but and I'm like yo that's kind of inefficient you know this is just nice and slick and uh quick and direct so there's something to be said about Dome switch action buttons and I kind of wish the Retro pocket 3 plus had these because the Dome switch d-pad plus these would have just been a match made in heaven I think shoulder buttons so these buttons they register press throughout the travel of the device so that's very good these R2 and L2 buttons were too squishy they are no longer too squishy they are going to remove some of the the deadening in there so that it's not so much of an effort to press these that being said now that I've been using these for a week they're already wearing in so they're already feeling better um you know some people are complaining about the fact that they're small um okay I have skinny fingers but um again I think it's something that you will get used to and appreciate because now it's really pocketable okay so let's talk about these analog sticks because there are some issues here so firstly they they're great um when you first get them it's got the glows with these lovely LEDs and it's got good rubber grips like really nice rubber grips on the end um and they they look pretty cool and they feel really nice like they they got a very nice motion to them but I think they have recessed these too much in the device I don't know if this comes as a unit the way it is but when it first arrived so they've had to fix this in software when it first arrived I had to calibrate it numerous times I reached out to Shem from retr breze and Shem you know it's either yes or no with that guy and he was like I hate this thing I hate these um analog sticks they it's running the device and I kind of agreed with them but now with the software update it is a little bit better I just think there was an issue I had to calibrate these sticks a number of times so if you are having an issue calibrate them but don't push them too hard to the extremities so just give them a gentle sort of Wiggle around and uh you'll get a good calibration that way um but that being said since I've got the new firmware and the new SD card patch it's working quite well when I was playing F0 on N64 with this the the joystick does have a pretty strong switch between going right or left and registering to the bottom so the switch between there and there on the software is very extreme it's quite sudden so if you're playing a racing game and your thumb kind of drifts slightly down it won't suddenly slow down the the car will just suddenly stop moving and you realize oh sure but I need to press this way to turn um sorry not slow down turn and then suddenly the car's not turning anymore it's because your your finger drifted SL so that is a quite like an extreme thing on the software and I don't know if they can dampen that um in a later update other than that you know the range of motion is limiting but at the end of the day with the chipset that's in here you don't notice it that much there are going to be some games where you feel like you need more range of motion in the joysticks but again a compromise was made for pocket ability on the shoulder buttons I don't feel like it like it was a critical compromise on the joysticks I do feel like they made too much of a compromise in that regard but maybe maybe with some firmware updates we'll get to just it them being perfect because they are really nice as they stand uh I think uh I I saw One reviewer was like you know they feel like Nubs and they do but it it's it's nice and streamlined and I like that about it there's no L3 and R3 again and I think they might have gone with these because of the LEDs now that I think about it more so there's no L3 and R3 and I I do feel like in the end little white capped switch style um joysticks would have worked better but these definitely do look better in the device so you know pros and cons so our function buttons we've got a menu button that works throughout the system which is excellent and then we've got start and select nice dull click which I really like compared to something like the x55 where the clicks are just atrocious um this is a nice dull click and apparently it's a nice improvement from the trim UI smart and then again I want to talk about this little switch so there is no literature or any information it says FN on it now switch is a performance switch it switches for battery saving but then also drops the perform performance of the device so if you are busy playing PSP for instance which this thing can do it won't be able to play PSP when you put that switch on so for instance retro gamec did that in his video he did a whole test I feel so sorry for him and then the switch was on and he didn't realize and that is because there's just no information about this and so for him N64 wasn't working uh and uh it is working it's just this Jolly switch that no one told us about how it works so if you do get this it's not work working um according to plan it's probably that switch that's on okay so audio so there's the first thing that I want to talk about it's a it's an issue it's an issue I put the the the where the the device went into power saver mode and my volume was completely down and then when I came out of power saver mode I've got music and so whenever you go out of a game or do something that kind of resets things a little bit the audio goes back up which is frustrating had other times where the audio just dropped to zero for no apparent reason and then that brings me to my next critical issue I don't know if you're going to hear this now that isn't an issue here with traffic noise and all sorts of things but if you're in a silent room if you if your loved ones are sleeping and uh you're playing this and you put it on silent mode there's still a buzz coming out and that brings me to my next point is I I did a bit of an inspection so when I first got this I thought the audio was coming out the back so there's the audio okay now I'm going to go to the right hand Sound Hole now I'm going to go to the d-pad what I can tell you is on sort of inspection my ears over that sound hole here by the d-pad then I move my ear over to the d-pad if anything the sound is coming out the d-pad just as much as it's coming out that little hole so because the hole is so small it's not letting enough sound through and it's resonating through the rest of the device so like I said if I put my ear here it sounds like the audio is coming through the back then I put it here I'm like oh it's much louder there then I put it by the sound hole no it's definitely coming through the dad more than it's coming through the sound hole it's a strange thing now it's not really going to bug you that much because it is mostly coming up towards you but it is resonating out the back way too much um and so as much as I love to go front-facing speakers are the future um this device is not fully front-facing it's very strange and I'm going to do a tear down later to to prove me right or wrong there so the standby mode is excellent I put it on standby when I went to bed and then it was at 84% when I woke up it was 78% um and I've been leaving it on standby I've been using it for a week and I would say I've charged it fully just left it to charge maybe once I've put it on charge for a little bit once after that but that's it so the standby mode really is working on this it's actually shutting down the device doing processes and stuff in the background it's not just switching the screen off so I'll put the battery stress test on the screen now I'm put my com commentary in text so if you're listening to the audio just check the video quickly on information about the battery stress test and how how long it lasted I'll also put information about the battery on the screen now so connectivity there is Wi-Fi on this device but currently no artwork scraping which is a bit of a misstep on their part they really need to enable that in the software at some point you can do net play with this thing which is kind of a misnomer because how many people with the same device are actually going to be around in the same place and play a net play but it it is available so I haven't really looked into that too much but it is available on this device and then I I also can't find any information on the on their spec sheets or whatever whether it's got Bluetooth maybe when I do the tear down I can see if there's a Bluetooth chip in here but currently no bluetooth support that I can see um it does have data input here um you can transfer your ROMs via this little data thing and then if you do want to do an external controller you can plug it in there so if some that is something that you in are into in terms of consolized it there's no HDMI port and you cannot Bluetooth controller this so quickly just to rehash everything that I've said over this video regarding ergonomics so we've got the round edges just like a PS v which I love it it really feels good and then we have got a compromise on the L2 and R2 you don't need L2 and R2 a lot with this device like even with PSP you're only going to use the the top two for for actual gaming these you can map to shortcuts and that sort of thing um or you can map these to the gaming which whichever you like but that would be the most practical and useful so that's not a big issue to me the matte plastic adds a factor to the ergonomics it really feels nice in your hand these Joy sticks I've kind of gone in and out with these in terms of whether they're great but um they do feel nice um in terms of ergonomics again these battles buttons are a soft click a dull click which feels really nice and the Dome switch is something to get used to but they are I've really grown to enjoy it so if we compare it to the power Kitty x28 now they are both 1280x 720 screens which means this is a 4.96 in display this is a 5.5 5 in display which means you've got a higher pixel density density so 1280 x 720 and so you are getting a higher pixel density on this screen so you're technically getting richer colors better detail all that sort of thing so and I would say honestly I would say I can't notice the difference but um this is definitely a brighter screen than the x28 which I kind of enjoy um and the the colors are definitely richer I find that this has got a richer color than the x28 but you know both are great screens you're getting quite a lot for your money in the trim smart Pro and we're going to compare it to the x55 at the end of this video okay so let's run through this firmware cuz this is something unique there's not anything out there on the market like this it's a trim UI OS um I would like to see a custom OS by somebody you know like something like garlic Os or onion OS on here would would be really nice nice sure onion OS on you would just be like the cherry on the cake but this is a pretty good operating system so we start here we navigate with our right and left buttons and um these are favorites so you can go through I haven't created any favorites yet but that's how I would recommend using the system once you kind of make it your own is to make some of your best games your favorite games favorites and so that you can go here and just uh pick up on those you know I kind of lose track of games I get sidetracked on other things and then I come back and I go oh yeah I want I wanted to enjoy that game then recents is nice so that this is also a great way of using this device and maybe that's why I haven't used the favorite section is because I can just pick up where I left off I can go uh what did I use the other day and play that game and there you'll see again because you can't do the scraping I I have to go find the artwork and I would say um just a recommendation is to use scraper net SK r a p e r r.net and uh there quite a few tutorials already on how to do that I think I've made a few in some of my videos but just how to scrape the artwork and then put it on this SD card it it just needs to be labeled the same label as the ROM and put in the correct folder and then you will have artwork if that's something that you're into then the best is collections that you can make so you can go so this is quite interesting these are the the all the allinone cartridges that came out on the famic con back in the olden days so I could actually probably find one okay it's not all of them but it's some of them and then there's a collection of Pokémon games there's all the Pokémon oh my son will love this so yeah that's quite cool and you can go on the SD card and create folders of games that's basically what it is here we have all the systems now you press I think it's select no that's for search that's a new feature start there we go so you can add either have the I think they call this the flow or you can have the grid um system I've set it to the grid cuz I want more things visible on my screen and check here as I go through the systems the LEDs change color that's really nice so USB storage this is where you would go if you want to plug it in and then you know move things about on here um in terms of ROMs and that net Play here's where you would look for other people in your on your network to do net play and actually show on this user guide how to do all of that stuff and there's a few odds and sods but like I said there's a few things like that switch what is that switch just give us a diagram with all the little things so that we know what the hell is going on uh net play and then all the settings so here I haven't found a shortcut for brightness yet which is not great but you know you can set the brightness here and you can actually turn the LEDs off here and here and then you can also turn the brightness of the LEDs down so if you feel like they're just too bright you can turn them down and also for saving battery on that so I'm going to put it in medium volume volume obviously you've got your volume batter background music volume so it's a set of 10 and it's not that noticeable actually the background music volume and the music isn't as sort of Guardian as your in your face as the rgb3 with pitty but I've actually left it on because it hasn't bothered me up until now but you can switch it off there wi-fi switch the Wi-Fi on here themes only one theme at the moment key map this is well I haven't been able to figure out because even when I do this everything seems to be working the same way so I thought it would rotate the key so that you can do the vertical gaming mode maybe it's there for future updates but here's really where we want to get into it you can power off uh you can set the language you can go into net play you can refresh your ROMs so when I put new ROMs on I just went in here and said refresh ROMs Factory resets I actually did this I changed a bunch of settings I was trying to fix a few things when the firmware wasn't working very well and then I just went to factory set I reset to factory settings just to see how it arrived and see if I made any difference with my changes so that's where you would do that calibrate joystick now again uh my friend shm at retr breze said to me don't calibrate but this has now been calibrated with the new software it's not moving around very well it's a bit jittery but I just left it and it's it's working well now with the latest update so there we have it so there's the internal memory we've got 37 GB of internal memory which is strange and there used to be a place here where you could change the performance so you could change the CPU setting in here but they've taken it away way I'm not really sure why I can't really see a negative of allowing people to set their CPU so here's what I would do I would take their games card so and have been using Kia a lot which are actually decent SD cards so you don't really need to replace those anymore but when you see these blank ones with 64 or 128 written on them format a new card and add everything that's on here onto the new card and just put this aside somewhere because these ones are really bad I haven't had too many issues yet but I would trustees now um I'll put on the screen whether this is fat 32 or X fat because you need to format it to the correct format and then I would say just replace this SD card and put your own ROMs on here because if you are outside of China um the ROMs card is definitely set up for the Chinese markets maybe I got a Chinese version let me know when yours arrives if it's better so I started off with a bit of PSP this is kind of the ideal screen size and form factor for PSP unfortunately we're not going to get the best PSP experience Colin mcra 2005 but Assassin's Creed Creed even though that's an easy game to emulate um we we got some major graphical anomalies it played normal speed but I couldn't play that uh I left out guard of War chains of Olympus because it's just not worth playing on this device it's too slow uh Crazy Taxi kept crashing GTA Chinatown Wars is a RPG Style game so it's very slow moving and that played well I didn't have audio about it that might be an issue with my ROM Star Wars Lego 3 played well Mega Man Power Up played well outrun 2006 played okay at 1X resolution with audio stutter Sega rally plays well at 1X resolution and I must mention that 1X resolution doesn't look great on these devices we're stretching the image onto a larger screen and a higher resolution screen than the original hardware and so it just accentuates all the flaws of that image and so you really want to be playing these games at 2x 3x resolution on these emulators and I'd say if you want an affordable PSP emulator with a nice big screen I would recommend the PO Kitty x28 and then Dreamcast the same story I wouldn't buy this device for Dreamcast it can play the Dreamcast games Sonic Adventure 2 there's a bnch a few games that I played on here but I wouldn't buy this device to get Dreamcast performance out of it so you can kind of see where I'm going with this in terms of the performance and then just to note I had to disable the rumble for the Dreamcast emulator this happens on a bunch of these devices to go to retroarch settings input and turn the haptic feedback down to zero otherwise you just end up with it vibrating constantly N64 we are getting better gameplay here so I would say you're going to get pretty decent N64 gameplay now this is where a device like this and we've had issues with devices like this in the past we've got a lovely 16x9 aspect ratio screen but there aren't a lot of systems that can actually take advantage of that so you're going to get a few PSP games like Tetris and that that are going to play um but for you know N64 is more like a box aspect ratio and it it it does play quite nicely on this device I'm also not having a great time with NDS Nintendo DS I actually had better performance before all the updates the problem I have is just getting it to work nicely I find NDS much nicer on android-based devices cuz you can touch the screen you can map a bunch of buttons to different things you can M map the buttons to swap screens also you don't have the um the clickable joysticks on this which I often use to swap the screen for NDS and so I don't recommend this for NDS and this is where I say that a 16x9 aspect ratio screen even though it's lovely doesn't really make sense on a device like this because what you really want this for is GBA so that's the closest unit going to get to 16x9 on here um Mega Drive NES SNES PS1 which is also a box aspect ratio I'll put the aspect ratio on the screen um and then arcade games and so GBA is probably the nicest on you because of the 16x9 aspect ratio but don't let that deter you you know it is a lovely screen and you're going to be able to stretch some games like some Dreamcast games you can do the the the 16 by9 hack on some of the games so you're going to get away with it I don't want to over do saying you know 16 M9 is terrible for Retro Gaming devices cuz it's also a big screen so they've compensated for that by just giving you a nice big screen so let's do that tear down to see what's happening with that little battery that is jumping around in there I know they are adding a heat sink which might squish the battery into the body so we might get saved with that with the production units but let's just have a look inside snaps off quite easily quite a satisfying little click to it as you open it so the Wi-Fi aial is actually here so let's have a look at this don't really see what's there but it doesn't look like there's anything here so I wonder if they were planning an SD card reader and just decided against it not sure there's even a trimi smart logo on the CPU on the motherboard well that's interesting the rumble motor seems to have been stuck somewhere and nots come off so who knows where it was must have been on the body somewhere the battery is not that loose so I'm not sure that it was actually the battery that was knocking around in there all right so let's see if we can find the speaker so the speaker is supposed to be here somewhere like that is just a hole and that is a hole there you see what I mean there is no speaker by these holes so where is the speaker where is it okay so I opened I switched it on I was cheeky now and I switched the device on while it's all open and and the audio just like I suspected is emanating from the joysticks so I'm just going to remove one of these joysticks so the lights come from the side and they emanate through this rubber membrane okay so I've located it the audio is coming from here from this little box the audio is coming out here here's these little slots here so if we open this there's quite a lot of distortion coming out of these speakers so they're pretty bad speakers and uh yeah it's just a Pity it's quite bad audio so for the price versus performance versus this lovely big screen this is kind of on its own in the market the closest competitor is $30 more on Go Game Geek is the power Kitty x55 now this is one of my personal favorites I really like this device and the reason for it is the screen it is a lovely screen just even just going through the menu look look how nice that is it's a really really nice screen um all right really like the way it renders everything you can put shaders and stuff it can handle that to a degree and so you're getting a very nice experience in here a bit of a tinkerers device in terms of it's got jealous on it which is a uh custom firmware it's got this beautiful big d-pad so that's also it's got going for it the one huge downside the one Achilles heel of it are the clicky buttons function buttons so that is the only issue I have with the x55 class leading ergonomics um and it's not pocketable but so this is more pocketable this is more pocketable it's got those comp compact um shoulder buttons it's got the Dome switch action buttons and the small d-pad which some people like it I quite enjoyed that I've quite looking forward to having this on another device at some point I enjoy that these joysticks even though they don't have L3 and R3 they glow and look cool it is a beautifully put together device it looks really good and so I think the two versus each other obviously this is $30 more and so when it comes to price this is definitely a no-brainer and that also makes it a lovely gift for 2023 so I think this is one of my top gift picks for 2023 the trim UI smart Pro

Channel: Adin Walls

Views: 27,159

Keywords: Trimui smart pro, Trimui smart pro vs Powkiddy x55, Trimui smart pro tear down, Trimui smart pro in depth review, Detailed review, Comprehensive review of the Trimui smart pro, Trimui smart pro shoulder buttons, Trimui smart pro joysticks, Trimui smart pro led lights, Trimui smart pro build quality, Retrobreeze Trimui smart pro, trimui smart pro psp, trimui smart pro review, trimui smart pro first look

Id: evXP-LlpUn4

Length: 33min 22sec (2002 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 30 2023