Interested in Retro Handhelds? Start here.

[Music] hey everybody this is russ from retro game core so about eight months ago i started this channel focused primarily on retro handheld gaming devices and before i started this youtube channel i didn't know anything about any of this stuff but the thought occurred to me the other day that there are also people out there who are just now getting started into the world of retro handheld emulation and so this video is for you if you're on the fence about whether or not to invest in any of these devices and you're not really sure which one to pick my plan with this video is to walk you through my favorite discoveries that i've made over the past year or so and i hope that by showing you a variety of devices and what they're all capable of you're going to be able to make a more informed decision about which one is best for you at the end of the day each of these devices are kind of amazing in their own right but at the same time there's nothing like getting a device that's just a perfect match for you and your current situation so i think we're going to have a lot of fun and without any further delay let's jump into it now if you're new to the retro game core channel there's two things you need to know the first one is that you're gonna see a lot of this green map this is what i use as my primary filming surface and second you will likely see an appearance of my cat in almost every one of my videos and her name's chicken and she's on my lap all the time that's why you're gonna see cat hair in a lot of my videos as well it just kind of comes with the territory just roll with it so before we start comparing devices let me talk a little bit of what it's like to buy one of these things the vast majority of these devices are manufactured and shipped out of china and so because that the online marketplace of aliexpress is typically your best place to buy these devices you're going to find the best prices here now it's kind of sketchy buying from this website sometimes so make sure that you buy from the most top rated stores and i'll have links in the video description below of all the stores that i would recommend buying from but to give you an example here is a device here it's relatively new and pretty popular and you can see that it ships from either china the united states or spain but depending on where you ship it from you may end up paying more so for example if we take the base model we get it out of china and then we just pick one of these base model colors you can see it's only about a hundred and nine dollars now if you were to buy the same console on amazon.com it's going to cost about 20 more but there are definitely benefits from buying it from amazon even though it costs 20 more you're going to have prime shipping as well as amazon's return policy in case something goes wrong so if you're worried about having to make a return or anything else like that amazon might be worth it just for that peace of mind okay let's start looking at devices now we're going to start with the cheaper devices and move our way up let's start with the pal kitty v90 this costs about 40 dollars and it has a clamshell design much like the game boy advance sp i really like this device for a number of reasons number one is the fact that it has a usbc charging port as well as a volume wheel which is really handy and i love this clamshell design because it protects the screen as well now the buttons are kind of soft and mushy but i kind of like it with this device and they have nice stereo speakers in the front for the most part this device is primarily focused on 8-bit and 16-bit era so you can play game boy games game boy advance games nintendo super nintendo genesis things like that you can also play a good amount of ps1 games although you will have to mess around with some of the settings to make sure they work optimally now one of the most important things to me when it comes to devices like that is the user interface how easy is it to get in and out of games this is what it looks like on the pow kitty v 90. you basically tab through your different systems and then you pick your game and then they'll boot right up and just like that you're playing barclays shut up and jam so it's a relatively easy way to navigate through your systems and games and i really appreciate that about this device as well overall if you're looking for an entry device that's very portable i don't think you can go wrong with the pow kitty v90 it's only 40 bucks okay so moving up slightly in price this is a fifty dollar device called the amber nick rg three hundred now there are multiple generations of this particular system so make sure you buy the ips version this one also has a 3 inch display same resolution but it has this game boy form factor to it it also has a volume wheel and usbc charging now some of my favorite things about this rg 300 are the d-pad and the buttons the d-pad itself feels like an old nes style d-pad and the buttons are really nice and solid now navigating this system is a little bit different you basically will select your system through this menu here and then you will pick your game it's not the most intuitive or pretty way to find your games but it works now like the palkitty v90 this can play a smattering of ps1 games but where it really shines are 8-bit and 16-bit systems as well in general i would say that these two systems in particular are really great for when you just want to pick up and play something for a few minutes and this rg 300 is actually my wife's primary gaming system she loves to play dr mario on this thing she loves the rich and vibrant screen on the rg 300 and she thinks it's super cute as well okay now moving up a little bit on the totem pole this is the rg 350. this is a little bit customized for example these analog sticks are not the stock analog sticks i added these myself this device is about a year and a half old now at this point but this design has become iconic with the amber nick brand and it kind of has everything you need two analog sticks a d-pad as well as face buttons now about six months after this one came out the rg 350p came out now this one has two analog sticks on the bottom and these analog sticks have the same design as the nintendo switch these also have excellent buttons as well as a really great d-pad now on the top part of these devices it has two different usbc ports one is for charging and one is for peripherals and it also has an hdmi output it doesn't work really well but if you really wanted to play this on a tv you could now i'm not a huge fan of the menu on this one either it's the same kind of setup as that rg 300 you navigate to your system and then you have to scroll down to find your games now the rg 350 devices have a little bit more power behind them so they can play 8-bit and 16-bit games no problem and they can also play almost every ps1 game only very few of them have a little bit of slowdown i mean at the end of the day if you're really only looking to play ps1 games in below this is gonna be a really great device for you now one of my main complaints about the rg350 devices is that they aren't very easy to just jump right into there are different front ends you can install on this but even setting up these front ends are not very easy this is one called simple menu which does allow you to navigate to your games and then boot right into them and then back into simple menu but again it's not a super simple process now the next upgrade on the 350 line is the rg350m now this costs 120 dollars but it has this beautiful aluminum shell to it it feels a lot like those aluminum macbooks it also has an upgraded high resolution display of 640x480 but other than the screen in the case it's the exact same device as the 350 and the 350p the thing about these devices is if you're willing to try to do a little bit of tinkering and maybe try out some beta software you are going to get rewarded there are different things that you can do to make this device very powerful and good and there's a new firmware that's in beta phase right now that does have very good performance you can run a software on this called retrowark which will allow you to tweak all of your settings to your very specific parameters and this screen is just beautiful it really shines when it comes to ps1 games in particular there's a huge community who loves the rg 350m and i don't blame them this is a beautiful device now there's one more device that uses the same processor that i want to talk about this is the rg280v this one is 70 dollars and has a little bit smaller of a display it's 2.8 inches and as you can see it's really cute and small and has a really fun form factor now it has no analog sticks so it's going to be hard to play any games that require that but in general it's just fine when you're playing like an old console game one thing with this system in particular even though it's super cute and it's kind of fun to have around it does get uncomfortable to play over time i just don't think it's a very ergonomic setup but man it's small and it's cute people love this thing you can see how the size compares here to the 350p so yeah if you really like the look of this thing and you just want to play ps1 and below games the amber nick 280v is a good choice okay so here's a really unique device this one's called the pocket go s30 and it costs 60 dollars as you can see it has a really neat design to it it's kind of modeled after an old snes controller and a lot of people really love this thing when they first see it it looks super cool now this device doesn't have the same level of build quality as the amber nick devices but it's still a pretty solid machine i should mention that these colored buttons that are on the face here were custom made by an etsy store called sakura retro modding now believe it or not i'm the one that actually designed the interface that you're seeing right here this is a firmware called simple30 and you basically just navigate through your systems and then pick your games and then play them from there now one thing about this device is that it has a three by two aspect ratio the other systems have a four by three aspect ratio which is more like classic consoles which means this one's a little bit wider and it has black bars on the sides of it they're kind of minimal so it probably won't bother you but i wanted to point that out you're going to see other systems later on this video that have the same size screen now this device is quite a bit more powerful than the other ones we've seen in the video so far this can play ps1 no problem but can also play a little bit of nintendo 64 psp as well as sega dreamcast now those three systems i just mentioned they don't play like super good or anything but some games actually do play pretty well you can see here mario kart 64 is actually playing at just about full speed but if you play something like f0x you're definitely going to see the slowdown this is playing at about two-thirds speed same thing with dreamcast most games are not going to run at full speed and you may get some visual and audio glitches as well and finally psp is kind of hard to emulate it doesn't run really well on this system either but if you have like a specific puzzle game you want to play that's probably going to play pretty easily now i mentioned this has a little bit wider of a screen and what it actually is is it's perfectly made for game boy advance so if you really love the game boy advance system this system and other systems that have a three by two aspect ratio screen are going to be perfect for this but yeah overall this is a very simple system i tried to keep the firmware super simple you just navigate through your games pick your games and then just go from there this is easily the most powerful system you can get for only 60 dollars okay now let's check out some of the android based devices this one's called the pal kitty a19 there's also a very similar one called the retro pocket one these range from about 70 to 80 and they have this six face button layout this device uses a special operating system based off of pandora's box and it's kind of weird to navigate at first but you can kind of figure it out and this device has about the same level of performance as the last one we just saw it can play some nintendo 64 psp and dreamcast games now one unique thing about this device is it has a wi-fi chip and it allows you to connect to its own game market and within the game market you can download all sorts of retro games this is totally illegal but if you don't want to take the time to try to figure out how to make your own game library and adam yourself this could potentially be a viable option for you i am kind of partial to this d-pad i like it it has a really good old-school feel to it but everything else is kind of awkward about it just feels like this big block it's not very comfortable to hold but games look pretty good on it and it is pretty powerful now the second android device i want to show off is the retro pocket 2. this one is 85 now i think this device has a lot of good with it and a few things that are pretty bad about it too the first thing i really like about it are these shoulder buttons i love how they're stacked and really comfortable they're a lot like a nintendo switch but on the right side you can see it doesn't have an analog stick it has this weird digital slider thing i really hate the slider and these face buttons are really small and clicky they're not very comfortable to play with after a few minutes same thing with the d-pad i've always found it very uncomfortable to use and that prevents me from really enjoying this device now this device can also boot into that pandora's box menu we saw with the previous device but it can also just run straight up android 8. and that's what i'm running here you can see i'm just starting up android apps here and running my games from that and the android emulation on this device is very impressive you can see here nintendo 64 is playing at just about full speed and this is a very difficult system to emulate so if you really like nintendo 64 this is a great 85 dollar solution and you can also load up all sorts of other apps from the google play store you can run retroarch on it you can stream games using amd link or steam link things like that and this will also play psp dreamcast and nintendo ds fairly well all in all the fact that this is only 85 makes this device a really incredible value but honestly the sub optimal controls on this device kind of prevent me from really enjoying it okay let's move on to a different chipset this is the amber neck rg 351p and the rg 351m now these are some of the most popular devices you can find on the market today it has the same style as the 350 but as you can see here it's also missing an hdmi output which is kind of a bummer it has dual stereo speakers on the bottom a nice volume wheel on the right and the same trademark face buttons and d-pad that you find on other amber nick devices now the 351p comes out at about 95 dollars but you can find sales here and there but the 351m costs about 140 it's one of the most expensive devices you can find in this range and this device also has that premium aluminum shell like the 350m but it also has an internal wi-fi chip which is really handy now one of my favorite things about these devices are the user interfaces compared to other devices these are a joy to navigate through you basically just navigate through your systems find your games you can change your themes like everything is just so customizable on this now these devices also have that three by two aspect ratio which means it's a little bit wider ideal for game boy advance but not so much with some of the other classic consoles so you will get a little bit of black bars on the left and right of the screen now because these devices are so popular there's a huge community behind them which means there are a ton of options when it comes to different operating systems you can run on these devices and also just a ton of developers have been involved in getting certain games playable on this device if i scroll through my ports section which has all these games that are pre-configured for the device you can find things like half-life in minecraft all three of the quake games more modern games like shovel knight and even specific ports of jedi academy super mario 64 and undertale there's just a lot of flexibility with this device you can't find on other devices it's really kind of exciting when you jump into this world now personally i think the rg 351m has a very premium feel but i'm actually not really sure that it's worth that extra cost just for metal case and internal wi-fi the rg 351p is also capable of wi-fi you're just going to need a usb-c to usb-adapter and then a wi-fi adapter to plug into it but once you plug this in you're able to do things like online updates or even play classic games against your friends online now the most recent amber nick release is this one here the rg351v this has the exact same processor as the other 351 devices but with this original gameboy form factor here and a lot of people really love this for nostalgic reasons but personally i love this device because it has a beautiful 640x480 display this is probably the highest quality lcd panel you can find on any of these devices and it has the original 4x3 aspect ratio which means it's going to scale perfectly for nintendo super nintendo ps1 things like that now the premier color that they're using with this device is this wood grain here which isn't actually made out of wood it's just plastic that's painted like wood but they have other colors available like this gray one that i have here also just a quick note here these are also modified buttons from the sakura retro modding etsy store when you buy the device it's going to come with these black buttons instead now navigating through this device is also very simple you just pick your system pick your game and then just move on from there and there's a variety of different themes and settings that you can set for this device to really personalize it it's going to cut through your 8-bit and 16-bit systems no problem and this processor can run ps1 games perfectly personally i think that ps1 games especially role-playing games are perfect for the rg 351 v because of that 4x3 aspect ratio screen now this device can also play dreamcast fairly well definitely not perfectly and it can also play psp nintendo 64 and nintendo ds to varying degrees of success now amber nick is not the only company that uses this exact same processor this one here is the pal kitty rgb 10. now this one's been heavily modified it has a new custom built case on it and i've added a ps vita analog stick but as you see here the rgb10 is actually quite a bit smaller than the rd 350p and it might not look like that on camera but when you have it in the hands it feels so much more pocketable and fun to play with this one only has one analog stick but all the same i really love this one just as much as my 351p and this also can take advantage of all the different custom firmware and everything else that's available for the 351p devices now if you're getting on in the years and you're having a hard time looking into 3.5 inch display the odroid go super might be a good choice for you this has the exact same processor as those other devices but it has this beautiful big 5 inch display now i've made some modifications to this device as well all these red accents i put in myself as well as these two vita analog sticks and i have videos on my channel that show you how i did all of that stuff the odroid go super in particular is really a tinkerer's kind of toy this device is really made with a developer in mind or people who really don't mind experimenting with their device you can see here i also installed a heatsink on this device so it doesn't overheat and these are all just very simple and basic mods which you can find here on this channel in general i really love this 16 by nine five inch display it's very rich and vibrant and it's the perfect aspect ratio for playing psp games now granted psp games don't run perfectly on any of these devices but they are just beautiful to look at now that being said when you play a 4x3 game on a 16x9 display you have very wide bezels and you can cover them up with overlays like this but at the same time you really don't get to take advantage of the large screen on this device but one of the advantages of having this device which is very developer centric is there are lots of cool things you can do with it for example there's a super mario 64 port that plays in widescreen that is just beautiful this is by far the best way you can play super mario 64 on any device in the world and because all these operating systems reside on the sd card it's very simple to just pop out your sd card and start up a new operating system for example here's lineage os which is a version of android running on the device all i had to do was change out the sd card so if i take a usb wi-fi adapter and plug it into my device all of a sudden i have a very powerful and capable android device this will allow me to play things like steam link and stream games from my computer onto this device it's super handy that's quite a lot of value for only 90 bucks okay wrapping it up here a lot of people ask me what is my favorite retro handheld device and drum roll please it is the rg 351p this device is just a lot of fun to use it has a really great interface it has wonderful controls and there is a huge community behind it it seems like every day there's a new surprise that has been unlocked for this device and for under a hundred dollars i don't think this one can be beat now if you're willing to shell out maybe another twenty dollars the rg 351 v is also a viable option i think this one has the best display that you can find on any of these retro devices and although i'm not a big fan of this vertical form factor it has been growing on me for the past month or so so yeah in the end i think that between these two devices you can't go wrong hands down the rj 351p is the best device you can buy for under 100 and if you're willing to spend a little bit more the 351 v is also a great option now if you want a really premium experience i think the 351m is also a good option my personal take is that compared to these other two plastic devices the upgrades on the 351m is not worth the upgraded price but that's just me alright everyone that's it for this video i hope it was informative for you and i hope that you enjoyed watching it at the end of the day i don't think you can go wrong with any of these devices but i hope that i've made your choice just a little bit easier now one point i do want to make is that this retro handheld community changes in the blink of the eye and even though it seems like there are new devices coming out every week at this point i still think that any of these devices are totally worth your consideration and i hope i've narrowed it down a little bit for you as well in summary the 351p great option 351v also a great option and the odrego super is a great option if you got bad eyes all right everyone that's it for this video be sure to like and subscribe if you found this helpful and we will see you next time happy gaming

Channel: Retro Game Corps

Views: 304,072

Keywords:

Id: NdvSwJ0RZpY

Length: 20min 16sec (1216 seconds)

Published: Tue May 11 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/SlideFire]

The hobby for me has turned into collecting them rather than playing them lol

[u/Goddrick11]

You are the best Retro Game Corps!! You have really stepped up the game for this community. You may be the only youtuber I watch now. Kept it up. I wish you do a bit more on the retroid pocket 2… this device is just too hard to setup since there is not a lot of option compared to 351 family.

[u/ncstateguy]

Thanks for all the work you do! I am excited to see more thoughts on the RGB10 Max.

[u/gowahoo]

I appreciate your video! Any chance there'll be captioning, even auto-generated?

[u/NEVER_SAME_PW_TWICE]

Thanks for putting together this video! I just ordered a RG351P in Purple for me and my daughter to play some classics on and it totally settled my doubts on which device I settled on! - So many choices!

[u/InigoMarz]

I got myself a Powkiddy Q90, which fills my needs, but I am really tempted to get myself a PocketGo S30, or even a Trimui (not in this video).

Retro portable collecting has become a dangerous hobby of mine haha.

[u/EBZero]

Hey....

If you are interested in checking out the GPDXD+ private message me. I have an extra one I can donate to you.

[u/btolle89]

Thanks, I'm new, and this was the perfect intro

[u/koekieNL]

You’re a good man!