My Favorite Handhelds of 2023 (So Far)

[Music] hey everybody this is Russ from Retro Game core we're about halfway through 2023 and so I think it's a great time to talk about my favorite devices that are available right now now I'm not going to focus on only devices that were released this year but really just what we have in terms of choice right now and that could be devices that came out last year and Beyond and as you may know if you've been following any of these retro handhelds the entire thing will just shift over and over again there's more devices coming out all the time in fact the next month or so I'm sure there's going to be contenders for a handheld of the year coming out all the same I wanted to give you at least a snapshot of what you can find right now and when it comes down to it any of these that you buy are still going to be great choices for that price point anyway I have an entire table right here filled with handhelds and so let's just go ahead and get into it right now [Music] foreign [Music] okay as we get started here let's talk a little bit about what it's like to buy some of these cheaper devices you have a few options number one is going to be to buy directly from the company so for example if you want to buy an ambernik device you could go to ambernick.com and there is good and bad with using these websites the good is going to be that they have multiple different payment options so for example if you wanted to buy something with a credit card or PayPal you usually will have those options now there are some negatives when going directly with these Chinese companies number one is they're not great at communication so sometimes when you buy a device you may not get a shipping notification for quite some time and you may not actually know why that is it may be a backlog on orders or maybe they're out for a Chinese holiday sometimes it's just kind of hard to figure out what actually is happening behind the scenes in addition if something goes wrong with your device they're not very good when it comes to customer support in general yes sometimes they'll hook you up and help you out but it often is kind of hard and you're working through like translation apps and things like that and so there are some negatives from buying directly from the company now if you don't want to buy directly from the company you do have a couple of other Ops number one is going to be AliExpress this is an online Marketplace not very different from like eBay or Amazon basically these companies will have their own storefronts and you can order directly from them it's very similar to actually buying from their website but you have that extra layer of protection from AliExpress so if something goes wrong or they don't actually send you the device you can actually bring it up with AliExpress and you may possibly be able to get a refund that way instead in addition AliExpress has coupons that they have available from time to time and so if you're trying to get the best value you might be able to find it there in addition they also offer free shipping and sometimes will ship to Regions that are not covered with other means now depending on how long these devices have been available sometimes you will be able to find them on eBay or Amazon the thing is they're using a drop shipper which is a third-party company who's buying these devices in bulk and then they're going to ship them out to you with a little bit of an up charge so they get their piece of the cut the nice thing about this is that even though it is going to cost a little bit more you will have for example Prime shipping and so you'll be able to get it in just a few days and sub something goes wrong with it you'll have some easy returns through the Amazon Prime program anyway I'm going to leave links to basically each of these devices down below and it may be from the website or AliExpress or through Amazon depending on what's available and what's a good bargain and so if you want to look down the video description I will actually have all that listed out so now let's actually talk about the handhelds I recommend so far in 2023. we're going to start with the very cheapest end that I recommend buying now you can find handhelds for very cheap so for example like 20 25 you can find these handhelds out there that can basically play like 500 games in one or whatever they're going to promote it as the thing is the gameplay experience and that is not going to be good the games they're going to put on there are going to be hacks and weird actual alternative versions of the games that you want to play and so I don't really recommend those unless you want to buy it for like a child and you just want them to have the experience of playing some games no matter what it is I think the best starting point when it comes to Retro handhelds is going to be between 50 and 60 dollars and there are two Handles in particular that I recommend number one is going to be this one here it is called the Amber rg35xx now this is a Game Boy style handheld as you can see it has a vertical form factor and it has four face buttons as well as four shoulders and triggers back here as well now this is not super powerful but it can play up to PlayStation one and so all your classic systems 16-bit 32-bit all the way up to PS1 are going to play fine now this also has a custom firmware available for it called garlic OS now this is pretty great because it's been made by the community and then also it's been tailored to work specifically with this chipset and so because of that the navigation experience just the overall software user experience is just really nice and streamlined and I've made several videos about garlic os I'll also leave those down linked below now in addition to the nostalgic gray version that you see right here there are other color options which I think are pretty interesting too in addition to one of my favorite components of this device which is exclusive to the rg35xx at this price point is that it has an HDMI out Port that means you'll be able to plug it into a TV or a monitor and play that on a big screen if you'd like as well in addition this device is capable of a real-time clock that means if you want to play classic Pokemon games Game Boy Color Game Boy Advance games they're all going to run really well on here and you'll have the added benefit of that real-time clock to be able to track things in real time and it has a fast forward functionality as well which means you can kind of speed through some of the more boring Parts anyway this one is about 55 depending on the sale and where you buy it from and I think it's totally worth it now the other device that I recommend at this price point is very very similar it is called the Miu Mini Plus has the exact same form factor you can see it's vertical here four face buttons four triggers and shoulders and I've actually done an in-depth comparison between these two devices I'll also leave that link Down Below in a nutshell this one's very similar to the 35xx with a couple additional features number one this one has Wi-Fi so if you want to actually play against others you can do that on here wirelessly against multiple Miu mini pluses however this one does not have an HDMI out function so you won't be able to get video out and it does have a SIM emblems of a real-time clock basically it'll connect to the internet and then set the time for you so it's very similar to the real-time clock you can find on 35xx but I would say that the other one is probably better than this mu Mini Plus when it comes to Pokemon games at least in the sense that you can just have the real-time clock without having to connect to the internet now in terms of performance the Miu Mini Plus is about neck and neck with the rg35xx so it's going to be able to play up to PlayStation one and I think this is a great fit you're going to be able to play your game boy Game Boy Advance games but then also you know Super Nintendo Genesis things like that as well in addition the Mio Mini Plus also works with various types of custom firmware the most popular one is called onion OS which you can see right here this has a very streamlined experience very similar to what it's found on garlic OS for the rg35xx so when it comes to user experience it's a very simple setup right here in fact these two devices make really great gifs once you have them set up you can basically hand it to somebody who doesn't know anything about this stuff and it's so simple and easy to use that they'll figure it out immediately and this one's a little bit more expensive if it's between 60 and 65 dollars depending on where you buy it but still I think that's an insane deal both of these devices can basically recreate your childhood depending on when your childhood was and it's pretty cool that you can play all these things in something so small and comfortable to use in addition because they're so small they're kind of pocketable and so you'll be able to take them around with you if you want to have something that's more portable so yes when it comes to those cheaper devices you know those in the 50 to 60 price point I think that the Mio Mini Plus and the rg35xx are probably going to be your best bet now if you're willing to spend a little bit more money you will get a lot more performance and there's two devices in particular that I think under the 100 price point are worth considering okay first up we have the ambernik rg353vs now this is a vertically oriented handheld that has a mouthful of a name but essentially this one is much more powerful than the 35xx that we were just looking at this one can play like Nintendo 64 Dreamcast Sega Saturn Nintendo DS and even a bit of Playstation portable all on this device right here in addition it has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth which is pretty awesome and it has these two analog sticks now they look kind of weird here but in practice they're pretty good because you can play like arcade games using the analog stick and then also you can use the right analog stick for Nintendo 64. if you want to have them mimic the C buttons this one will also run a custom operating system you have a couple different options things like Arcos and jealous and I've made videos about them previously again I'll have all this stuff linked down below when it comes down to it if you are looking for something in this form factor with a bit of a smaller size but with more power and under 100 I think the 353vs is your best choice however if you are looking for a device that is horizontally oriented so something that's a little bit more like a layout of a Nintendo switch and you want a nicer screen then I recommend this one right here this is the pal Kitty x55 this one comes in at under a hundred dollars as well it's about ninety dollars right now and this one is kind of incredible it has five and a half inch screen and a 720p resolution but it's also big and comfy and ergon economic as well now this has the same chipset as the one we were just looking at the 353vs so that means it can also play custom firmware the jealous firmware in particular is the best that you can find on this right now and it's just a really great experience I made a whole video about this a few weeks ago and it really is my favorite device under a hundred dollars and so this one I recommend checking out that video that I already made and yeah this is definitely worth your consideration as well in particular if you want to play your retro games but you don't want to squint at a smaller screen I think this one is a perfect fit now let's say that you're willing to spend a little bit more than a hundred dollars and you don't want to break the bank but you want to have better performance well at this point I think that it's good to look at around 150 dollar price point and you have many options right here and like with the others there are two in particular that I recommend number one is going to be this right here this is the retroid pocket 3 plus now this is an Android based device which is essentially like a phone but with a controller already attached to it and so if you're already familiar with setting up a phone or a tablet on Android the process here is going to be very very similar and I have entire guides about how to set that up as well now what I like about the Retro pocket 3 plus is that it's nice and compact but very ergonomic as well the buttons feel great it also has these stacked shoulder buttons which make it really great when you're doing like game streaming things like that essentially this is just one of the best bangs for the buck that you can get around the 150 price point in terms of performance this is using a special chip called the t618 which other devices I'm going to show off here in a minute also use but this has much improved performance over the ones we were just looking at so systems like Nintendo 64 PlayStation Portable Dreamcast Saturn all those are going to play just fine on this and you can upscale it to a higher resolution in addition you can play at least 50 percent of the catalog for PlayStation 2 and GameCube on these little devices as well which is super impressive now another device I think that goes neck and neck with this one in terms of just overall value and performance is going to be this one this is the ambernick version this is the rg405m now this one has some unique distinctions number one it has a 4x3 screen but it's 4 4 inches so a little bit larger than those other ones but it's pretty cool to have a 4x3 aspect ratio because most of the games are going to be playing on this will use that aspect ratio and so you won't have any wasted space whatsoever and because it has that somewhat smaller screen because it's not so wide it's a much smaller and more compact device in addition this is actually made out of aluminum so it has a much more premium feel to it compared to the others and in terms of performance this will do exactly what the Retro pocket 3 plus can do so you'll be able to play all those classic systems and quite a bit of PlayStation 2 and GameCube as well now the price on this is going to be a little bit higher it's around 160 dollars part of that has to do with the metal shell but then ambernik tends to charge a little bit more for their devices as well and I just recently did a video about updated software for this device here and in that video I did a direct comparison between the retroid pocket 3 plus and the rg405m and so if you are trying to decide specifically between those two devices I would recommend checking out that segment and as you can imagine I'll have a link down below now before we move on to the next tier I'm going to cheat a little bit because I think that if you're willing to spend just a little bit more than that 150-ish dollar price point you can find some really great deals as well and that's actually going to have the exact same chipset so same performance and everything else but with a different form factor number one is going to be the retroid pocket 3 plus metal Edition so this is very similar to the Retro pocket 3 plus we were just looking at but it has Hall sensor analog sticks which means that it won't develop stick drift over time but then it also has this neat color gradient metal shell right here this one's going to be a little bit more I think it's about 20 or 30 dollars more than the Retro pocket three plus so you are paying a premium to have that metal shell as well as those Hall sensor sticks but if you want to have that nice premium feel and the same power and functionality as the Retro pocket 3 plus I think this is worth considering specifically if you want to have that kind of nice feel now retroid has released another device with the same chipset called the retroid pocket flip this one's also a little bit more expensive around 170 dollars altogether but this comes in a clamshell form factor exact same chip exact same screen but just a different gameplay experience this one has analog sliders instead of actual analog sticks but it closes up nice and compact I've made a whole video about this one as well but this one is kind of neat if you want to have something that's kind of reminiscent of a Nintendo 3DS but with only one screen again performance wise this can do everything that the other ones can do so it's going to be great when it comes to like streaming and even a little bit of Nintendo switch games will play on these as well and of course GameCube PS2 and all those other classic systems as well one of the unique things about the Retro pocket flip is that this is the only Android based device that I own that actually feels like a console in its own right A lot of these other ones just feel like phones with buttons attached to them this one because of the form factor and the fact that you can just kind of close it to put it to sleep it's just really satisfying and I really do enjoy this one just in the sense that it feels more like a console than a phone anyway as you can see when it comes to under 200 you've got a lot of choice when it comes to android-based handhelds and I think that's a really great thing for everyone in the community because depending on what form factor or shell you prefer you can usually find something that fits your needs and in my opinion I think that under 200 is the sweet spot for these systems for basically 150-ish dollars you can play everything up through like some PS2 and GameCube which is really incredible if you had been following the scene a few years ago you would have been paying that price just to be able to get maybe some good Nintendo 64. at this point we're almost an entire generation Beyond but at the same price point so it's really cool and very exciting about what we'll see in the years to come now when we get to the over 200 price point it actually gets pretty hard to recommend a handheld and that's because that it starts to feel like an investment anything over 200 to me starts to feel like okay this is something I'm gonna buy and have for a long time on top of that you start to get diminishing returns when it comes to buying a device between 200 and 300 so let me walk you through that really quickly using one of these handhelds as an example this in fact is the only handle I recommend under 300 right now it is called the aylin Odin light now this comes in at 199 9 to start but you can pay a little bit extra for more storage or also additional RAM but at the end of the day you're going to be looking at around 250-ish dollars to get one of these in your hands now this is a great handheld it feels very sturdy it has analog triggers to it it's got you know really good Wi-Fi in it as well so it's great for streaming it has a six inch display it's very similar in size the Nintendo switch light but actually feels a little bit better to actually use the issue here is once you get to that higher price point in a handheld you're mostly going to be looking at Android based devices and you're going to start butting up against the limitations of Android itself when it comes to Retro Gaming so for example yes this device right here the Odin light can do a pretty good job with most PS2 and gate Q games but the thing is once you get to those higher powered Android devices you might be wanting to play higher powered consoles so for example Wii U or Playstation 3 things like that the thing is those don't even have emulators with an Android and so you're going to be butting up against limitations of the software at that point so yes for around 250 dollars you can get a very excellent device in the Odin light it's going gonna be able to play all the games that Android can play pretty well in addition a good amount of switch games are going to play pretty well here too and in addition there are other Odin devices there is a pro and a base model they're going to cost a little bit more than this one right here and it's going to be the same thing you're going to pay more and it's going to be able to play like PlayStation 2 and GameCube better but the other systems just aren't going to be possible in Android and so it becomes diminishing returns at that point so for now I think between the 200 and even 400 price point there's an entire Gap right there I want to see better Android devices that come out at a good price but then also what I really want to see are good xav6 handhelds x86 is an architecture that runs on Windows and steam deck and so those are the kind of things I want to see I want to see a cheaper less powerful handheld PC that'll kind of fill that Niche because you'll be able to play things like Wii U and PlayStation 3 that kind of stuff on those handhelds but you won't have to worry about the limitations of the Android software service so bearing in mind the fact that we have this huge gap between like 204 400 dollars what do I recommend beyond that and this gets really tricky because like I mentioned before it feels even more like an investment once you get in those higher price points and you've got a lot of good choice right here as well so I'm just going to come out and say it and it's no surprise to anybody but this steam deck is going to be your best value when it comes to Retro Game emulation at around that 400 price point this thing is basically incredible and the fact that it can play almost every emulated system maybe PlayStation 3 is not the best on this one right here but everything else is going to play well Nintendo Wii U Nintendo switch and of course all those other classic systems PS2 GameCube and below are going to play perfectly on the steam deck in addition this thing can play PC games right that's the number one use for it and so the entire steam catalog is going to be open to you and you're gonna have all that emulation as well of course I've made videos about this too there's a program called Emmy deck which will allow you to put retro games onto a steam deck and it's a really useful tool in the end if you are looking to pay around 400 altogether and you want to play just about everything under the Sun then the steam deck is going to be a no-brainer now there may be a situation where the steam deck is not a good fit for you number one it may not be available in your region it's kind of a travesty but this thing is still not available worldwide even though it's been out for about 18 months in addition this steam deck is pretty big and so if you're wanting something smaller there are other options out there so let's talk a little bit about some of those other options and what you have available to you however bear in mind here that the prices are going to Skyrocket quite a bit nothing can really compete with the steam deck when it comes to price to Performance the next one I think that is at least a good competitor is this one here this is the Rog Ally made by Asus now the starting price on this is 700 right now but they are going to be releasing a cheaper version for 600 later on this year and this one's very similar to the steam deck in that it has an x86 architecture but this one will run Windows first the steam deck runs its own operating system called Steam OS the nice thing about Windows is that it has wider compatibility so if there are certain games that don't work on Steam OS so for example Destiny 2 is one that can't be played on the steam back this is pretty awesome to be able to play it here in addition this one has some pretty unique features to it as well number one this one has better performance than the steam deck but then also it has a 120 hertz LCD panel that means if you want to play games at a higher resolution or if you want to take advantage of things like freesync this is going to work really well essentially this is a laptop but without the keyboard and mouse and it has these nice controls attached to it and so if you are looking for something that's kind of Windows based and a little bit more bang for your buck than some of the other things we're about to look at then I think the Rog Ally is my number two x86 handheld right now now as we start moving on one thing I do want to mention is that the battery life on these devices in particular the Rog Ally is not great you can expect between one or two hours of gameplay depending on what you're playing if you really want to just play like Game Boy games yes you can really kind of squeeze out maybe three and a half four hours on this thing but when it comes down to it if you want to play the games that run really well on this you're going to be looking at less than two hours of battery life okay two other options I want to mention just because as there may be some other use cases where the Rog LA or the steam deck are not a good fit the first one is going to be this one here this is a GPD win 4. now this one is pretty awesome in the fact that it looks a lot like a PSP or PS Vita but there are some other neat things about it as well number one it has a slide up keyboard thing right here so you can just immediately get to a keyboard if you need to type in like a username or password it's really handy on top of that it has a little mouse nub so you can kind of navigate the mouse pretty easily as well and this thing is pretty powerful too this has the 6800u inside although there is a new version of The Win 4 coming out here really soon I don't have that one just yet this is the older model but all the same this is one of my favorites as well it's pretty chunky the battery life on this is not super good either but I like the fact that it's small and portable and it's also available worldwide and so if you are looking for something with like a six inch screen you know it just kind of feels good in the hands and is pretty powerful I would recommend this one it's going to come in around 800 for the low end model or maybe consider the new one that's coming out soon I think that one's actually starting at 800 as well now there are a lot of other handhelds that are available right now especially from a company called Aya Neal they have just a million devices coming out at any given time I've made reviews about all of them and so if you are interested in trying one of those out I think they are worth considering but for me in particular I found that one other device I wanted to talk about and it's actually not an Ingo device it is this one here it's called the Loki this is made by the same company that made the Odin light that we were talking about earlier but this is a handheld PC so it's going to be running on Windows now there's a couple things to consider with this one right here number one the price is not bad this one here is called the Loki Max so it's the high-end version right here and this one comes out at 700 right now so same price as the Rog Ally but it's nice and small so it's smaller than the Rog Ally it has some really great buttons and sticks to it as well it feels really good my only main reservation about the Ayn Loki is the fact that the shipping on this has been delayed quite a bit over the past year or so and so this one I think is just now shipping to customers and they have other devices coming they have one called the Loki and the Loki Mini a pro I think and these are all going to be actually cheaper and lower powered but who knows when they're actually going to ship and so it's one of those where yes I think if you are in the market for one of these handheld PCS the Loki devices are worth keeping an eye on if you're patient and willing to wait all these other devices are available right now and the Loki Max like I mentioned is just now starting to ship but if you are patient and willing to wait a little bit I'm pretty interested to see how those other Loki devices are going to perform now as I start wrapping things up here you may be wondering which handheld overall I recommend and I did a very similar thing in my last video that was similar to this it was called my favorite handhelds of 2022 and in that I had two recommendations one which was like an all-around emulation handheld like something to start with and then also if you want what I was calling the one and done handheld which was the steam deck the all-around emulation one that I recommended was the retroid pocket 3 plus it had just come out at the time and it's still one of my most heavily recommended devices to this day I think at this price point the amount of performance you're going to get and just the nice overall feel of it is totally worth it however I think that there are two contenders for that kind of all-around option and that's going to be the rg405m especially if you want something that's more compact with a 4x3 aspect ratio but then also the retroid pocket flip if you're willing to spend you know an additional 20 25 this is going to be great for the form factor alone it's going to have that nice clamshell design making it more compact when you close it up and like I mentioned this one just feels more like a console and so in general when it comes to that 150 dollar price point yes I think that those three in particular are probably going to be here best just like your starter emulation device now if you really just want to dip your toes into it and just get a feel for what emulation is like then something like the Miu Mini Plus or the rg35xx are going to be a great choice as well you're going to save about a hundred dollars between that and you'll be able to play up to PlayStation one now when it comes to those higher end devices things like this steam deck and the Rog Ally I'm kind of neck and neck between those as well I've done a full review between those two devices too when it comes down to it I still think that the steam deck is your best bang for your buck when it comes to be able to play as much as you can for the cheapest price available but then also the Rog Ally is really great if you just want to have a nice premium experience and you want to be able to play Windows based systems as well anyway that's about it for this video right here just to round up my favorite handheld devices there are so many of them out there right now and there are more coming all the time every time I get something new in the mail I'm just thinking to myself oh man the Paradigm shifted again and so I expect that I will do another video like this near the end of the year to kind of help you if you are looking for something around Christmas time as well anyway let me know in the comments down below what is your favorite handheld right now and why and what are you most excited to see by the end of the year as always thank you for watching and be sure to like And subscribe if you found this helpful and we will see you next time happy gaming [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Retro Game Corps

Views: 732,261

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Id: -wgdGgaVPro

Length: 24min 55sec (1495 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 14 2023