New to Handheld Gaming? Start Here. [2023 Edition!]

[Music] hey everybody this is Russ from Retro Game core the world of handheld gaming devices is a lot larger than you may think and that's what we're going to cover here in this video today we're going to look at the major categories of handheld devices and maybe get a feel for which one is going to be the best fit for you I've been making YouTube videos for a couple years now and I cover a variety of topics but usually it always comes down to the same thing how to play my favorite retro games on different hardware and so you'll find hardware reviews from various things from handheld devices all the way up to Small PCS and then I'll also provide video guides to show how to get some of these things working in the end I'm hoping this video will be helpful for everyone even if you're brand new to this whole idea or if you're a veteran of the scene I hope you learned something here and so without any further delay let's jump into it [Music] hey before we get started with the video itself I did want to mention that the music that you'll hear in each of the different segments is from my friend Jim he has a band called our ghosts it's not really a band it's just him playing music but he's the person who made the intro music for all my videos and so he's released this new music and it's awesome and so I asked him if I could showcase it here in this video and so you'll hear that in each of the segments or some of those tracks I'll leave a link to that album in the video description below but it's really good and I would recommend checking it out anyway let's actually get to it [Music] thank you okay our first category here is what I like to call corporate devices these are going to be the ones you're most familiar with something like the Game Boy or the PS Vita and there's a couple different ways you can enjoy these devices for example you could just play them as is so you put some batteries in your Game Boy Advance throw in an old cartridge and just start playing but one thing you may notice is that the hardware on these devices will age over time and so the experience may not be as good as you remember thankfully there are many different ways to refresh these old devices for example here is a Game Boy Color that has a new shell and a new LCD display but then also on the back here it has a USB friendly charger here battery pack and then it also has an everdrive inside what I can essentially do is put all of my games on an SD card load them into the everdrive and then play all the games without having to change the cartridge and so there's many different ways that you can enjoy some of these older devices in a way that's very similar to how they used to be just a little bit upgraded for the 21st century now I don't really focus on this in my channel here but there are many other channels out there and other places that you can buy devices like this and it's a pretty cool experience and so that is one way that you can enjoy original Hardware another thing you can do is adjust it in the software side this is usually called a jailbreak or a mod and for this you'll use something with a modern firmware so like a PlayStation Vita or Nintendo 3DS even a Nintendo switch can be modded so that you can use it for different purposes and so sometimes you can find some of these devices for relatively cheap and then you can Jailbreak them to be able to play a variety of games on them more than the original Hardware intended now me personally I usually just focus on the PlayStation Vita because this is one of my favorite devices to hack and I have plenty of guides about that here on this channel and so if you want an experience that is very similar to how it was growing up that's what I would recommend either refreshing an original Hardware device like a Game Boy Color or modding something like a PlayStation Vita or a 3DS another device worth mentioning in the same category is this one here this is called the analog pocket this uses a special technology called field programmable gate array or fpga which recreates original systems at the hardware level this is different than software emulation which is what we'll talk about for the rest of this video after this the thing that makes the analog pocket interesting is that it has a cartridge slot so you can put in Game Boy Advance and Game Boy Color games and play those and it's almost exactly like the original experience but this also has an SD card slot and with new updates to the firmware you can load up different systems as well so this can play things like Sega Genesis Nintendo and Super Nintendo at a level that is very accurate to the original hardware and so if you're somebody who is a stickler for having that original gaming experience the analog pocket is a very good device however there are a couple things to consider this is the only handheld device right now that is an fpga and so because of that demand is very high this thing is about 225 dollars and the wait list for it is several months if not years long in order to get your hands on one and I've made several videos about the analog pocket and I'll leave them in the video description below but at the end of the day if you're willing to pay a larger amount of money and willing to wait for it the analog pocket may be a great tool for you if you want something that's very accurate and very close to the original experience [Music] now my second category here is what I call Linux based handheld devices now there's a lot of variety here in this category they come in any shape and size and can be anywhere from 50 to 200 depending on the model but among these devices there are a few traits that are common number one is the fact that they are using repurposed parts from other electronics that's why some of these can be very cheap the second thing in common is the fact that many of these devices are going to be running a custom version of a Linux operating system and generally what you'll find is that the operating system that actually ships with the device will usually be functional but not very good and so generally what will happen is the community will get involved and they will make a custom operating system or custom firmware available for each of these devices and it'll improve the experience significantly and usually what I try to do is I make a video on how to upgrade that firmware depending on the device now like I mentioned the price of these devices can be relatively cheap but they do get a little bit higher if you have a more powerful chipset inside but personally I've always found the most interesting devices are going to be the cheaper ones these are the ones that for less than a hundred dollars can play all the way up to PlayStation one a couple recent examples that are really nice include this one here the ambernik rg35xx as you can see this is model left the original Game Boy and it has a three and a half inch screen and can play all the way up to PlayStation 1. and this device can be found for about sixty dollars plus shipping and I think that's a really good price for what you're getting here another recent example is going to be this one here the Miu Mini Plus this is modeled after the original Mio mini which came out last year that was really really popular but unfortunately they ran out of parts and so they aren't making those anymore thankfully the Mio Mini Plus despite being a little bit larger than the other one has a lot of parts inside of it that are easier to source and so hopefully this one won't run out of stock in the future and this one is also similarly priced you can find it 60 65 dollars plus shipping and so I think in that price range when it comes to under a hundred dollars there's a lot of variety there Additionally you can find some Linux based operating system devices that are a little bit older but can be found for cheap for example this one here is the pal Kitty rgb10 this is one of my favorite smaller devices and is a little bit more powerful than the other ones for example this one can play quite a few Nintendo 64 or PSP and Dreamcast games as well and so this one has got a little bit better power inside of it and it is a little bit more pricey but you do get some good value out of these ones as well now if you're willing to spend a little bit more than a hundred dollars you can find some better devices too for example this one here is the ambernik RG 353m and this is also a recent favorite of mine that came out last year now this one's similar to these other devices that I just just mentioned and it runs a custom Linux based operating system but it has a more powerful chip inside and so it can more reliably play some of those other systems like Nintendo 64 and Dreamcast and so if you're looking for something that's small and pocketable I would say that this generation of devices is also very good and I'll leave this Linked In the video description as well another added bonus of some of these devices like the rg353 line is that they can dual boot into Android which actually takes us into the next category here [Music] and so for our next category we're going to talk about android-based handhelds and there's a lot of variety here so we'll spend a lot of time talking about this section and you may be thinking to yourself well if it's Android based then maybe you could use an old phone to play retro games on and you're absolutely correct for example there are many companies like this one here called backbone that make these dedicated controllers that open up and you put your phone inside and you can immediately start playing your year old retro games these controllers can be anywhere from like thirty dollars for the very cheap ones or like a hundred dollars for the nice quality ones like the backbone and this is a great setup if you already have an old Android phone and you just want to buy a controller and you can immediately start playing in fact there are other companies like Razer that have made a device that's exactly that as you can see right here it's just a controller hooked up to a special tablet that runs on Android now this is very powerful and it also costs four hundred dollars but all the same the idea is right here as well now for me personally I prefer to use dedicated handheld devices those that have the controllers already hooked up and so it's all just one seamless experience and so let's talk about some of my favorites in that regard number one is going to be this one here this is the retroid pocket 3 plus now this one came out a few months ago and is built upon other retro devices that have released over the past couple of years as I mentioned this is dedicated for Android so it's basically like a small Android tablet with the built-in controllers and as you can see it looks a like a Nintendo switch light as well now this one's pretty powerful it's 150 dollars and can play all the way up to like PlayStation Portable absolutely no problem in fact this can even play a little bit of Nintendo 3DS GameCube and PS2 games but I wouldn't get your hopes up this can't play Everything perfectly those systems in particular are rather hard to emulate and so you will have to spend a little bit more money if you want to play those games speaking of which that's the next tier of devices I want to talk about and that's going to be the aylin Odin liner devices these also came out last year and they're a little bit bigger but also kind of model left the Nintendo switch as well but this is a little bit more powerful this one has a Snapdragon 845 inside that's also been overclocked thanks to the fact that it has a cooling fan as well and so this device here is going to be able to more reliably play PS2 GameCube Nintendo Wii things like that it's still not going to be able to play a hundred percent of everything but it is going to play a lot more than the retroid pocket 3 plus in terms of pricing you're now looking at somewhere between 250 and 300 dollars for a device like this and there are other competitors that are coming out in the coming months for example there's one from pymax that I recently did a video about as well as a company called Aya Neo are going to be releasing an Android handheld as well and so if you are looking to pay around 300 to get some really good gameplay there are some dedicated handhelds out there now when talking about android-based handhelds there is one I always like to bring up and it's kind of a black sheep among the others this one is called the Logitech cloud and yes it is made by the same company that probably made the mouse and keyboard that you're using right now now there's a lot of people out there that don't like this device and a lot of it comes down to the price because it is overpriced they are right now charging somewhere between 300 and 350 dollars depending on where you shop and I agree I think that's way too expensive for what you're getting here especially considering the fact that the chip on here is not super powerful in fact it is less powerful than the Odin that we were just talking about however there are quite a few things that I really like about this device number one it is super comfortable to hold one of the most comfortable devices that I own period on top of that it has super nice battery life that's why one of the best things about Android devices is they have some pretty good battery but this one beats all of them you can get upwards of 15 hours of battery life from this device alone and so yes while I think this device is too expensive right now I do caution everyone to kind of keep an eye out for sales because if you can get this for 200 or 250 dollars I think it's well worth it anyway as you can see there's a wide variety when it comes to android-based devices you could take your own Android phone and put it inside of controller play it like that or you can get something a little bit cheaper like the retroid pocket 3 plus and play a lot of systems on a really nice and small handheld like this too and if you're willing to spend some of those bigger bucks you could get something like the Ayn Odin for around 300 or you could spend even more to get the 400 Razor Edge which can play just about anything that Android can handle and So within the Android Spectrum there's a wide variety here but hopefully this kind of narrowed down your choice for you and finally up next we have our last category this is going to be what I call x86 based handhelds foreign we're talking about what is essentially handheld PCS in fact they're much like laptops but without a keyboard and a smaller form factor and in this category we have two major types of handhelds we have those that are based on a Windows operating system like this one here and then we have another device that you may have heard of before it is called the steam deck now the steam deck is running a custom Linux operating system and the idea here is that this can connect you to your steam pc catalog Now by virtue of using a Linux based operating system some games may not be compatible with Steam OS or the operating system within the steam deck but many if not most of the games will be playable and the other nice thing about the steam deck is the overall price we're talking about a handheld PC that starts at four hundred dollars and that's because valve which is the company that owns steam is a large company and so because of that they can subsidize the price of the hardware because they know that you're going to be buying Steam games and they'll get their profit that way stand this is the same common practice that is used with your PlayStation and Xboxes those devices actually would cost a lot more if made by somebody else but Sony and Microsoft make them cheaper because they're going to get their money out of the software instead and so when it comes down to just overall value and being able to play basically every PC game that you can the steam deck is going to be a really great example in that regard and I think the proof is in the pudding with this because they've sold over a million of these over the past year and so this is a very popular system and one of my favorites to play overall now there are a couple downsides in addition to the fact that not every single game is going to play on this the steam deck is not available in every region and so because of that there are other handheld companies that make other handheld PCS like this one here that are going to be based on Windows which means that every game is going to be able to play on this and then additionally these are available worldwide and so there are many reasons why handheld PCS that are windows based may actually be a good fit for certain users as well now the major downside of these windows based handhelds is the pricing after all all these are not made by large companies and so because of that they can't subsidize the hardware because they're not making any money off the software later and so as a result these devices can get quite expensive for example this one here the ineo 2 one of my favorites in this space has really good specs in fact this is more powerful than the steam deck and it can run Windows and it's very comfortable to hold as well however the starting price for this is around a thousand dollars and unfortunately even my favorite among all of these windows based handhelds which is this one here called the GPD Win 4 is quite expensive this one starts at around 900 right now and even then that's about 250 dollars more than the high-end steam deck which is probably its best comparison between the two and so you are going to end up paying a premium for one of these windows based handhelds even if they have more features than the steam deck for example the GPD Win 4 has a built-in keyboard and it's also using a chip that's about 25 percent more powerful than the steam deck either way when it comes to these handheld PCS you will be paying quite a bit more than the other categories we just talked about but the nice thing about these handheld PCS is that they can do just about anything a PC can do and that means it can play PC games but they can also use PC based emulators and so you can play everything up to Nintendo switch on some of these devices and so from an emulation and PC gaming perspective these things are kind of a no-brainer if you're willing to pay that premium price however there is one big drawback of this type of device is that the x86 based handhelds are never really meant to be played in a handheld environment after all these are basically desktop or laptop processors crammed inside a smaller form factor and so because of that battery life can be pretty awful on these devices depending on what you're playing at worst case scenario you can probably get maybe an hour an hour and a half if you're playing a really heavy duty game but if you tweak those settings you can often get somewhere between four and six hours of battery life and when it comes to those cheaper Linux based or android-based handhelds they can get six hours no problem for most of those devices as well but of course those other ones can't play PC games like you can on a dedicated PC and so there's always is going to be a trade-off here between cost and performance and battery life and it's really going to come down to what's the best fit for your particular use case if you've got a lot of money to invest on one of these devices and you don't mind having a shorter battery life then a handheld PC is really going to cover everything however if you are looking at something for a lower price then I would say that an Android based or one of the cheaper Linux based handhelds may be a better fit at that point it'll really come down to what operating system you prefer for example with Android based devices you can also play Android games along with emulating your favorite retro games too but for those Linux based handhelds you'll have more options when it comes to customizability so you can change out the firmware as well as the operating system overall feel regardless my recommendation here is to think about your overall budget and what you're willing to spend and what type of games you actually want to play and so really that's about it when it comes to this video I wanted to show off those four major categories of handheld devices to kind of help you narrow it down and which category is going to be a best fit for you at the end of the day there's a lot of fun to be had with any of these systems and any of them can play thousands of games it's really going to come down to what actually is a best match for you and your use case and so let me know what you think in the comments below which of the four categories do you fit into and why and be sure to check out the video description because I'm going to put a ton of different links to different playlists and devices to help you on that Journey 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] thank you [Music]

Channel: Retro Game Corps

Views: 274,913

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Id: cYvT-AiGaCk

Length: 18min 23sec (1103 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 20 2023

Reddit Comments

[u/Thisisaworkalt]

Great video as always. The 8-second title cards are rough though. Gotta cut those down