Bought my first handheld, an Anbernic RG34XXSP, and I thought it was a mistake when I compared it to my phone...
So my primary "retro handheld" of choice is my phone and it's great. For its size, it's a behemoth for emulation (SD8 Gen 3, 16GB RAM), and I've got the entire history of gaming on it from the earliest games all the way to modern stuff.
But the issue is that it's my phone. Nothing ruins immersion like a Slack notification or a bank text when you're deep into Zelda. And it doesn't feel the right form factor for many games. Although with my split controller (GameSir X4A), I can play it in a portrait mode, that's more for vertical arcade games not GBA.
Which is why I decided to buy a Game Boy style handheld. It was either this or the Trimui Brick and I went with the clamshell. But out of the box, I didn't like it at all:
- There was terrible letterboxing going on for anything that wasn't a GBA title
- The most accurate GB LCD shaders didn't work, they looked horribly blurry
- CRT shaders had banding going on and many would just lag
- When I switched to the
glcoredriver to make use of the slang shaders I was more familiar with, RetroArch just broke and had to be reset completely. - My bluetooth earbuds would connect but not output any audio
The good:
- The buttons felt pretty good. While the shoulder buttons feel flimsy and awkward, everything else is almost perfect.
- Even the recessed analog sticks I'd assumed would suck were pretty good. The only issue is that the sticks have a convex, slippery surface, so you often end up holding them from under the stick which can't be good for their durability.
- GBA games looked perfect with just a simple color correction + LCD shader preset
I finally realized I'd need to spend time setting up my own presets to maybe match the accurate slang shaders I like. This is a machine that requires tinkering. Here's what I've got for the Game Boy LCD for now and I plan to do the same for the GBC as well as CRT shaders for NES/SNES titles.
tl;dr Temper your expectations folks, don't expect your $70 handheld to be a retro gaming champion like I did. Widescreen F-Zero is only going to work on your phone/Deck/PC, but playing Castlevania 3 on a GBA SP shaped device is still pretty sweet.
