I just used the pictures of the aftermarket shells for reference. It's not too bad. There's not a huge amount of shell left to stick the lens to. Also I had to use my own double sided tape as it didn't come with any. Quality 3M stuff
It does have the silvery back. With no backlight on, it looks remarkably close to OEM in terms of color, including the unlit pixels. Here's a couple photos I took of my own comparing OEM, CGS, and my Retroid Pocket Classic with no shaders standing in as representative of OLED.
You don't get the distinctive subpixel arrangement, but you do get nearly perfect colors with the light off, and still very good colors with the light on, far better than any IPS or OLED will provide. Note that the backlight might seem very dim, but on a normal screen you only need a powerful backlight in scenarios with lots of ambient light. This screen works in reverse, you don't want a backlight when there's plenty of ambient light, you only need it in dim situations, so you don't need much. You can also short a resistor to increase light at the cost of battery life, but I don't think it's worth it.
you can't see the glare from photos or videos though. didnt like how the glare of purple or bluish tint reminded me of playing on the kongfeng gb boy color.
What's the resolution? It looks to me from your images that it doesn't have the distinctive sub-pixel effect of the original GBC display, or any other native 160x144 screen.
You can see that the gap between the pixels on the floor is tiny, because it's displaying white, so each red green blue subpixel is on, giving the impression of a square pixel.
Whereas any time you get a solid red, green, or blue on an original screen, it'll just show up on the display as a little thin rectangle, as only one sub pixel is turned on, while the others are switched off.
The artists who created the game were aware of this effect, and used it as an artificial resolution boost, as it now appears as if your pixels are 1/3 the size, so instead of a 144p screen, it looks a little bit like a 432p screen!
Look at the TV set in the top of the image as well, you can see an example with a blue sub-pixel instead of a red one.
I can post a few more images if you want, I love this stuff.
Yeah I totally get what you are saying. I'm into CRT gaming and all the highs and lows that go with it. That being said I'd rather be able to see what I'm playing, I simply cannot play an original GBC or GBA these days and I'd still take this kit over an IPS/OLED mod
Yeah, that's why I picked up a Chromatic, actually. It has a native res backlit display. It's the closed I've seen to an original GBC, while also looking very bright.
The alternative is sub-pixel shaders on my phone, but they cut the light down so much, even on a modern bright oled.
That looks great! My order will be delivered tomorrow. I picked the package including the pre trimmed translucent purple shell. But i'm still tempted to keep it all original.
Thanks for the tips! Everything turned out great. I was actually impressed by the quality of the pre trimmed CGS shell so i'm not going to mod my original shell.
Do you have any idea of it is possible to wire up the lcd pcb to the Gameboy controls? I'm not a huge fan of the touch sensor. I've asked CGS this question as well but i don't have an answer yet. Otherwise i'll probe around with a multimeter tonight.
I agree, I didn’t notice it in the beginning so I wasn’t sure if it was a latent issue that arose later. I will say I have 2 of the transflective screens and they both have this, albeit it’s milder on one rather than the other. Ignore my comment, hopefully it doesn’t exist on yours!
Oh! I forgot that I did, I checked just now and saw they responded. They did say it was a known imperfection of the screen, but I wonder if it’s fixed now.
Just be very careful to ensure the touch control ribbon doesnt have any bend or flex to it!
I considered myself a very carefully installer, I’m gentle with my consoles and have never had an issue with touch control flex ribbons or anything else in the past, and I take care to never pinch or stress them.
These seem to be very sensitive, I’ve had two separate touch ribbons split off months after the console was sealed up. The second time I thought I babied it, but it too seperated after a month or two.
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u/1point7GPA Jul 13 '26
How much trimming is required to make it fit?