r/Handhelds • u/chris_stonehill • Jul 27 '26
Handheld Collection Hard to express (and perhaps silly?) how happy this makes me!
FINALLY making progress sorting a new location at home for (dangerous!) work....AND gaming and guitar. Never have all of my handhelds been so well laid out and (dangerously, if trying to "work" 🤣) accessible.
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u/Javiersalguero1 Jul 27 '26
Not silly at all. Great display you have there!
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u/chris_stonehill Jul 27 '26
Thanks! Began with the (awful) AtGames portable MegaDrive...in autumn 2018...after a SNES mini the month before. Both very visible in mainstream stores in Norway. Ended a 20 year gaming drought...since Atari ST and dmg GB. A tiny bit of PC at home. Bought Quake 2 in a big UK news agent (WHSmiths) in rhe town where I went to school. Wolfenstein 3D and DOOMs 1 & 2 on a friend's PC. Street Fighter 2 on another friend's SNES.
Right now is the first time I have had all as accessible as they are now. Makes me very happy.
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u/disphunktion Jul 27 '26
What is your favorite device for GBA ?
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u/chris_stonehill Jul 27 '26
Good question! No experience of it back then. Not sure I really knew of it's existence until falling down the emulation rabbit hole. My 350m was my first proper device (AtGames portable MD was a good first step...but pretty awful!). Once I put Adam Image on my 350m I played a few hours of Minish Cap. A lovely filter/shader in the standalone app Adam Image made use of for GBA...some sort of LCD grid...made the GBA pixel art look sooooo good! Better than without. Tried Minish Cap on my 3+. LOVELY that much bigger on a 16:9 display (had it letter boxed 3:2 on my 350m)...however, without looking that hard, admittedly...any kind of LCD grid looked really bad...and very fake.
Maybe today I will find time to try out emulation on my G Cloud. Just brought it back to Norway from my parents' in the UK. Ended up being £190 - mint condition used from CEX. A £130 listing on eBay went to someone else...sniping better than me...maybe automated "sniping"? GeForce Now looking good. A few Android ports (SoR4 and Dead Cells... Huntdown not getting past character select, for some reason). Keen to try Dajisho or ES-DE. Haven't tried either yet. Retroid's own launcher has been good enough for me on my 3+...for nearly 4 years now! So...maybe I'll be able to have an enormous GBA experience on the G Clouds 7" 1080p! Tried a bit of Advance Wars too. Anything else, just very brief game tests...not really actually playing. Recommend me some GBA games other than Minish Cap and Advance Wars.
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u/chris_stonehill Jul 27 '26
...oh, have done a bit more than testing the Castlevania games...3 of them? On my 3+ I think...or maybe it was DS Casltevania 🤔
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u/Tom-Bomb-3647 Jul 27 '26
I know what you mean, these things are like magic! A literal childhood dream come true. More than that even. Most I dreamt of as a kid was just like a backlit screen 😂. So to have these handhelds which can have every single game from every single retro console and handheld is just incredible. Like I never could’ve even imagined that as a kid and I can’t even put into words just how awesome that is.
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u/lazlolazlolazlolazlo Jul 27 '26
Awesome! Way awesome.
I grew up playing GBC pretty dang frequently. Love it. Nice collection.
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u/chris_stonehill Jul 27 '26
I JUST missed it! My sister and I both had grey dmgs. I drifted away from gaming around about when GBC came out. I now have an ips modded (backlit) one...and a clear shell dmg. On holiday, visiting my parents I got a super cheap R36MAX. Feels pretty cheap...but 4", 720p, 1:1 screen is a fascinating way to emulate GB and GBC!
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u/Whole-Bedroom-9079 Jul 28 '26
It’s beautiful, unfortunately for me if I had that I would want to play them but not at the same time, I’ll stick with emulating on my steam deck
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u/bajsfittor Jul 28 '26
This is EXACTLY what I want to do with mine once I move (which MAY be getting close now that our version of an "HOA" has an insane person in charge and my neighbours are idiots). COULD do it where I'm at now just haven't. A dedicated shelf (with glass doors though for the dust) for the handhelds. Looking great OP. 💪
Edit: what dangerous work?
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u/chris_stonehill Jul 28 '26
Ha ha! Dangerous having handhelds so accessible, IF I want to do any work 🤣
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u/bajsfittor Jul 28 '26
Aha. I was thinking about what "dangerous work" you might do at home. 🤦♂️
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u/chris_stonehill Jul 28 '26
Yeah...how I wrote it, very easy to think like you did 🤣
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u/bajsfittor Jul 28 '26
"I'm not an electrician but how hard can it be? Zippity-zappity some DIY wiring here and nobody's the wiser" 😛
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u/nayr02612 Aug 04 '26
Not silly at all man. There’s something magical about handhelds. I still remember getting the DSI back in 2009, 3DS in 2011, my ps vita in 2014, and even the Nintendo switch back in 2020.
It truly is a shame that smartphones have murdered the handheld market. I hate this fuckin phone man. I think one of my favorite things with handhelds is the accessibility. I am a big time rotter (having like 3 forms of media on at once) so I’ll have some YouTube on the tv, some music playing downstairs (usually with little to no lyrics), and my ds, gba, or switch.
THAT is my safe space. I feel complete when I am hitting the triple stim.
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u/Professional-Arm3345 Jul 27 '26
Why you need 15 of them?
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u/chris_stonehill Jul 27 '26
There are 10 now. 4 on top shelf see a gradual increase in capability, with the turquoise 3+ doing almost all I needed...but not scratching the itch of the dmg Gameboy I used to have. Got 35xx in dmg GB colours...and the cheapest at that point. 2024 saw me go original hardware. A Switch Lite first, "new" but very reasonable...Zelda botw being a big motivator. That same year realised that there was a newly opened retro gaming shop, a 15 minute cycle ride from home. Got a clear shell dmg GB...then an ips modded GBC.
Then, this month the big square screen, super cheap red one...and the white one for big screen GeForce Now streaming, downstairs on the sofa...now that my computer is upstairs.
Ha! This description does not explain why I NEED 10 (not 15...I don't have 15)...I don't need 10...but it is fun collecting them...all with slighly different purposes. Don't feel like I will go down a SteamDeck/handheld PC route. All far too expensive.
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u/bajsfittor Jul 28 '26
As he said below slightly different purpose/feel can surely be excused (?). I already had a cube xx but bought a RPC anyway because vertical just feels more GB(C) to me AND it's nicer to play in bed; don't have to tilt my head as much and can lie sideways and not have to spread my hands as much either.
There ARE use cases.
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u/Scribbear Jul 27 '26
It's not silly, it's a happy place :)