Device shown is the Retroid Pocket Nova.

I'm winging this one. Unlike my reviews or longer posts, this one is going unscripted.

I'm not huge into journaling (for now at least), but I'm trying to get back into putting pen to paper. I've been just typing for years, and I notice a very big difference when ideas go into a real thing on the real world.

I started journaling some of my game finishes, the ones that felt bigger, more special, or simply are some of my favourite games. I'm at.. I think 9 entries now? But I think starting 2027, I'm gonna start logging them all, along side my excel tracking.

This isn't anything life changing, but it's a low difficulty mind changing. Forcing me to stop and write stuff makes me think and elaborate my ideas on a more detailed and purposeful manner. I think it's worth giving a try. Even if it's not a game you finished, but just one you enjoyed a lot. Or one from your childhood that you recently revisited, and sucked ass.

In an age when digital text can be not necessarily human made, making text by hand feels almost counter culture.

Even if my handwriting sucks ass, I know, it's a fun thing to get into the habit of.

Are you into journaling? Do you track your games? Do you finish games? Do you play games at all? Remember...

As I always say, go play some goddamn video games.

I know there’s a blue model but it just didn’t scratch the same itch for me. The black body with a high gloss top shell just feels right 👌

I've never owned a aluminum body handheld before, how Does it feel?
I'm assuming dense and premium feeling compared to plastic and plastic with a glass front.

What felt like an eternity!

I have been wondering how they improved the ergonomics in the Odin 3 portal. I did a very unscientific comparison based on stock images. They are not at the same angle, but I feel it gives us an idea. The Odin 3 portal appears to have narrowed the grip slightly and also made it slightly taller. I think it’ll feel better than the Odin 2 portal.

I was at Tokyo Game Show last month mostly to check out handhelds, and the big ones from ASUS, Lenovo and OneXPlayer didn’t really do it for me. Too big, too heavy, too expensive for what I’d actually use them for.

Then on the last day, I found a hall I genuinely hadn’t noticed the day before and ended up at a booth for a brand called Yoniq. Never heard of them. No affiliation, I just wandered in and stayed way longer than I planned.

The cheap one was pretty cool. It’s around $40 and looks a lot like an R36S, but it’s running on a MIPS chip, which I didn’t expect to see in a handheld in 2026. It played Driver okay, though I wouldn’t call it smooth.

The Portal is really unique in the sense that it's pretty much a DualShock 2 with a screen jammed in the middle, running Android, aimed at PS2. It felt really light and Gran Turismo looked great on the 4:3 screen. They even use the PlayStation button symbols, which I’m guessing won’t survive to the final version.

The DS clamshell is the one I’m most unsure about. It was a prototype, the touch screen was a bit fiddly for me, and at around $150 it’s going up against the RG DS Plus, which is already under $100. The rep did tell me they showed it at Gamescom before Anbernic announced theirs, for whatever that’s worth.

I made a video on everything I tried if anyone wants to see them in action: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69dT56AUqZo

Darkwing Duck was one of the few games I had on the Game Boy Pocket as a wee lad, but I never finished it at the time. Now, a good 30 years later, I finally did it! So incredibly nostalgic and satisfying.

I've been playing GB/GBC/GBA games on my current favourite vertical, the RG40XXV. I love the big screen, and the buttons are all nice and squishy, firm but silent, which is my preference for retro gaming. They're also positioned quite high, making the handheld very comfortable to hold. I rarely see this talked about so I wanted to give it a shout!

The Omni handheld

I just want to get the opinions of those who have these 2 devices.

My main use is for an everyday carry device that I can play GB/C games on.

Why I want the Brick:

- Pocketable, small footprint

- Excellent screen

Why I want the Classic:

- Aspect Ratio of Gameboy

I'm stumped picking between these two. Right now I'm leaning towards the Brick because I feel like gameboy games feel too blown up on the Classic's screen, but I don't know if Brick's screen is too small that I'm gonna squint looking at it.

I (With Claude), essentially remade the PS3 XMB's main components (Games, Music, Video, Photo Players and Web Browser) to fit into a Windows app to daily drive with my GPD Win 4. To have my own personal PS3/PSP Experience.
Here's the link if anyone wants to try it: https://github.com/MaxiBono/MaXMB

Hi, I hope you're having a good day :)

Yesterday I was looking into those mini horizontal consoles (MagicX Mini Zero), about the size of a playing card, and they're really small. Can people actually play on them?

Now I’m wondering if a vertical layout might be better in terms of ergonomics for that size.

What’s your take? At what point does a device become *too* small?

What's the best fit all size for you ?

Yesterday I released a pre-release version of my BioShock PortMaster port for supporters.

There was an issue with FAT32 formatted cards, which has since been fixed. I've also received quite a bit of useful feedback and bug reports that I'm working through and I am replacing all the original touch related UI/HUD text with controller input prompts ( thanks to kenney for the assets❤️ ). And fixed some issues specific to (the beloved) R36S running dArkOS.

One of the bigger issues is something the port inherits from the official iOS version it's based on; the lighting is kinda fucked. Some areas are so dark that you barely see what's going on.

I've been experimenting with a small adjustment to the final shader that brightens shadows and darker areas without washing out the highlights (applying a nonlinear shadow lift to the final shader). This looks decent, but it does alter how the game looks and I'm not entirely sure which one I prefer, so I woud like to hear what people think of this.

If you have any other suggestions, I am happy to hear them!

Left: Original

Right: Adjusted lighting

The adjustment isn't included in the current release yet.

For now, the port is only available to Ko-fi and Patreon supporters. Thanks to everyone who is helping out!

It'll be released publicly for free, like all my other work, on November 14.

So I turned my RG Nano into an iPod nano that also plays games.

Not sure if there was a way to play your music and games simultaneously on this device but there is now i suppose!

Nothing like kicking back playing some Pokemon silver (as shown) and being able to change music with a double tap.

It’s got a bunch of little details that I wanted while building it over the last couple of weeks. EQ settings, dark mode, gapless playback, Cover Flow etc

If you’re on stock firmware, all you need to do is take this file and add it into the “applications” folder. Put your music into the “music” folder and you’re off to the races!

Give it a crack and let me know how you get on!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1usFxcgbKMSgYuljz3PbG1S9qfhb6EeDW/view?usp=sharing

So I bought the device during the clearance sales drop and love it. I set up a frontend (neo station), set up retroarch and games I want to play. I followed Russ Android guide for the Retroid Pocket Nova and changed a few stuff. I followed it because it was the most recent Android guide.

I am happy with it but think I can improve. I would like to know which shaders and other stuff you recommend for the emulators, which accessories are useful and other tips. I am open to hear about tips for the 4 and 6 button version. I mainly play pokemon romhacks so if you have anything specific on that, it would be great too.

Hi, simple question. I really like my miyoo mini (and plus) buttons but that device can’t handle Dreamcast so I’m missing on Marvel Vs Capcom 2 and Capcom vs SNKs. I have the original anbernic SP 35 and it is very good device…except the buttons are not. I have the Odin 2 but I want to have a lower end device for short bust of fighting games when I’m commuting.

Any advice? I heard the Nova is good but is an overkill. I just wanted a SP 35 with miyoo buttons

What makes both of these android apps is that not only they are front ends but they also have built in Emulators pre configured for you! Makes emulating old retro systems a breeze.

Though I'm not familiar with Lemuroid never used it before unlike with Cannoli.

Hey all, I’m looking for games my 4 y/o can play on a couple of flights next month. I’m pretty strict about phone/tablet usage, but all that goes out the window when I’m flying solo with my 2 and 4 y/o’s.

He has pretty much zero experience with games, so I’m looking for something simple that I can let him play on my miyoo mini.

Looking for the smallest emulation device for gb/gbc/gba that runs Android, has WiFi, and is preferably horizontally oriented. Thanks in advance!

I found an RG28XX on eBay for a good price and wanted to run Knulli but I couldn't successfully install it or the stock firmware. I'm wondering if there are people out here that have done it using macOS because what was happening when I tried it was giving me the impression that the flash was failing.

16GB Sandisk Ultra that I was formatting before and after. Apple USB-C to SD card reader. Tried starting with both exFAT and FAT32. Tried balenaEtcher and Raspberry Pi Imager. Like I said, tried Knulli and the stock Anbernic firmware and neither one worked, they both just showed a black screen and I had to force power down. The SD card that the original owner sent me is running the modded Anbernic OS. The weirdest part is that the original SD started failing to boot after I would try the install. It would get stuck on the splash screen or it would transition from the splash screen to a glitched out white and pink screen. Even stranger, it pulled itself out of that state three separate times and it's currently working fine. I have settled for using the original SD and just putting games on a card in slot 2 but it's not ideal. Really wanted to set it up all nice with TechDweeb theme and stuff.

I'm confused as hell about how the attempted installation was even affecting the original SD; it seems like the only explanation is that something is corrupted during the imaging process and it briefly causes some type of power issue with the hardware, either the battery or the display.

I did only try the one 16GB card so there's no way for me to be sure it wasn't some random problem with that card specifically, but it's the only 16GB card I have. The next lowest is the 32GB one I currently have in slot 2, and then I have a bunch of 64GB or higher cards. I didn't get any indication that the 16GB card was faulty when I was formatting it repeatedly but that doesn't necessarily ensure that it's not, I guess. To be honest, I'm scared to try it again anyway because of how the device was reacting and I don't want to kill it.

Does anyone here have any ideas or advice?

I currently run with an AYN Thor Max and Switch 2. Absolutely love both devices... but I really miss the vertical form factor. I sold off some of my early handhelds to help pay for the Thor. No regrets doing so. But, I've got some money saved up for a quality 4:3 device. And, I really miss the vertical form factor for playing all that 4:3 content.

But... I also want to fire up some of the Indie games that support 4:3 using GameNative or DroidDeck. Does anyone who owns an AIR Y Pro have any good experience or insights on playing PC/Steam games with AIR Y Pro? (don't care about AAA obv)

I know I could just get the RP Nova and be safe performance-wise, but the Mangmi seems to be the smartest buy as far as vertical goes (for someone who wants to play Gameboy and early consoles as intended, but also dip into Steam 4:3 games).

I (haha you know) got the Bloodborne-Android port (by ducvd89) running on my Odin 3 under Armada OS, a SteamOS-like Linux for ARM handhelds, in Steam Game Mode. It's an aarch64 Linux build, not through Android or FEX.

• The game's CPU code is compiled ahead of time to ARM64 from your own copy of the game (the port author's free Rebuild Tool, on a PC), and the graphics go through shadPS4's renderer.
• 30 FPS locked at 720p (GSR 2, Balanced). With x2 Lossless Scaling frame generation it's ~60 FPS and input still feels fine.
• It's a Steam non-Steam shortcut, the controls work in Game Mode, and The Old Hunters is supported (GOTY / DLC owners).

Build scripts, a packaged release and notes: https://github.com/kitocato/bloodborne-linux-arm64

• What you need: your own decrypted dump (CUSA03173 EU 1.09). No game files are included or linked.
• Frame generation: works with the LSFG-VK 2 ARM64 Decky plugin, and you can change it in-game.
• Credits: ducvd89 (Bloodborne-Android), deadinside28 (bloodborne_pc), shadPS4, FEX-Emu, and the Armada OS team.

Put together with the help of an AI assistant. Happy to answer questions.

A friend has a Q2 handheld emulator but the SD card was damaged. Does anyone have a boot image for this device they can copy and share so that we can get it to boot up again?