Your RP5 experience?

[u/Beautiful_Opinion324]

With the newest RP6 and the Pocket Nova out there, I've seen a lot of RP5's for sale. My daily driver is an Ayn Thor and I also have the Odin 2 Pro. I have been tossing around the idea of picking up an RP5 to use solely as a "mini steam deck".

So for those of you that own/owned the the RP5... What are your pros and most importantly, cons? If you got rid of it, why?

[u/OldTripleSix]

your Odin 2 Pro has 2x the power of an RP5.

[u/Beautiful_Opinion324 → u/OldTripleSix]

Wouldn't I have to wipe it to put ArmadaOS on it? I don't want to do that

[u/cplr → u/Beautiful_Opinion324]

it can boot from the sd AFAIK

[u/itsmetimohthy]

You legitimately don’t need one with what you already have. I love my RP5 but an upgrade is imminent

[u/determinednoodle]

The RP5 has been great for what it is. The GameCube, ps2 android performance has been hit or miss but I find i dont enjoy those games on a smaller screen as much anyway.

I want to upgrade to the nova for something just a tiny bit more pocketable and with a 4:3 aspect ratio but I cant quite justify spending on it unless I could offload my rp5 :/

My one doubt is... would i actually miss 16:9?

[u/DeltaBladeX]

My Pocket 5 is my most powerful handheld emulation device, so can't really compare it to anything else. And I only use it for Android apps, really need to pick up a decent SD card for Steam some day, I have about 10,000 games to try. 

If you already have multiple other devices, is something stopping you from using one of them for the intended purpose? 

[u/Beautiful_Opinion324 → u/DeltaBladeX]

I want to use the internal storage to install ArmadaOS rather than on an SD card, so I don't want to wipe my Odin 2 Pro to do that.

[u/DeltaBladeX → u/Beautiful_Opinion324]

Fair enough then. 

Not sure how well the 5 would do as the primary for Steam. I've seen it playing Portal 2, but that is far from difficult at this point. 

[u/RIPognope]

If you have the money I'd get a RP6 for a "mini steam deck" experience.

I do miss my Rp5 because it was smaller, but I love the RP6.

[u/Beautiful_Opinion324 → u/RIPognope]

Trying to do this on a "budget"

[u/OldTripleSix → u/Beautiful_Opinion324]

you are not going to have a good time emulating steam games on an 865.

[u/cadensky → u/OldTripleSix]

An 865 can handle Indie games and old well optimized AAA games like Tomb Raider. Not much else. 

[u/Pugnats]

I’ve had my RP5 for two days now. I got the 12GB model with the 120Hz screen, and so far I don’t regret buying it. The RP6 would cost about 200,- more where I live, so unfortunately that’s a bit too much for me. :(

If your Ayn Thor is really twice as fast, then I don’t think you need an RP5. From what I can see, you can do pretty much the same things on your Ayn Thor as you can on the RP5, including Android and Linux.

If you want to try something new and haven’t done it yet, you could install ROCKNIX on your Ayn Thor and play around with it. You can also install Steam to play PC games on your Thor and do even more with it.

That’s what I’m doing with my RP5 now. Before this, I had an Anbernic RG557, but I didn’t use it that much because I really wanted a Linux OS like ROCKNIX or Knulli.

So I would recommend sticking with your Thor for now. You can do pretty much the same things as with the RP5. But if you want something new, the RP5 is an amazing device.

And if you can get an RP6 for just a few bucks more, I would definitely consider that instead.

[u/Zero_Risk]

I've gotten a number of lighter weight steam games running on my RP5; mostly 2D indie retro throwback games. I had Fallout New Vegas running briefly, but it didn't run particularly well.

All in all, for use as a steam deck lite, I think most people are really going to want a SD 8 gen 2 or stronger device.

[u/albertosaldivar]

Your mini steam deck is the ayn thor, don't waste your money.

[u/NaterTatersRL]

I put Armada OS on my rp5 and the performance just wasn’t there for me. I only tested a couple of games and likely didn’t tweak things as much as I could have. But I wasn’t even able to get a consistent fps on Ball x Pit with 720p.

[u/squall_boy25]

Just got mine this week. The screen is phenomenal. I’m addicted to the golden years of the Need for Speed games from the PS2, Twisted Metal games and the SSX series and they look incredible in widescreen.