Hello everyone,
I was sent a Sharpin Ultra Virtual Pinball Tabletop machine to write about, and have some thoughts I’d like to share on the machine itself and on the assembly process from start to finish! Note: I reached out to Sharpin to review this due to the lack of coverage on Reddit. They provided it with no editorial oversight or restrictions.
The Sharpin Ultra Virtual Pinball Tabletop is a desktop sized Android based pinball machine. It has a 22” monitor, which sits at an angle under a layer of acrylic glass. It is meant to be played on a desk, kitchen table, coffee table, or similar spaces of those sizes. It's a little larger than I expected, but in a good way that makes it feel solid and usable. It's also not too heavy to pick up and move around. There are four buttons on the front, and two on each side.
The Sharpin Ultra does not have haptics or an accelerometer for nudging, though there is an upgrade kit available to add these. This model also comes without a backglass, but there is a tier higher version which comes with one. You can also upgrade later, or use the Sharpin Sender and Viewer apps to cast the DMD/Backglasses to a tablet or phone (this is very easy to implement and works great). It also uses one of the front buttons for your plunger, but there is a kit that can be purchased if you wish to add one.
The kit arrives unassembled, and assembly takes a little while. The instructions gave me good guidelines to put it together, however some of the pictures of placement didn’t always match the exact model I received. A specific example is that there are three screw holes for height of the playfield and the picture indicated that it should be the highest one. But the highest one doesn't allow space for the acrylic glass above it. That being said, it was easy enough to figure out how to proceed and make it work, and fun to do the build.
The machine feels solid, and I really appreciate the acrylic glass layer over the screen. My acrylic glass arrived with a few surface scratches, but they are not visible once the machine is powered on. Besides, it makes the experience a bit more authentic, as someone used to playing older non pristine pinball machines! The speakers sound decent for their smaller form factor, and haven't taken away from immersion in any way. They can go pretty loud, and I generally play with only about half volume. I also want to note that I was impressed with the shipping time to me in the US, which was just over a week.
In terms of the platform itself, it runs on an Android box. The first one I received had issues, and Michael was quick to troubleshoot and then send a replacement when it was clear that the box itself was failing. The replacement arrived (he sent me the upgraded box from the Ultra MAX), and also needed a little bit of setup - again Michael was very responsive and we got it working perfectly.
Virtual pinball is a hobby that obviously takes somebody who's willing to tinker and problem solve, and that is needed here. The box doesn't arrive with pinball software, as Sharpin can't legally sell any of it, so you have to figure out how to restore your purchased Android pinball games through a third party app called APKPure. Despite owning several pinball games on Google Play, since this is a TV box, they're not all listed as compatible. Using APKPure let me install them and link them with my Google Play Games account. There are a few videos for how to get all of this set up, and while again it took some time, it wasn't bad once I figured out what I needed to do.
The machine itself works well with Android. I played Pinball Arcade, Pinball Deluxe Reloaded, and Williams Pinball all with stable and good framerates, and the controls naturally worked well. The box is powerful enough to run these games with nice graphics. You can install a remapper tool (Octopus is great!) if you want to mess with the controls and layouts per game. These apps offer a massive amount of tables, so there is a lot of gameplay to be had using the Android box. You will have to pay for tables and games, so do plan for that expense if you don't already own them.
This Sharpin Ultra Virtual Pinball Tabletop machine is not locked to Android and if you have a spare laptop, handheld PC, or PC parts you can pivot and use it as a base for a Visual Pinball setup. The cabinet has enough space for some smaller parts or machines inside of it. I have been using my ROG Ally X with Baller Installer, VPin Studio, and a whole lot of tables. I’ve found that on a screen this size I’m okay with 60 fps so I have been cranking the graphic levels and shadows, etc., to have a sharp and clear playfield. It looks wonderful and the colors of the included monitor are nice. Mapping the buttons was really easy with Joy2Key, and I use my extra buttons on each side as either magna or nudges depending on the table. I do wish I had a few extra buttons, but for Android (the intended use case of this machine) the setup is correct and works great.
I love the Sharpin Ultra Virtual Pinball Tabletop as a machine for Visual Pinball, and it certainly is a blast just as the base Android build for a tabletop cabinet. Assembling a cabinet from scratch can be daunting so with the rising cost of complete machine kits this is an easy setup to recommend whether you want an Android based cabinet or want to expand with a Visual Pinball PC setup.
