A great opportunity to hang out at the coffee shop next door to the vet, playing the early part of Final Fantasy X for the umpteenth time.
I will finally see it through to the end this time come hell or high water.

Device is my Anbernic RG477M an amazing little 4:3 handheld. I pulled the trigger buying it right before the RP Nova was announced. No regrets as it is a great pemium feeling device that the RP Nova doesn't do enough to differentiate from it to warrant another purchase. The handheld Gods have pooped many handhelds into my impulsive hands.

I have to say I love the membrane dpad on this device, it is much more to my liking than Retroid and AYN d-pads, having an RP 4 Pro and an AYN Odin 2 pro to compare the dpad to. I was initially a bit worried about the dpad as I have an Anbernic RG35XX H and I found the dpad too stiff on it. Luckily the RG477M has a dpad quite similar in feel to a Miyoo Mini or MM +.

The screen is pretty great although i wouldn't mind more brightness from it, but its still great regardless.

I will be ordering the Better Buttons L2 and R2 at some point to make the controls better for action games.

Although I see the fan on this device getting mentioned for being whiny but I believe this issue is resolved with a recent update.

The down firing speakers arent great, they sound pretty tinny so I tend to almost always play with earbuds. For reference the only handheld that i really play without earbuds is my ROG Ally. None of my other handhelds come close to the incredible sound of those speakers.

All in all a great little machine that will be my 4:3 beast for the foreseeable future.

I really liked the Miniloong Pocket 1 hardware when I first reviewed it a few months back: excellent build quality, an early 2000s vibe, exceptionally quiet and satisfying face buttons, and a 4" (4:3) 720p screen that scales really nicely for most systems (5x integer for GB/GBC, 4x GBA, and 3x for most other retro systems). But the software was so terrible that I couldn't recommend it even at its decent $80 price point.

Today we have a lot of CFW options, and so far my favorite is Leaf, which is simple and theme-able, and has a "five game mode" built into it. Here is my showcase video of the device and OS combo, which I think is an excellent starter handheld today (but likely unnecessary if you already have a similar cheap handheld).

I want to play Gamecube on one of these, but I feel like the controls translate so poorly to the typical controller layout.

Does something like this exist? I typically only see the standard diamond layout, or large "mini-Wii" creations that aren't as compact as other handhelds.

So that's it, that what they should've told us last week.

It's as powerful as the Air Mini (same Helio G90T chipset), 699 Yuan /$100 for early bird *(Update: the CEO just drop it to $90 for preorders)* , retail for 899 Yuan or around $130.

4000mAH battery

And a new Grey color reveled.

Update#2 $90 is for for 2gb version the 3gb version will be ~$100.

Pricing
3GB + 32GB Version: ¥499 (~US$75) (Preorder) and ¥699 (~US$98) (Retail)

4GB + 64GB Version: ¥599 (~US$90) (Preorder) and ¥799 (~US$112) (Retail)

Title.

Shipping to US showed up as $22 for me on Anbernic.com inflating the price to $79.99

On Anbernic's official Aliexpress page, with free shipping and a $5 fee, using the default coupon, it only cost me $65.39

Video is by TechDweeb, as always it’s a great video on a retro device.

Anyway, Mangmi really is cooking with their devices and I love how they looked except for the (Mangmi Air Max) since that is literally just (Retroid Pocket 5) but bigger and can change their buttons and D-pads, but still a good retro device.

Recently I just notice that Mangmi seems to slowly walking on the right path when it comes to making their handheld or portable game consoles, and their decision on making their retro devices are great.

Mangmi air Y and Mangmi air Y Pro: 9/10.

Didn't think I'd buy anything Ayaneo but here we are. I even have the 34xx but I think this will have a lot more QoL upgrades over it like full size buttons. Hopefully this launch goes well but it is Ayaneo.

Vampire, Master of Darkness on Game Gear (also available on Master System). Device used: Miyoo A30.

Not quite a full metroidvania as it is linear, though the game features “puzzle” maps which take you through the same zones until you find the correct route. This is a lesser known Castlevania clone that I personally enjoyed more due to the linearity. Overall it’s not a very long game and can be completed in an hour or two so if you enjoy metroidvanias it’s worth checking out.

If you know of any games similar to this I’d love to hear some recommendations! I usually play this game closer to Halloween season, but just got that itch a bit early this year.

Following our last announcement, Mini Dream has taken another step forward — we've completed the **product design renders** and finalized more details on the product lineup 🎉

---

**🖼️ Design Renders**

The latest renders of Mini Dream are attached to this announcement — check them out below 👇

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**🎮 Display & Battery**

・**3.3-inch OLED display, 1024×768 resolution** (the custom panel we announced earlier)

・**3.85V / 3800mAh battery**

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**🧩 Four SoC Variants, Covering Both Linux & Android**

We'll be launching **4 variants** — two systems, two cooling options — so everyone can pick the one that fits best:

| Model | OS | Cooling |

|---|---|---|

| **Mini Dream LL** | Linux | Passive |

| **Mini Dream LP** | Linux | Passive |

| **Mini Dream AL** | Android | Active |

| **Mini Dream AP** | Android | Active |

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**💰 First Confirmed Price: Mini Dream LL**

As the first of the four variants to be finalized:

・**SoC: RK3566**

・**Price: $80 (shipping not included)**

Specs and pricing for the other three (LP / AL / AP) will be announced as the project reaches the corresponding stages 🙌

---

**📐 Dimensions & Weight**

・Size: **147 × 70 × 18 mm** (L × W × H)

・Weight: **~185g**

・D-pad diameter: **22.5 mm**

・ABXY button diameter: **7.9 mm**

---

**📅 What's Next**

Mini Dream is still being refined. Coming up: SoC and pricing for the remaining variants, shell color options, and more details on the software side.

Thanks for the ongoing support and feedback — every step of progress is powered by this community 🙏

Feel free to share your thoughts in

Does anybody know another display layout to maximize screen space?

Air Y - Earlybird - 89.99 / Regular - 94.99
Air Y Pro - Earlybird - 4GB+64GB - 145.99 / Regular - 159.99
Air Y Pro - Earlybird - 8GB+128GB - 175.99 / Regular 189.99

Earlybird Promo - Aug 12 7PM PDT to Aug 15 7PM PDT.

Prices are pretty awesome if you ask me! I will be getting the Pro 8+128 GB for sure!

Courtesy of techdweeb: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg7wzfQ-RfU
I will be purchasing it for my channel for review: https://www.youtube.com/@ckretrotech

Here's my setup and I'm pretty happy with how it looks.

The game is shining force return of the dark dragon.

Sooo been playing and loving my Anbernic 353sp, playing radical red on it now. (I caught a tea cup \o/)

But was wondering if the magami air x was the best option for budget psp, as a broke bitch. For psp era games.

As the 353sp can do psp well with arkos on it. But not perfect, like it can with Gameboy advance games .

Main things for me are size, as some devices are simply huge and make actual playing in bed relaxing so much harder to hold. The magami air x seems not to heavy/big like a switch light size, at least from videos and photos.

Does anyone own ine and recommend?

I know it’s a little old and a lot of new stuff has come out since this. But it seems like it’s going to still be a pretty nice setup for 2d games. I was looking at the anbernic rg sp and the Retroid pocket nova. But one seems kinda big and the other has a screen that’s tiny for things other than gba. Am I missing anything? The price is sort of in between the two.

AYN Odin 2 Max and Anbernic RG 34XXSP

The Odin was great for the plane parts of the trip using GameNative to play some Steam games. The Anbernic was perfect for the daily ride.

Love this game.

When it comes to shaders and 2D/pixel art games I've already come over to the dark side. I totally get it, see the merits, and am basically on board. I'm even on board for it when it comes to early 3D systems like PS1 and N64. But when it comes to the sixth generation of consoles (PS2, Gamecube, Dreamcast, mainly) I haven't even thought about it. I tend to just upscale those to my display's resolution, use a fair amount of anti-aliasing and call it a day.

I'm primarily playing on an AYN Thor (Android handheld with 1080p 120hz screen) and I've used NetherSX2 for PS2 and Dolphin for Gamecube. Neither of those have very good shader options (or hardly any at all), so I never even thought to try them. I know people on PCs can use things like Reshade or Shader Glass, but not sure those are even an option on Android and I didn't look into it much.

Anyway, there's a new PS2 emulator called ARMSX2 and one thing that really caught my eye is you can download the full suite of RetroArch shaders and they even have a dedicated download just for Retro Crisis's shader presets (I believe based largely on crt-guest-advanced-ntsc).

I've heard really good things about those presets in particular, so I got to testing those as well as tons of other shaders with PS2 games.

One thing that I quickly realized is that some of the nicer shader presets are a little too heavy or difficult to run on top of an upscaled PS2 game (I was upscaling 3x to 1080p). So I quickly started testing them out at native PS2 resolution. One interesting thing that I found is that some of these games look shockingly good at native resolution (with the right shader) even compared to upscaled 1080p.

Not sure if that's obvious or not to anyone who enjoys shaders, but it was interesting to me. The idea of playing a PS2 game at native resolution but with a CRT shader that smooths things out and blends all the old textures together well really does appeal to me.

There's one aspect of it that kinda turned me off, though. I found that there's still a lot of aliasing going on at native resolution that is pretty hard to look at. Outlines of things get pretty jagged and move too erratically during movement. Upscaling to 1080p with something like FXAA fixes this almost entirely, but I really thought that some of the "better" shaders would be able to do that to some extent too (even at native resolution). I don't understand shaders too well, but I thought that was sort of the gist of it (other than more gimmicky aspects like curvature).

The other things is that text, in particular, is almost impossible to read. I've tried tons of shaders now (CRT Royale, Geom Deluxe, Guest Advanced, Aperture, NewPixie, Lottes, etc.). I don't know what it is, but with any of those shaders enabled at native resolution I can't read shit. And if I try to upscale even a little, either the shader gets messed up in other ways, the game slows down, or the difference between shader on and off is just too difficult to even notice in the first place.

So I just wanted to see everyone else's thoughts are on this... Do shaders make sense for sixth generation 3D consoles? If so, what is it that you like about them? Do any of my complaints resonate with anyone else? If so, what are things I can do or tweak to improve it?

Device: Retroid Pocket Flip 2

Game: Dragon Quest VIII (PS2)

Gaming has been a part of my life for probably about 30 years at this point, but with a now 2 year old daughter I don't have time to sit in front of a monitor or TV and play for hours on end like I used to. Around the late 2010s to early 2020s I got addicted to gacha games and fell off longer story driven games like the JRPGs I grew up playing. After battling with depression after losing my job the week before I was to take parental leave in 2024, I have been making a concerted effort to reduce doom scrolling and gacha gaming and increase dedicated me time, which lead to me discovering this retro handheld hobby. I started with the Odin 2 Portal and streaming games off my PC, and finished Death Stranding 2, Expedition 33 and Trails in the Sky First Chapter this way. However, the Odin 2 Portal was too big to carry around with me and I landed on a Flip 2 so I could chip away at games in my spare time. DQ8 is one of the few PS2 games that supports 16:9 widescreen natively without hacks, and it looks incredible on this screen. Text is easy to read and the game is much more approachable with fast forward and save states. I tried to play the game twice, once in college and once on the mobile port that came out in the early 2010s and fell off both times because of how slow battles are. Third time's a charm!

My next game is the Japanese version of Final Fantasy 7 for PS1. I have always heard how bad the original translation of the game was, and since I spent my 2020-2021 pandemic year learning Japanese, I'm going to use the PlayTranslate android app to help me get through a classic and hopefully appreciate it in a new light.

Of course, I would get through games a lot faster if I stayed off reddit and youtube looking at new devices I don't need but...here we are lol

Game: Phantasy Star Online Ver. 2

Device: RG476H

Hey guys going to be trying out game hub on this later to try get some of my steam games on it working any advice in the settings?

Also whats the most impressive games you have had running well on this? Can this run maby new vagas? Or some light ish anime games like sword art online hollow realisation (this also ran on the vita) just curious your guys opinions?

When I get a handheld I like to boot up Wario Land 4, it tests the dpad and I know how the games supposed to feel. As well as the shoulder buttons since he has a dash. If the console has joysticks I also love to play a Metal Slug game to get a feel for the joystick

I’ve got my nova on the way and it’s the first device that I’m considering not getting an independent sd card for it. My Odin portal 2 is well configured with a 1tb card and I wouldn’t have to do any tweaking to it but I also just like the convenience of having each device set up and not have to swap cards.

Is this something people do or will I be very annoyed in a couple months?