Non-standard Handheld Gaming Devices - Anybody follow them?

[Kukuk]

I've recently gone down the emulation handheld rabbit hole after years of largely ignoring them. It seemed like for too long these handhelds were super compromised, or just didn't have a reason to exist because things like the PSP, Vita, and 3DS existed. But there's been a lot of advancement in terms of both capability and price, and have finally caught my interest in a meaningful way.

I'm seeing a lot more Snapdragon-based CPUs in these, which opens a lot of doors in terms of what they can do. Not only emulation, but running Android games at reasonable settings on $200-ish devices is now possible.

It's almost more fascinating to me how many options there are, with different screen sizes and aspect ratios, price ranges, performance, battery life, customization, etc.

I recently jumped in with the Retroid Pocket Flip 2. I don't know how long I'll have to wait to receive my unit, but I'm eagerly looking forward to tinkering with it.

Runs full Android, OLED screen, and by all accounts has pretty high performance for its price. I'm at the point where I absolutely cannot play emulated games without CRT shaders, so knowing I have enough performance to run games effortlessly with them is very exciting. I guess it's so powerful it can even emulate PS2 games, which is wild to me.

 

[SilverEars]

Have no use for them. If I travel a lot on planes, maybe. If I were to get a device, probably a steam deck, but again, I have no use for it.

 

[Kukuk]

I've really missed small handhelds. I got this about a week ago and have been putting some good time on it. This form factor makes it great for throwing in my coat pocket and playing on long lunches.

Mostly just emulating SNES and GBA at the moment. PS2 and Gamecube are extremely hit or miss- seems reviewers like to try the easiest-to-run games, and judge how well the device emulates a system based on those. I was trying to play Champions of Norrath on PS2, and for a while it was running pretty well, but I got to the second chapter of the game and it just tanked in performance- like 8 FPS. Totally unplayable.

It's also nice to have a handheld with better than 2 hours of battery life.

 

[DarknessEclipse]

I am interested in this kind of handhelds as well, but waiting a few years to see if they get better.
Having said that, I do own a TrimUI Brick and Analogue Pocket for older consoles. Steam Deck and PC are for all the rest.

 

[Kukuk]

So I had known that KOTOR 2 existed for Android, and I had played the first one on Android ages ago, so I assumed it would be a sort of half-baked port. To my surprise, this one is indeed excellent! Full controller support, and you can even mod the game to add the Restored Content mod. On top of that, it's super easy to run, making battery life excellent. On my Retroid Flip 2 I played for about an hour and a half and only used about 10% of the battery at the lowest performance mode.

The device being Android gives it so much versatility; it makes it really easy to recommend.

 

[Vamp898]

I bought an controller for my MIAD01 i no longer use, so i can use that as an gaming console