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Nostalgia Retromini
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Nostalgia Retromini

Just saw this and it looks pretty cool ;)

https://www.retromini.com/products/limited-edition-retromini-frosted-white

Reminded me of all the awesome games I used to play ;) If you wanna pick it up, it's only 60$ and 30$ on Aliexpress^^

I couldn't resist :P Gamelist is on infopage. You can also get it on Amazon.

Thanked by 3MasonR dedicados ferri

Comments

  • FoulFoul Member

    Welcome to another day by another thread by Ympker.

    Thanked by 2Ympker imok
  • YmpkerYmpker Member

    @Foul said:
    Welcome to another day by another thread by Ympker.

    Your welcome :- )

  • MasonRMasonR Community Contributor
    edited July 2018

    Thanks for sharing, man!

    I never really liked playing Gameboy games on my phone, mostly due to things being awkward with all touchscreen.

    Bought my wife a Gameboy color about a year ago so she could play the original Pokémon games on flights and stuff, but I forgot how dim the screen can be. This seems like a nice system to grab rather than purchasing a mod kit to brighten up the Gameboy screen. With the added benefit of downloading whatever ROMs you want. :)

    Thanked by 1Ympker
  • joepie91joepie91 Member, Patron Provider

    Reminds me of my Dingoo A320.

  • YmpkerYmpker Member
    edited July 2018

    @MasonR said:
    Thanks for sharing, man!

    I never really liked playing Gameboy games on my phone, mostly due to things being awkward with all touchscreen.

    Bought my wife a Gameboy color about a year ago so she could play the original Pokémon games on flights and stuff, but I forgot how dim the screen can be. This seems like a nice system to grab rather than purchasing a mod kit to brighten up the Gameboy screen. With the added benefit of downloading whatever ROMs you want. :)

    Yeah definitely :) Guess I will skip AliExpress this time and pay in full 50€ instead of 30€ on ali (Mini 32 Bit Handheld Game Player With 16GB TF Card Built-in 1077 Classic Games Retro Pocket Game Console Best Gift For Kids
    http://s.aliexpress.com/M7zEfyiE?fromSns=Copy to Clipboard ) because I'd rather want it from the original site to make sure it'll work properly :P Perhaps I'll go for the amazon purchase but Ive yet to verify if amazon is the same like on the website^^ Being able to add various roms is awesome :)

    Some people on Amazon apparently say flushig it with RS97NEXT will be even better but I'll use it as is^^

    Thanked by 1MasonR
  • joepie91joepie91 Member, Patron Provider
    edited July 2018

    Honestly, I'm kind of saddened that there never was a worthy successor to the A320. I feel like it should be possible to build a much, much better handheld emulator with current mobile technology...

    For context, the A320 was 60 EUR incl. shipping (ordered from China, it's originally a Chinese product), back in 2009(!), and it ran games for an absolute shitton of consoles, with varying quality. It had a good audio chipset, good physical buttons, it was quite hackable, and if you got a good one it was practically indestructible.

    It's 2018 now, 9 years later(!), and the Retromini is the best currently-available option I've seen. For about 25-50 EUR, it does GB, GBC, GBA, and NES. Barely any cheaper, supports less systems even if you only count out-of-the-box support for the A320.

    Seriously, what happened?

    Like, don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to knock the Retromini, but where are the cheap high-quality handheld emulators now that we can squeeze a ridiculous amount of computing power into a small device?

  • @joepie91 said:
    Honestly, I'm kind of saddened that there never was a worthy successor to the A320. I feel like it should be possible to build a much, much better handheld emulator with current mobile technology...

    For context, the A320 was 60 EUR incl. shipping (ordered from China, it's originally a Chinese product), back in 2009(!), and it ran games for an absolute shitton of consoles, with varying quality. It had a good audio chipset, good physical buttons, it was quite hackable, and if you got a good one it was practically indestructible.

    It's 2018 now, 9 years later(!), and the Retromini is the best currently-available option I've seen. For about 25-50 EUR, it does GB, GBC, GBA, and NES. Barely any cheaper, supports less systems even if you only count out-of-the-box support for the A320.

    Seriously, what happened?

    Like, don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to knock the Retromini, but where are the cheap high-quality handheld emulators now that we can squeeze a ridiculous amount of computing power into a small device?

    Smartphones.

    Thanked by 1Aidan
  • RaymiiRaymii Member

    @joepie91 said:
    Reminds me of my Dingoo A320.

    I have one of these: http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2015/05/hardware_review_revo_k101_plus - plays hardware cartridges and has GB/GBC/NES emulators built in.

  • lemonlemon Member
    edited July 2018

    I've just bought a R4 card for $7 (really!) to play the old games on my DS.

    I don't know why I should spend $60 for this...

  • NekkiNekki Veteran

    @joepie91 said:
    Seriously, what happened?

    Like, don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to knock the Retromini, but where are the cheap high-quality handheld emulators now that we can squeeze a ridiculous amount of computing power into a small device?

    It’s all Android devices now. All those nifty budget handhelds were knocked together by small Chinese companies and it’s just faster for them to find something and whack Android on there with RetroArch. Just look at all those GPD devices or the numerous JXD tablets.

    I still have my A320, fantastic little machine.

  • joepie91joepie91 Member, Patron Provider
    edited July 2018

    @Nekki said:

    @joepie91 said:
    Seriously, what happened?

    Like, don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to knock the Retromini, but where are the cheap high-quality handheld emulators now that we can squeeze a ridiculous amount of computing power into a small device?

    It’s all Android devices now. All those nifty budget handhelds were knocked together by small Chinese companies and it’s just faster for them to find something and whack Android on there with RetroArch. Just look at all those GPD devices or the numerous JXD tablets.

    I still have my A320, fantastic little machine.

    Thing is, I would not even necessarily care if it ran Android; that'd be fine in and of itself. The problem is that I've seen no options that have any decent amount of support, good physical hardware (buttons, that kind of stuff), and so on.

    These JXDs have been around forever, for example, even in the A320 era. But they've never been anything to write home about in terms of either capabilities, support or build quality.

  • NekkiNekki Veteran

    @joepie91 said:

    Thing is, I would not even necessarily care if it ran Android; that'd be fine in and of itself. The problem is that I've seen no options that have any decent amount of support, good physical hardware (buttons, that kind of stuff), and so on.

    Have you had a look at the GPD XD’s? Probably the best thing on the market in terms of support and build quality.

  • joepie91joepie91 Member, Patron Provider

    @Nekki said:

    @joepie91 said:

    Thing is, I would not even necessarily care if it ran Android; that'd be fine in and of itself. The problem is that I've seen no options that have any decent amount of support, good physical hardware (buttons, that kind of stuff), and so on.

    Have you had a look at the GPD XD’s? Probably the best thing on the market in terms of support and build quality.

    It's in a totally different price range, unfortunately.

  • RaymiiRaymii Member

    @joepie91 said:

    @Nekki said:

    @joepie91 said:

    Thing is, I would not even necessarily care if it ran Android; that'd be fine in and of itself. The problem is that I've seen no options that have any decent amount of support, good physical hardware (buttons, that kind of stuff), and so on.

    Have you had a look at the GPD XD’s? Probably the best thing on the market in terms of support and build quality.

    It's in a totally different price range, unfortunately.

    I also have a GPD XD (and a GPD WIN 1), they are amazing devices for the price. OK build quality, (chinese plastic but what do you expect), perfect fom emulators and as a mobile SSH terminal. Expensive nontheless, but cheaper than a Pandora.

  • NekkiNekki Veteran

    @joepie91 said:

    It's in a totally different price range, unfortunately.

    That’s a reflection of the fact it’s a totally different build quality to the A320 I guess.

  • joepie91joepie91 Member, Patron Provider

    @Nekki said:

    @joepie91 said:

    It's in a totally different price range, unfortunately.

    That’s a reflection of the fact it’s a totally different build quality to the A320 I guess.

    But that's the thing, the build quality of the A320 was very good; the only problem was that there was a high hardware failure ratio, but once you had a working one, it was as mentioned before practically indestructible, and it felt very solid and everything.

    So if it was possible at the 60 EUR pricepoint then, why wouldn't that be possible now?

  • NekkiNekki Veteran

    @joepie91 said:

    But that's the thing, the build quality of the A320 was very good; the only problem was that there was a high hardware failure ratio, but once you had a working one, it was as mentioned before practically indestructible, and it felt very solid and everything.

    So if it was possible at the 60 EUR pricepoint then, why wouldn't that be possible now?

    Build quality was passable. I knew the original UK distributor and there were a lot of problems with dodgy units, especially the original cases had issues. ‘Practically indestructible’ I feel is over-stating things - Nintendo make handheld that are practically indestructible.

    The price issue is probably screen-size size I guess? The bigger the screen, the bigger the battery, the bigger the cost. You can get plenty of small-screen devices at a Dingo-like price point, but that’s obviously not where the bigger companies want to position themselves.

  • joepie91joepie91 Member, Patron Provider
    edited July 2018

    Nekki said: I knew the original UK distributor and there were a lot of problems with dodgy units

    That's the 'high hardware failure ratio' I'm referring to. I'm specifically talking about the units that weren't dodgy units; in particular those that were sold before it became popular and the HK versions with worse parts started showing up. Mine dates from before that.

    I believe the distributor you're referring to (can't immediately recall the name) only came on the scene around the time HK models started circulating.

    Nekki said: ‘Practically indestructible’ I feel is over-stating things - Nintendo make handheld that are practically indestructible.

    My original Nintendo DS would disagree :)

    Nekki said: The price issue is probably screen-size size I guess? The bigger the screen, the bigger the battery, the bigger the cost. You can get plenty of small-screen devices at a Dingo-like price point

    Any ones you can recommend that aren't junk from a support/reliability/etc. viewpoint? I actually prefer the smaller-form-factor ones.

  • NekkiNekki Veteran
    edited July 2018

    @joepie91 said:

    Any ones you can recommend that aren't junk from a support/reliability/etc. viewpoint? I actually prefer the smaller-form-factor ones.

    Probably the best ones around at the moment are the K101/ Coolboy RS-97 Ingenic-based models. Hardware seems solid, and there’s a reasonable amount of community support, although nothing like the level of support the A320 had.

    Or, pick up a cheap PSP Go that you can stick custom firmware on.

  • My retromini finally arrived and it works like a charm. Savegame function also works and 900 games included. This is just great :D

    Thanked by 1Amitz
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