When I first reviewed the Kinhank K36 back in August 2024, I wrote that it had potential as a decent budget option, but was held back at the time by the poor stock experience that shipped with the device. Since that time the community has stepped up to offer better solutions for the Kinhank device.
Since I admittedly haven’t touched the thing since I wrote the review, what better time to check out what it can do with a shiny new engine? So follow along here, and we’ll walk through the needed steps to get this handheld to the best version of itself it can be.
The fact remains that until a more optimized experience comes out of the community. I cannot fairly say that this is all this machine is capable of. Anyone who has been around this scene for more than a minute knows that hardware can live or die based on the strength of CFW. Here’s hoping we can see a port for this device in the near future.
Table of Contents
Kinhank K36 Specs
Kinhank K36 at AliExpressKinhank K36 at Amazon
What You’ll Need
Unload these ASAP – They will die
- A trusted brand of micro SD card (64GB – 128GB recommended). Cards that come with these devices are of poor quality and prone to failure. If you ordered a loaded card with your device, back it up and chuck the card. It will eventually fail. Don’t say we didn’t warn you!
- An SD Card reader
- A Windows/MAC/Linux PC
- 7-zip or WinRAR to unpack any downloads
- Rufus or a similar program for easy formatting to FAT32 in Windows
- Image writing software appropriate for your firmware of choice
- Balena Etcher – Image writing software available for all major Desktop OS’
- Win32DiskImager – An open-source option designed for Windows, but there are many ports.
- MintStick/USB Image Writer – Image writing software that comes baked-in with many popular Linux OS distros.
Charge It
Make sure the device has a decent charge prior to flashing
For whatever reason, the R36S and its clones, including the K36, behave very strangely when lower on battery. Attempting these flashing steps while you’re low on juice may result in some unexpected issues. If you’re having problems, make sure to give the device a charge prior to flashing. Use the USB-A to USB-C cable that came with the handheld, and charge it via a PC USB port for safety.
Screen Troubleshooting
So because the K36 is a clone of the R36S, which itself is a clone already, there seem to be several different screens being used. As such, it cannot be guaranteed that the base ArkOS image will work with your device’s screen. If you power on the K36 and get nothing but a blue LED and a black screen, try replacing the root directory files with one of the sets contained here. Overwrite any conflicts and keep trying packages until you get one that works on your device.
These files are typically added to the boot partition of the latest community image for the K36. Copy all the contents of the folder to the root of the boot partition, then test each file one by one.
Firmware Options
ArkOS
You’ll see this splash screen as the OS is initializing
Community dev and savior of e-waste handhelds, AeolusUX, has released a custom image of ArkOS for the K36. This OS is superior to the stock and should offer you a level of performance and function not available from the device when it originally arrived in the mailbox. Apparently, some newer shipments of the K36 are already coming pre-flashed with ArkOS, so if you were lucky enough to get one of those units, my congratulations. You have the best possible thing going on this budget bad boy.
- Download the K36 ArkOS image.
- Unpack the image file with 7zip/WinRAR/whatever you want to use to a directory of your choice. The file may be .img.xz format and some programs will try to restore this directly to the SD card. Do not go this route. Extract the .img file from the archive.
- Write the image file to a brand-name micro-SD card using the image software that works best for your setup.
- Eject the SD card from your PC and insert it into the K36 device.
- Power on the K36 and wait for ArkOS to unpack and install.
- Reinsert your SD card into the PC and transfer ROMs to their appropriate folders in the EASYROMS section of the SD card.
- Enjoy your new and improved K36!
Stock and Modified Stock
If you want to return the K36 to its factory format, you can flash the stock image. There are additional community-modified images available that unlock features not available with the base stock EmuElec image, but there’s really no motivation to bother with them when ArkOS is an improved experience in almost every conceivable way.
The cards that come packed with these devices are especially prone to failure, so if you want to save the ROMs that came packed with your console purchase, I’d recommend backing them up to a reliable storage space for re-use.
- Download the K36 Stock image or modified stock.
- Unpack the image file with 7zip/WinRAR/whatever you want to use to a directory of your choice. The file may be .img.xz format and some programs will try to restore this directly to the SD card. Do not go this route. Extract the .img file from the archive.
- Write the image file to a brand-name micro-SD card using the image software that works best for your setup.
Write the unpacked image file to SD
- Eject the SD card from your PC and insert it into the K36 device.
- Power on the K36 and wait for ArkOS to unpack and install.
- Reinsert your SD card into the PC and transfer ROMs to their appropriate folders in the EASYROMS section of the SD card.
- Enjoy your new and improved K36!
Fun Stuff
A VHS recording of an old MTV Moron-a-thon
So, not too long ago, I realized that the 640×480 resolution and 4:3 displays on these handhelds made them pretty great at playing back old VHS recorded content converted to MP4. I ended up leaving Beavis and Butthead playing on my desk for a while as writing background. 13-year-old me would have loved that his adult self is playing PSX games and still watching Beavis and Butthead reruns so many years later.
The Internet Archive has all sorts of fun VHS recording uploads that people have added over the years. Take a look around and you might find the perfect companions to go with your classic games.
Closing
The K36 was a flawed budget device when it was first released in its stock format, but thanks to community development efforts (like always) this hardware has a chance to shine. I’ve really taken a liking to the larger d-pad on this unit over the R36S, and if you can deal with the curves for longer play sessions, it’ll serve you quite well. Just make sure to get ArkOS installed on it as soon as possible.
Kinhank K36 at AliExpressKinhank K36 at Amazon
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