Welcome to the latest edition of Retro Handhelds Weekly. This week saw a bunch of news in both the world of hardware and software, our writing team continues to be on an absolute tear, and there’s even a surprise or two sprinkled in! So sit back, grab a cup of coffee, and catch up on what’s happened this week in the world of Retro Handhelds.
Hardware
If there’s one thing we know about retro handhelds, it’s that there is always something new around the corner. Seriously, it’s “worse” than smartphones, as some companies release new handhelds every other week. On the bright side, at least there’s no shortage of options.
Retroid Pocket Flip 2 Survey Results
The Retroid Pocket Flip 2 could see massive improvements like the ones mentioned above, but it could also directly hone in on specific things the community wants. The original Flip didn’t strive to push performance beyond its limits, but rather, gave a community vying for a clamshell design the same processing power of that year’s flagship, but in the design people had yearned for.
After posing the question “What would you like to see in a Retroid Pocket Flip 2,” the community response has been quite impressive. The results of our survey have concluded, with suggestions being shared with the Retroid team. That being said, you can hit the link below and check out what the community had to say as a collective.
Retroid Doesn’t Plan to Restock 16-bit Pocket Mini
The Retroid Pocket Mini serves as a nice portable and powerful Android handheld. However, following the release of the Retroid Pocket 5, it’s almost fallen into the realm of obscurity, only appealing to a niche of the niche. It seems that Retroid might have noticed the same, as the 16Bit Pocket Mini is no longer in stock. And according to a response from Customer Support, the company doesn’t have any plans to restock that specific colorway.
Are Cheap Retro Handhelds a Thing of the Past?
With the on-and-off pause of USPS package shipments from China and Hong Kong, and the looming threat of tariffs, a lot of our American viewers are wondering: Is this the end of cheap e-waste? While some companies charge for handhelds AND shipping, a lot of manufacturers and resellers offer free shipping and relatively low prices.
AYN pausing shipments to the U.S.
With the Chinese New Year celebrations coming to a close, many handheld OEMs are getting back into the grind. AYN is just one example, but as many are still awaiting their Odin 2 Portal orders, the company stated “due to the impact of the US tariff policies, we will temporarily pause shipments to the United States.” Hopefully, this is a short delay so we can get our hands on these excellent devices sooner rather than later.
AYANEO Pocket EVO Now Available Direct
After being announced in July, the AYANEO Pocket EVO was made available for pre-order through Indiegogo in early August before it officially began shipping in late October. Since then, the Indiegogo campaign page has been the only way to purchase the Pocket EVO, but that’s no longer the case. Now, the campaign page has officially closed, meaning that you’ll need to head over to AYANEO’s website if you want to buy one.
AYANEO 3 Sales Seem to be Struggling
The AYANEO 3 was formally introduced in December before being made available for pre-order through Indiegogo in late January. However, for as unique as the handheld is, that excitement doesn’t seem to be translating into sales. Unlike many other handhelds, AYANEO offers a multitude of configuration options, starting with the ability to decide between the AMD Ryzen 8840U or the Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 chipsets. From there, you can decide between either having an LCD display or OLED, before deciding on the RAM, storage, and color.
When looking at the different Early Bird choices, it appears that less than 40 total 8840U AYANEO 3 models have been pre-ordered. Of that, not a single LCD model has been pre-ordered, with everyone opting for the OLED panel. On the flip side, the more popular model is the one powered by the HX 370 chip, accounting for 135 total pre-orders.
- 8840U
- OLED 16/512 EB: 22/100
- LCD 16/512 EB: 0/100
- OLED 32/1TB EB: 11/100
- LCD 32/1TB EB: 0/100
- OLED RP 64/2TB EB: 6/100
- LCD RP 64/2TB EB: 0/100
- HX 370
- OLED 32/1TB EB: 35/100
- LCD 32/1TB EB: 1/100
- OLED 64/2TB: 39/200
- LCD 64/2TB: 2/100
- OLED RP 64/2TB: 16/100
- LCD RP 64/2TB: 4/100
- OLED RP 64/4TB: 37/100
- LCD RP 64/4TB: 1/100
What’s surprising here is that when you consider the interchangeable control modules, along with having an abundance of configuration choices, we would have thought these would fly off the proverbial shelves. However, that just doesn’t seem to be the case, leading to some receiving promotional emails with AYANEO attempting to “justify the price.”
Other Hardware News
- Switch 2 Direct is Coming on April 2
- Nintendo Patent Explains Switch 2 Joy-Cons “Mouse Mode”
- AYANEO Pocket EVO Now Available Direct
- Lenovo Launches Official Legion Go Controller Charging Grip
- Another Rumor Suggests Valve is Working on a Steam Console
Apps and Software
Don’t get me wrong, hardware is definitely fun and exciting to talk about. But what good is an awesome handheld if it doesn’t even work? That’s where software and custom firmware come into play, so here’s everything you might’ve missed this week.
GammaOS Core Beta 3 Release
The illustrious GammaOS Welcome Screen
As always, Gamma has been grinding away at making our handhelds even better than we could have expected. GammaOS Core tries to do the same, but for lower-powered devices, offering an Android experience instead of Linux.
After releasing Beta 2.5 last month for the Miyoo Flip, GammaOS Core Beta 3 is here, and includes quite an impressive changelog. On top of that, GammaOS Core now supports more handhelds such as the CB408, Powkiddy X35S/X35H, and others.
If you’re a GammaOS Patreon subscriber, you can download and install Beta 3 on your supported handhelds now. If not, you’ll have to wait a little bit longer as this is a “timed exclusive, but will be made available to the general public at a future date.”
RomM Releases Official muOS App
RomM on the Web
One of the biggest frustrations when it comes to the world of retro emulation is trying to keep all of your games and files organized. Then, it can become rather frustrating to transfer those games or files to your handhelds, especially if you’re away from your computer.
RomM is a self-hosted ROM Manager that makes it easy to view and access your games from the web. It’s been around for a while now, but what’s new is the dedicated app for muOS. After getting the server setup and the app installed on your muOS handheld, you’ll be able to do the following:
- Connect to your RomM instance at home or over the web
- Multi select and queue files for download
- Select SD card destination
- Filters to view local files, remote files only, or both
The RomM for muOS app is available now and can be downloaded using the button below.
Dreamcast Emulator ‘Flycast’ Adds Online Play
Flycast is incorporating DCnet, a play on words of the oft-forgotten SegaNet, into their emulator and it offers near seamless integration of online multiplayer with little to no hassle. Before, Flycast supported connecting to servers hosted by others to play online multiplayer in a similar fashion to how you would connect directly to players in AetherSX2, but DCnet is one server that you connect to.
RetroAchievements Releases Major Updates for its Website
Image via @RetroCheevos
One of the best parts about being able to play retro games on modern handhelds is unlocking RetroAchievements. Last week, the RetroAchievements website was updated, introducing changes to usernames, “new hubs design,” and other improvements. However, if you look at the changelog over on GitHub, you can see that a lot more went into this latest update than you might have thought.
PSN Was Down for More Than 24 Hours
Usually, when there’s an outage for a cloud service, the downtime is maybe a few hours at most. However, Sony’s latest Playstation Network outage lasted for more than 24 hours, starting Friday with the service being restored Saturday evening. This was already unprecedented, but what made things worse was Sony’s lack of communication during the outage. After the PSN started working again, Sony provided a statement to Polygon:
“Network services are fully recovered from an operational issue. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank the community for their patience. All PlayStation Plus members will automatically receive an additional 5 days of service.”
Whatever the real reason is for the outage, we can only hope that this doesn’t become a recurring trend.
Other Software News
- NVIDIA Continues to Release Updates for the Shield
- Play! Progress Report
- RetroDECK v0.9.0b
- Deecy is a new Dreamcast emulator for Windows and Linux
- psOff Continues to See Massive Improvements
- GTA 6 Could Come to Switch 2
- Cemu 2.6 Released
From the Writers
While there’s always a lot of news to cover and talk about, we also try to take a step back and give everyone something a bit different to enjoy. These are the more editorial-styled articles and reviews that you might have missed over the course of this week.
AYN Odin 2 vs. Odin 2 Mini vs. Odin 2 Portal: An 8 Gen 2 Shootout
When it comes to spending your money, unless you’re a maniac like me (or anyone from the RH team), you’re likely looking to just spend your money on one expensive handheld at the moment. And for the past year, one of the best options in that field has been the Ayn Odin 2.
But Ayn couldn’t just rest on their laurels until the Odin 3. Instead, they’ve put out not one, but two additional handhelds in the case of the Odin 2 Mini, and the Odin 2 Portal.
Save File Converter Helps Retro Community Eternalize Game Saves
Converting saves can be one of the many inherent obstacles of dealing with emulation handhelds. Over time, more emulators arise and some promote different save types versus the ones that came before it.
Euan Forrester, creator of Save File Converter, sat down with Time Extension to talk about the creation of the site and its roots.
How to Install Legends Unchained on ALU Arcade
The AtGames Legends Ultimate (ALU) Arcade released back in 2020 as an all-in-one home arcade solution with the bonus of officially licensed content ready to go out of the box. As we know all to well in these parts though, capable hardware can take you only so far in emulation.
The addition of the community created Legends Unchained takes the AtGames hardware and imbues it with R-Cade, a fully customizable emulation and media center solution to make the most of your game room.
Miyoo A30: The Handheld Hampered by Headphones
As I’ve written several times within the pages of RH, I like to separate handhelds into three categories: Pocket, Backpack & Sofa, depending on their use case. Sofa handhelds are handhelds that are rarely expected to leave the house and so can prioritize screen size and power.
Anbernic RG34XX Setup Guide
The RG34XX is Anbernic’s 12th handheld release in just as many months. When compared to its obvious inspiration, the GBA, the year-ending surprise has one of the most parallel designs we have seen in retro handhelds.
This guide will hopefully be able to assist you in making your decision, guiding you through the alternatives, and making sure you set up your RG34XX in the most ideal way possible.
RH Games: What We’re Playing This Week
The day I had to send the MSI Claw 8 AI+ review unit back was a very sad day indeed. However, during my time with it, I had the opportunity to play my very first DOOM game. I got through the first two levels of Doom Eternal on this bad boy. The rest of the journey will be continued on the Lenovo Legion Go S.
On the YouTubes
Don’t think that the writers are the only ones getting things done. the RH video team is constantly working on new videos, and now’s the best time to subscribe. This week, Stubbs snaps into the Miyoo Flip, while Cowboy Zu falls head-first into the world of 3D printing.
Looking for Deals?
Another week, another set of deals to be had. Unfortunately, the latest roundup of AliExpress sales have come to a close. However, not all hope is lost as some companies are offering sales of their own, as is the case with AYN extending its Spring Sale. Hit the button below to check out all of the best retro handheld deals.
Retro Handhelds Deals of the Week
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