Retro Handhelds Weekly: Odin 3 Confusion, RAMageddon Fallout, and Handhelds Are Getting Weird

Welcome to the latest edition of Retro Handhelds Weekly. This week, we saw a bunch of news in 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.

Table of Contents

Hardware & Industry News

• Your Odin 3 Might Not Actually Use the Snapdragon 8 Elite, but There’s More to the Story: After a request to change the usage of the Snapdragon 8 Elite in our Odin 3 review, we dove a bit deeper to figure out what the Dragonwing Q8 is. Much to our surprise, there’s quite a bit more to the story than initially meets the eye.
• Is RAMageddon Almost Over?: Google’s announcement of TurboQuaint has given us some hope that RAMageddon might soon be a thing of the past, as it offers “a 600% efficiency over current AI processing capabilities.” There are still a lot of moving pieces, but we’re keeping our fingers crossed that other major AI players can introduce and implement similar improvements in order to bring RAM and storage prices back down to Earth.
• GAMEMT E5 Modx: We didn’t have GameMT being one of the busier manufacturers heading into the year, but with the EX8 out the door, the E5 Modx looks to be next on the docket. From the renders we’ve seen, this is a modular handheld with a removable screen, and might even offer a MagSafe attachment to use the controller with your phone.

More Hardware News

• The Retroid Pocket Classic Might Be Next Victim of RAMageddon
• New Anbernic RG Rotate Images Appear
• PS6 Rumors | More
• Apple approves driver that lets Nvidia eGPUs work with Arm Macs

Apps and Software

• The Link’s Awakening DX PC Port Resurfaces!: As Nintendo prepares to celebrate the 40th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda, the community has taken it into their own hands with yet another new fan development that has disappeared from the public eye for almost 3 years now (well… kind of). It’s the PC port for The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX! Now in its v1.7.2 state, thanks to GitHub user BigheadSMZ, the port is feature complete, relatively bug-free, and can already be used on PC, Linux, and Android! One caveat, though: You need a PC to compile it.
• An Ocarina of Time 4K Project Just Got a Massive Update: In one of the best, actually truthful posts you will see today (check the date), we had a massive update to Henriko Magnifico’s The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D 4K texture pack, bringing it to a full 4.0. This update includes over 350 new high-resolution textures and is available to download now if you are a Patreon subscriber (It’s a minimum of $3 a month. Support your artists).
• iiSU & MelonDualDS: April Roadmap: In a new post on Patreon, Sapphire shared that it plans to release another iiSU build for supporters this month, and development will move toward preparing the first Beta version. Beyond that, improvements to MelonDualDS are also on tap, such as better integration for RetroAchievements, adding the latest upstream changes, and much more.

More Software News

Emulation Corner

Game of the Month

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.

• Block by Block: My Favorite Tetris Games
• AYANEO Pocket DS Setup Guide
• Game of the Month: A Pigment of My Imagination
• Kamrui Hyper H1 Review: The Real Value?
• AYN Thor Setup Guide
• Diium D-40MAX Review: I Wanted To Like This One
• AYANEO Pocket Air Mini B. Duck Review: The (Un)Ugly Duckling
• Game Over: Amstrad GX4000

On the YouTubes

RH Partners

Looking for Deals?

The AliExpress Anniversary Sale has come to a close, but you still have a couple of days left to take advantage of the RH-specific discount codes! However, you’ll want to move quickly as they’ll expire as soon as the calendar flips into April.

AliExpress Discount Codes

Sign Up For the Retro Handhelds Weekly Newsletter

We recently launched the Retro Handhelds Weekly newsletter! This has been a long time coming, but basically, it’s what you’ve enjoyed about this weekly news round-up, just in an email format. You’ll receive ad-free weekly updates on what’s going on around the Retro Handhelds community. We have handhelds, devices, emulation/software, gaming, community news, reviews, deals, current RH games of the week/month/quarter/year, and more! And of course, it’s completely free to sign up.