Over the course of the last 4-5 years of the retro handhelds explosion and writing for this site, I’ve amassed not just a silly collection of emulation equipment, but some must-haves for anyone considering getting into the hobby. These are my list of handheld hobby accessories that have come to feel like essentials when playing, tinkering with, and exploring handheld emulation.
None of these products were supplied to me by any rep or manufacturer, and all should be available in a bunch of cheap and widely available formats on marketplaces like AliExpress.
SD Card Readers
If you have any intention of doing, well, just about anything with your emu-handhelds outside of using the stock card that came with it, you’re probably going to want to pick up an SD reader of some sort. These come in all shapes, sizes, and budgets. A decent one should only set you back about $15-$20, but you can get a generic USB thumb-stick style reader for a buck or two on many sites.
Pry Tools + Tweezers
If you use enough of these handhelds, or just have a curious mind, the chances are you’re going to have to open one up eventually. Pry tools can be worth their weight in gold when you have an especially stubborn shell that refuses to come apart. Any cellphone repair kit will usually come with a few different varieties, but even a regular old guitar pick works great in a jam.
Tweezers and any fine grip tools are an absolute must for me to work with small electronics and boards. There’s absolutely no way my fingers can bare-hand a mini ribbon cable insertion these days. Buy a pack and just keep them around. They’re invaluable tools for the fat-fingered tinkerer.
SD Card Case
Perhaps more than any other single item on this list, this one takes the cake for me as a must-have for any retro-handheld enthusiast. As anyone who has been around this block more than once can tell you, the cards that come with handhelds are generally of poor quality and will fail quickly. I found that I was constantly misplacing random SD cards all over my desk and regularly confusing which cards came with which device.
Now, I keep my unused cards all together in one place. If I need an old trash R36S stock card to try testing writing some new dev image, I have it. If I need a 256GB card for a new fancy console that deserves that much extra space, I have that. And so on. Finished cards live in devices. This is everything else that is leftover. At least it’s all in one place now!
Multi-Driver Kit
Now this is where you can go as simple or as fancy as you’d like, but you should have a multi-driver kit available if you want to work with small electronics in any capacity, from the desktop on down. Sets like the one pictured below are a dime a dozen on deal sites. Many are the same product labeled with a different Chinese distributor.
The more I look into different sets, the more I realize it could be a never-ending rabbit hole like the perilous keyboard hobby. I’m quite content with my sturdy metal cheapo set for now, but the options out there are nearly limitless.
USB Adapters
Buy a few packs of these things and just stick them in a drawer. Get every connection you can think of going in every way. When the random need for an adapter comes along, you’ve got them there in your drawer.
As we regularly test handhelds that lack any onboard Wi-Fi chip (though that’s thankfully becoming less frequent these days), a USB-C to USB-A adapter is a regular need. But the fun doesn’t stop there. I just recently had to connect an external keyboard and mouse to an R36 Ultra to run Ubuntu, and I was glad that I knew just where to look for a USB adapter when the situation arose.
Screen Cleaner
Holy heck, can these handhelds ever get smudgy. It doesn’t matter if it’s a touch screen, a big device or small, premium or budget – your fingerprints are going to get all over these things. Some handhelds do a better job of masking the smudges than others, but all will need a clean sooner or later.
Grab yourself a solution that’s made specifically for electronic screens. Windex and other alcohol or chemical-based cleaners can be caustic and actually destroy parts of your handhelds or their displays. We just want to get things clean, not strip a layer off of them. To go with the cleaner solution, a good microfiber towel (not just the tiny sunglasses type) goes a long way to keeping things spiffy.
The Expensive Bonus Essential – 3D Printer
Prior to owning one, I was always skeptical about how much real-world utility would come from a 3D printer. I thought they were just for Ban to use to send me cat figurines and 3D printed pieces of cheese (I cherish my cheese pieces). They’ve now reached a point where they’re so good and have gotten so cheap that I’d recommend anyone in the hobby consider purchasing one.
There are all sorts of valuable applications for printing in the handheld space. Grips that drastically improve ergonomics on some devices, better thumb-sticks that fit your hands, or even fun custom displays to show off your shelf collection to jealous visitors. It’s a must-have.
Summary
So those are the accessories and tools that I use when working with retro handheld emulation consoles. Forgetting the printer for a moment, all of the items on this list can be had relatively cheaply (and the printer regularly sells for as low as $150). So if you want your handhelds to stay in tip-top shape and never want to lose that one SD card ever again, heed my advice and get yourself some of the accessories on the list. If not for yourself, do it for the handhelds!
What about you? Are there any tools that you consider essential as a part of the hobby that I missed? Feel free to let us know in the comments or the RH Discord.
