I Desperately Wanted to Love This Game Boy Micro Clone

Instead of simply letting you play the retro video games of your youth, what if a handheld emulator additionally recreated the feel and appear of the consoles you bear in mind? On paper the brand new Anbernic Retro Game 300X looks as if it takes every part that made the Game Boy Micro nice and upgrades it.

Note: A pattern of the Retro Game 300X was offered to Gizmodo by on-line retailer KeepRetro.

It’s not probably the most well-known of Nintendo’s handhelds, however the Game Boy Micro has a close to cult following at present, and I’ll admit I unabashedly love the tiny console. It took my favourite platform, the Game Boy Advance, and squeezed it into an extremely small and simply pocketable handheld that was nonetheless very a lot playable, even when its tiny display screen now significantly challenges my getting older eyes. I can vividly bear in mind the Electronics Boutique cashier making an attempt to speak me out of shopping for one (“the screen is so tiny!”) however the Game Boy Micro remains to be certainly one of my favourite devices of all time, so I had excessive hopes for the Anbernic RG300X.

The Game Boy Micro Without the Micro Part

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Based on the handful of images I’d seen of the RG300X earlier than it arrived, I used to be hopeful that it wouldn’t be a lot bigger than the Game Boy Micro. But with a 3-inch 640×480-pixel display screen, I used to be undoubtedly being over-optimistic about its dimension. The RG300X is way bigger than the Game Boy Micro, and that seems to be each a great and dangerous factor.

When the retro gaming craving hits there are two handhelds I at present attain for: the RG350P and its twin analog joysticks, which make taking part in PlayStation video games simpler, or the smaller RG280V for once I’m sticking to 16-bit titles. The new RG300X falls someplace between the 2, however nearer in dimension to the bigger RG350P, regardless of having a display screen that’s a few half-inch smaller. If you’re going to design a contemporary console that appears practically equivalent to the Game Boy Micro, it actually needs to be quite a bit smaller than the RG300X. But the brand new console does supply some benefits over the compact RG280V, which isn’t probably the most comfy machine to play with in the event you’ve received bigger arms.

Comfortable Gaming for Giant Hands

I like the dimensions of the Anbernic RG280V; its Game Boy-inspired structure is simply barely bigger than the hand held’s virtually 3-inch display screen making it very straightforward to journey with. But it doesn’t take lengthy for the structure and spacing of its controls to begin to really feel cramped when you play. The controls on the brand new RG300X may have been tightened as much as produce a a lot smaller console, however the beneficiant spacing does really feel significantly better for longer play classes.

The RG300X makes use of the identical tiered shoulder buttons because the RG280V so you possibly can differentiate the 2 by really feel, however each are longer and simpler to press together with your index fingers. I’m not a fan of the pretend silver end on plastic components, however it’s a part of the Game Boy Micro-inspired design right here.

The four-way directional pad is identical one Anbernic has included on numerous handhelds thus far, and it feels pretty much as good as Nintendo’s authentic {hardware}. The motion buttons on the brand new RG300X are extra spaced out than those on the RG280V and really feel significantly better, however I do miss the added texture of the embossed letters on the smaller console.

The Game Boy Micro’s glowing Select and Start buttons have been completely recreated on the RG300X and are used to point the console’s energy standing, in addition to serve as a charge-level indicator for its 2,500 mAh battery. I can’t discover any solution to flip them off, and I’ve already seen different customers cracking open the RG300X to seek out methods to bodily disable these glowing LEDs as a result of they discover them distracting.

None of the present crop of handheld emulators we’ve reviewed embrace Bluetooth or assist for wi-fi headphones, however no less than the RG300X positions the headphone jack on the underside of the console the place it needs to be.

A Tale of Two Screens

The largest disappointment of the RG300X isn’t its dimension, nevertheless, however the high quality of the display screen used. Over the previous couple of years, Anbernic has been slowly upgrading the standard of the screens utilized in its handhelds, and so they now characteristic totally laminated screens with glorious distinction, brightness, and coloration replica. The LCD display screen on the 16-year-old Game Boy Micro appears downright terrible when in comparison with the RG300X’s, which comes as no shock. But sitting side-by-side with the marginally older RG280V, the display screen Anbernic has used for the RG300X is a whole disappointment. Its coloration profile is not only cooler, however virtually appears inexperienced, and at most brightness it’s noticeably darker than the RG280V’s show. I’m not positive what occurred right here, however it seems like a step again for a tool that’s costlier than the RG280V.

Not as Easy to Use as a Game Boy

Anbernic continues to energy its handheld emulators with the dual-core 1.0GHz JZ4770 processor it’s been utilizing for fairly a while now. You’ll additionally discover it inside the brand new RG300X, which implies that whereas the brand new console can emulate consoles just like the N64 and the PlayStation, efficiency varies wildly from recreation to recreation. Paired with an absence of analog joysticks, that means when you can most likely get away with taking part in a handful of totally 3D video games, you’ll largely need to follow your 16-bit favorites from the SNES and Sega Genesis period, or older video games.

Instead of bodily cartridges, the RG300X hundreds video games by means of ROM information, however as with all of Anbernic’s gadgets, you possibly can merely fill a microSD card with the information (make sure you hold them organized into correctly named folders to your personal sanity) after which pop the reminiscence card right into a devoted slot on the underside of the hand held. It doesn’t include any video games, and it’s vital to keep in mind that taking part in video games utilizing ROM information and never the unique cartridges or discs is a authorized grey space which may additionally make it exhausting to supply a lot of these information.

A fundamental degree of competency with utilizing a pc to repeat information to a reminiscence card is required to make use of a tool like this, in addition to ample persistence to be taught to navigate the OpenDingux Linux-based working system that Anbernic’s handhelds run on. It’s ugly, sometimes complicated, and infrequently requires you to memorize a collection of button combos to hop out and in of video games with out energy biking the RG300X to get again to the primary menu. Software and firmware upgrades aren’t any picnic both, however not often necessary, and there are many detailed guides on the web do you have to need to tinker with it. A normal lack of polish with user-friendliness is the trade-off for an $80 console that may play hundreds of various video games.

Should You Buy It?

If you skipped the Game Boy Micro 16 years in the past due to its dimension however have been head over heels in love with its design, then the RG300X is perhaps for you, as a result of in each method it’s an improve to Nintendo’s smallest handheld. But for $80 your cash is healthier spent on both the RG350P, which features a brighter, bigger display screen plus a pair of analog joysticks, or the cheaper $66 RG280V, which, hand cramps apart, nonetheless packs an unbelievable quantity of worth and playability into a really small handheld with a wonderful display screen. Even in case your arms are bigger than Bigfoot’s, the smaller RG280V remains to be the higher solution to go.