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I finally joined the retro gaming handheld club! (thelemmy.club)
submitted 1 month ago by popcar2@programming.dev to c/sbcgaming@lemmy.ml
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cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/48277785

In the pic: Anbernic RG35XX-H playing Castlevania: Dracula X

I’ve been thinking about buying one of these for a while but finally bit the bullet now that companies have started raising prices due to the RAM/chip shortage…

And it turned out to be the best purchase I’ve made in a while! It’s a ton of fun gaming on this little thing. I flashed a custom operating system on it and am now playing Castlevania & Secrets of Mana with RetroAchievements support (which adds achievements and progress tracking to retro games).

I’m also playing a lot of random PICO-8 games since it runs on the device and I can easily browse and play free games on it. Low-key wish I had bought it sooner with how neat it is.

Anybody else have a retro handheld here?

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[-] JayGray91@piefed.social 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I've been following the emulation handheld scene for a couple years now still yet to have one. This is a nice device I'm sure but like in the original post, I just can't justify a dedicated device when I have a phone that's miles more powerful.

Of course being a smartphone it has been the everything device with all the pros and cons we recognize.

Currently I really want the Magicx One 35 for some odd reason. It being practically the same size as my phone in its case is a reason why. Being android is another reason but I'm sure it won't really be able to run android games that well save for lightweight ones.

Other than the chip crisis, why did you pick this handheld instead of many others? I'm assuming price is one reason, and another reason is the systems you want to play.

[-] popcar2@programming.dev 1 points 1 month ago

Maybe it's just a psychological thing, but I feel way more comfortable gaming on a dedicated device than my phone. I don't have to worry about losing all my phone battery, or getting popups and calls while playing, or having to exit the game to check messages etc... It's way nicer having it just be a handheld that does one thing well.

why did you pick this handheld instead of many others?

Form factor is the big one. I think the Magicx is basically the same size, I was also looking for something that would fit in my pocket without much issue. It's funny that you mention Android as a reason to buy one, I specifically looked for one that WASN'T Android. Linux handhelds are a lot simpler to work with and you don't have to worry about Android shenanigans like processes running in the background or having to sign in to Google and update apps etc...

For me, most of the games I'm interested in playing are SNES, GBA, PS1, and some PSP. If you're looking to play PS2 or higher then yeah a more powerful Android handheld makes sense, but I didn't care for it that much.

this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2026
27 points (100.0% liked)

SBC Gaming

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