Retromini Clone GBA Review
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ม.ค. 2018
- There are plenty of clone handheld consoles out there. Does the Game Boy Advance-focused Retromini stand out from the rest?
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The Crazy frog was a thing during the mid 2000’s.
Damn, I feel old.
SNC2319 bing bing bong
Crazy frog had a dick
I am so lucky to not grow with crazy frog
U love Digimon huh veenom
Really great review, Colin. Short and sweet. I really appreciate your willingness to be brutally honest but stay classy and professional. I wish more people were like that.
TH-cam is saturated with 10+ minute long videos that just feel stretched out. It's nice to see a short, on-point video review! I know sometimes more content is better, but thank god you don't go on for ages and I like your videos more for it
Agreed! I rarely click on videos over 10 min except for a few special ones.
I love these clone console reviews man, you always do a great job with them. Thanks for this one, answered all my questions lol.
Make more hardware reviews, you are awesome at that.
Great informative video... I like your honesty.
Thanks for the review! I was thinking of picking one up, but your review made me hold out.
Hey Colin I think you have to convert the gb and gbc files to gba. Saw it in another review, you should look into it
I have to say, I appreciate the way you do reviews, particularly as a result of the fact that you don't give things any kind of a final score, numerical or otherwise. Which aspects of a product are more relevant will vary from person to person, so it's helpful that you go through how well the product holds up in each different aspect, rather than emphasizing your final impression of the thing as a whole outside of simply wrapping up the video. It makes it easier to engage with the content of your review, rather than making your viewers wait for your final word on the thing.
Thanks for the review. I was on the fence if I wanted to get one, and you saved me the time and money. I’ll wait for something better or just use my revo k101.
Happy New year Colin
Thank you, I've been eyeing this gba clone for a while and was skeptical
I tried putting some gba roms on a sd card however when I selected the sd card from the "game" section nothing showed up, I had to go to the file manager to find the game. Does that make sense? In your video the gba files show up in the "game section"
I bought one of these little guys and I'm quite happy with what it does for the price and thanks to this video I know it can do a lot more! I bought it just to play a ton of GBA games but I had no idea it could play NES, SNES, and Genesis games too! Yes, the scaling is a bit messed up on those but I don't care too much as I play these classics in spurts, not marathon type sessions. The system has a really great feel to it in my opinion, nice and small, and fits in the hand well. I have a few PSPs with custom firmware and the PSP definitely runs emulators better but I can fit this in the same pocket as my phone and it doesn't bulge out as much as the PSP does. Overall I think it's a nice little gadget to kill some time with.
Finally ive been waiting for you to review this.
I truly enjoyed this review!
You had me excited the for a second. Thought I could play GBA cartridges on there.
The device shape is very good looking, I love the transparent, dark plastic shell.
Can you imagine trying to read an ebook on this thing?
It's probably only there for the same reason flash carts support it: game tutorials and such.
Tho it's a tad pointless nowadays since you would need to go back and forth on the same screen, but everyone has a phone nearby to do the same thing better. Like, yeah the phone could do even the emulation better, but when you get the console for the game experience itself, it's no wonder that the side stuff get irrelevant nowadays.
"If only" words that always come to my mind
The Menu looks like the PMP-V China Handheld, Made video about that one. Fun video by the way, :D
Good video. Saw other people review it before your video and none were as thorough.
Saw one of these other day. I like the portable NES Famicon one thats around $40. Just for the look. But eventually wanna get them all including the GB Boy. Nice vid m8!!!
I know I'm late to the party, but I got it for $10 new on eBay. It's had OpenDingux CFW for over a year now; Supports more emulators, overclocking, has better performance, etc. OpenDingux for this console is surprisingly still in development, the latest build being just yesterday. I'd say it's worth it at this point in time if you just want to play some basic GBA/GB/GBC games like Pokemon in a retro styled device.
You can hear Colin's face palms as he lists each execution flaw.
that slow zoom at the very beginning gave me super vertigo hahaha
Can you tell me if this one is better than Revo K101 Plus?
Im almost certain that it would also run Genesis games if you rename .md to .smd extension. I tried it with a few emulation based consoles, and it worked
I've been seeing ads for this thing on Tumblr non-stop and frankly it was tempting. Thanks for the review, definitely going to pass on it now.
Don’t trust tumblr no matter what.
Great review.
are those games that comes on the SD card?
You have some great videoskeep up the great work. I was thinking of this for a clone to have on long trips etc, would you reccommend something else than the Retromini??
A PlayStation Portable with custom firmware is probably the best option right now, because of the versatility and big, high-quality screen. Only downside to this approach is the proprietary memory cards, but ROM files are pretty small anyway.
Thanks for this video. You helping
Thanks, I was about to get one in my country for about ~$80. All I want is a nice Game boy color console, i guess this was not it after all
do you have another alternative for GBA games in mind? i already have the Odroid Go but it is incapable of playing GBA games. i thought about getting a psp but I really like the retro look.
I will love one but with the same size of the GBA SP
Hi Colin! I really like your videos they are full of great tips and help. Great video! Keep up the great work!
Happy New Year! And great video too! I have left my comments in another review video about this Retro Mini so basically this handheld is just mediocre. Some other stuff FYI:
-There is another GBA emluator handheld console that looks identical as the Revo K101+, but it does not have cartridge slot so it only plays ROMs but it supports multiple platforms (NES, SNES, SEGA Genesis, GB/GBC, GBA, CPS1, CPS2, NEOGEO, etc.) but it also has minior slow-down/frame dropping issues but not as bad as this Retro Mini but still noticeable (Sorry I used so many buts lol). I think it's called 'Retro Game' and it's already available now.
-There will be an updated version to the Bit-Boy that will have a real SD card slot early 2018. So you will be able to load your own NES/FC ROMs, so if you are looking at that console, I would suggest to wait a little bit more and see how the newer version turns out.
I've been seeing what appear to be clones of the K101 on Aliexpress for about $20 less. It would be interesting to see you compare one of them to the"original" unit.
hacked PSP or PSVITA 3.60, the best for GBA emulation in my opinion.
Does it have old arcade games like Pac man and Defender?
Thanks for the review. I was thinking of picking this up. But i'll avoid it. Love the channel.
Wait, so im seeing people who have this that have all the game titles in Chinese, yours is in English, did you change this via settings or does the console now have english titles?
I bought one for my 8 yr old son, it didn't come with a micro sd card with the 500+ games on it (that you mentioned) where can I get those games? I'll just get a micro sd and load it up for him...
Will you be doing a teardown? I'm curious what hardware is inside, and if it's generic enough that whatever internal storage it has could be reflashed with a better emulator.
I very well might be doing a teardown, especially since I'm hearing from some folks that the screen is interchangeable with the Game Boy Micro.
I like that you tell it like it is no BS in your reviews as always. Ive seen other reviews and there’s plenty of BS in those reviews.
nice and yea you can play gb and gbc games but you need to convert them to gba rom ,a bit like when you try to play gb and gbc games on a ds/gb micro with a ez flash 4,.
Any other nice alternative ? Bigger screen and powerful more than this ?
I still want to buy this Retromini :) Because i can't find other alternative for GB/GBA modernized handheld console. It's good for collection too.
work games of Game boy color or classic?
Colin, are there any GB/GBA portable clones from China worth buying? I live in China and I'm hurting for a retro console. Please help?
I respect your opinion after having watched your video though I will say this, overall review scores from buyers tell a different story and majority of youtubers reviewing this has very positive feedback to give. I will get mine tomorrow and see for myself, maybe you are right but I am hoping you are wrong because I am really looking forward to this little device.
i have one. Frame rates are terrible
Great review
So what would you say is the best choice for one of these modern chinese game boy clones?
PoyoReviews been asking myself the same thing for awhile now, best answer is probably to just get a psp and mod it
At this point, yep, PSP with CFW is probably the best option.
Thanks guys!
Get a GPD XD, more expensive but you'll know you made the right choice when you get it.
Ignore the hacked PSP recommendations, it's not 2008 anymore.
MechaTerryNutkins he asked for a retro device; the gdp goes beyond that and is what, 300 bucks vs 70? Shush.
Does this have Zelda A link to the past?
Can you use cheat codes like game shark?
Can you disarm the console?
That's easy. Only 6 regular type X screws hold this thing together.
Gotta convert game boy & game boy color to a .gba format. It said that on the product page!
Mine keeps turning itself off how do i fix it?
Hey Collin, I saw other reviews for this retro boy claiming that it plays GB and GBC games in addition to GBA games... they even claim it plays SNES and Genesis games. Can you confirm this please ? Also most other reviews show games in Chinese, maybe there is an updated version ?
Hey Colin, I just bought one off eBay, when it came to me in the mail,it was different, the retro mini logo on the bottom of the screen wasn’t there, and it seems that I got a different screen then you, emulation to wasn’t great, but it seems to be slightly different.
Mine came with different games, and no Sd card as well, at the same time, it doesn’t read games directly off the SD card, I have to go to file manager to play them.
It seems like there are a few variations of this console; I've heard of some that don't come with the SD card and are sold at a lower price.
This Does Not Compute I would really like to see a revision with better emulation, I’ve gotten mine to read gb and gbc games, but only after converting them to a .gba file. And it plays them just fine.
for 50 Euros (somewhere around $60) I bought a used GBA SP + 12 original games, some games were bad but at least half of them are great, including a couple of Super Mario games.
Antonio Barba that's great !
If you convert the .gb rom files to .gba you can also play gb and gbc games on it. I just spent 50 dlls.
I also tried some sega génesis roms and it works pretty fine
Help!! K101 plus or this?
Colin, you should try to acquire and review the prototype GPD WIN 2. Linus Tech Tips got a hold of one. Dolphin emulator runs games beautifully on it.
Just got an sp and an ez flash for £40. Runs everything perfectly.
im still waiting for my unit, brought from aliexpress for $33.
i don't know what to expect later.
I growed up with the original game boy.
For me that thing is so ... cute "the Retromini".
P.S. the entire world have (or have talked about) that console.
And now the 5 of this month it's coming mine.
P.S. Good video.
Hi. Can this clone's backlit LCD be used to replace the original GBC's screen? Thanks. God bless, Proverbs 31
Unfortunately it can't.
That's sad. A backlit replacement screen for the original Game Boy Color is what everybody really wants. If you get to talk to Ben Heck at a TH-camr's Meet maybe you can challenge him, if he can reverse engineer the connection to these clones (using the best backlit screen of all the clones) to work with the Game Boy Color. God bless, Proverbs 31
Man, feels like we never going to see a cheap GBA clone with a backlit/pixel perfect screen.
re hash never say never, man.
Try gbboy
Just curious; but let's say I bought one of these and wanted to play pokemon and trade, is there anyway to connect and trade with this?
Using Goomba you can definitely put GB and GBC games on the RetroMini. I did it with the one I bought last week. I am enjoying playing this machine. The games seem to play and look good to me and the only part of your review I completely agree with is the L and R buttons. They are not the best and would have been better if placed on the top of the unit instead of halfway down the back. Other than that I think this was $60 well spent.
You should see if you can put a better screen in it though that might not be cost effective.
Also supports SMD out of the box and GB/GBC using Goomba.
If only there wasn't so many if onlys
it seems to have same behavior of the old Dingoo, thanks fot he video
I got this for 30 dollars. Im liking it at that price. And i would buy again.
The screen of Retro mini is the game boy micro screen.Maybe you can check it.
thnx for making this video
ITS THE SOULJABOY MINI!!! I knew I'd seen this before.
you sound dumb ,look at the date its before he sold them . c'mon man
Cool hardware review even if it's a pirated model. Happy New Year!
im trying to figure out how this wont play gameboy, when people have videos of it playing pokemon yellow
My battery charges only halfway. It will not charge full. What do you think is causing the drain? Would you happen to know? Will you ever reply to my comment?
Hard to say for sure, but I'd be more inclined to think it's a defective battery rather than some sort of drain.
This Does Not Compute Thanks, man. What I noticed is it charges to full but when I removed the charger it goes back halfway. Maybe it's software error.
Try using Goomba boy color. It allows emulating gb and gbc games on the gba. It might be the fix your looking for, especially for the gameboy micro and this thing
How to put games on it?
We need an OLED gameboy remake in an aluminum enclosure
What I really wanted was something that managed to make the best of the SP AGS 001 and 101 on the same screen: great sunlight visibility with a great backlight. Keep the color tone of the 001 (the 101 is definitely exaggerated and on some games this becomes a horrible thing. Playing Advance Wars on a 101 is downright disgusting), and it's sunlight visibility with the backlight of the 101 and it's contrast.
Oh and on a format with a friggin' HEADPHONE JACK please
I say use your phone if you want a nicer-er screen (android)
I bought mine here in China off taobao for 194RMB, so around 30USD. For that price its pretty good. For 60 usd you'd rather go and get a revo k101 though
Does anyone know of a way to translate the roms from Japanese to English? I just got mine today and every game is in Japanese
And Sold, so far you are the only one mentioning the Original Gameboy and Gameboy color roms
also they included Snes Roms on compatibility and doesn't have the full layout of buttons to play them
(most likely because they are planning on having a second release so they can sell more of these)
Honestly, I think the NES/SNES compatibility is simply an oversight on their part. A lot of these clone consoles are made from similar parts, and I'd not be surprised at all if the operating system/emulators came straight from another clone (that maybe had additional buttons). It seems like they put the minimum amount of work necessary into putting consoles like this together.
probably from this ones, it seems to have the same operational system with additional buttons and a lot more cheaper but i really don't own one so i can't say anything else... i will just leave the link from the ebay listing
www.ebay.com/itm/32-Bit-Multifunction-Portable-Handheld-Video-Game-Console-Player-Childrens-Gift/401442953481?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649
they have another model with four face buttons in a more gba-like that also supports lots of other formats like sega genesis and neo geo
Colin .. what makes this thing tick ? Are we going to see whats inside in one of your upcoming videos ? This item did look better on paper.. "if only!"
It's a very old Ingenic JZ7425 which is an ancient MIPS based CPU which is a poor choice evn for a $35 handheld these days. It'll probably never be capable of decent GBA emulation unfortunately even if it does get hacked, should be able to do SMD and all 8bit consoles though.
great video, these things aren't worth it unless they're well done, you saved a lot of people some money :D
You can play GB and GBC roms if you convert them to GBA
This. Goomba
Later models did include sega genesis nes gba gbc And gb support I believed
i'd honestly reccommend a hacked psp over any of these clones, they are cheap, easy to work with and support a variety of machines with an active scene supporting the emulators and correcting issues.
I think the screen component is actually the same one that the Game Boy Micro uses. Which is why it's weird that yours looks so different. Must be the poor emulation.
FierceDeityXeroX ive read that somewhere too.
FierceDeityXeroX I would love to see if you could fix a broken gameboy micro with this screen
I think it's a very similar part in terms of how it works, but not from the same manufacturer. A teardown and comparison of the two screens may be in order.
justin rivera, I don't think that's necessary. The Micro uses an off-the-shelf part that a lot of digital cameras use, so replacement screens are easy to find and cheap. I just found one on Amazon for $12. It would be cool though, if they are indeed a perfect match.
Like to know how annoying are the LR buttons
Man, it would be cool if this thing was like the GB Boy Colour, with near-perfect specifications. Kind of sad that the emulation is so poor, though, since the GBA technology should be pretty easy to replicate in this day and age.
for that money I would buy a psp and mod it, It is the best retro-emulator machine I have ever seen
Joselo Aero then you haven't seen that many
Awesomeness as always Colin. Wishing you and the mrs. A blessed An happy new year 🎆.
It looks pretty cool, I gotta say :) I've always been a sucker for that transparent appearance. A fully software-running GBA looking like a GBP is kind of a nice surprise too, no need to carry big old cartridges around.