Best Retro Handheld

I was considering a RP5 or a RG577 but decided to get rid of the PC under the TV and grabbed a Lenovo Legion Go S. With it being windows based but supports Steamos its much more versatile for me and should be great for retro stuff. I will update when i can get some stuff up and running. I understand its not as pocketable but its not as if i will be doing a lot out of the house but a nice to have.
 
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I too am interested in the 477m but cant see it besting my Odin 2 mini pro.

If only Anbernic stopped being tight and used Snapdragon chips.

There just isnt great support yet for Dimensity & Mali. For example I play quite a few games in Winlator on my Odin and Mali support is terrible. Stability or compatibility is required and even then there are crashes and graphics corruption. Using performance mode (in Winlator) straight up didnt work for 80% of games.
Odin 2 it works for 80% of games ive tested with little to no issues at all.

For example im playing through THPS 3 & 4 remastered currently on the mini. Low graphics setting still looks fantastic and it runs at ~45fps with a few hitches.
Id love to see how Dimensity & Mali combo does in this respect.
 
Guest2 said:
I too am interested in the 477m but cant see it besting my Odin 2 mini pro.
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I was too as I would like an ultimate 4:3 device, but the rumoured price seems very high for what is a less performant soc, no oled and no analogue triggers.
 
Zatoichi.uK said:
It is looking pricy. I don't think i could drop £200 on it no matter how good it is
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I got to the point id tried about 15 devices and just wanted something that 'worked' and was solid. Odin 2 mini pro was expensive, but worth it. I paid around £290 delivered.

My problem was I was spending too much time tinkering on mid range devices like the RG556, RG Cube, RP5 / Mini. I would find a game I wanted to play and it wouldnt run without changing settings or there might be glitches or it would crash.
That or it just didnt feel very 'premium' The RP5 and mini were quite nice, but hated the face butons and the first mini I had* one of the triggers was creaky.

Compatibility with the Snapdragon 8 Gen2 chip has taken away this tinkering pain. You still can if you want but it means for example Burnout 3 PS2 can be ran at 3x upscaling with all default settings at a solid 60fps.
RG Cube couldnt even run it at 1x default settings without huge fps drops and audio issues. I returned it to the Aliexpress store, despite a bit of a battle. (it was stated to run PS2, it cannot)


I'll probably move to a Snapdragon 8 Elite device in future, but emulators and apps might need to catch up first.
 
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I've been looking into retro gaming handhelds for the last few days. I'm tempted to get into this but there are so many choices out there it's overwhelming. I want to play everything up to Switch games so from what I've seen so far the best options should be Retroid Pocket 5, Odin Portal or just go for a Steam deck OLED which gives benefit of having access to PC gaming too. Which one of these options will be best for someone new? Ideally I would like the least amount of tweaking and messing around to get games working.
 
HeadlessChicken said:
Least tweaking / switch power = (assuming you don't want it for portability, or pocketability to be more precise) Steam Deck OLED.

Also gives you a million other things too.
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This. Just be aware copying files can be (is) very annoying from windows (exfat) to linux (ext4)
That was one of the reasons I decided to give Android a try.
 
Guest2 said:
This. Just be aware copying files can be (is) very annoying from windows (exfat) to linux (ext4)
That was one of the reasons I decided to give Android a try.
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I followed this guide yesterday and it was dead easy, no need to connect external drives to the deck after this.

 
Bubo said:
I followed this guide yesterday and it was dead easy, no need to connect external drives to the deck after this.

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When I first got my Steam deck there was a program that did something similar to this and worked for the most part but remember copying files the speed was reduced or fluctuated massively. e.g. from 90MB sec write speed down to 1MB/sec then back up and all over.
Android you simply remove the SD card, connect it to Windows in an adapter, copy your files too it then insert it into the Android device. Re-scan of say the Daijisho system and it appears and scrapes images.

Getting Windows games to work in Winlator is way easier on the Odin 2 than it was on Steam Deck.

Copy files to SD card, insert then fire up Winlator with the SD card mounted in Winlator then open the container and double click the exe (or easier, create shortcut and open the game shortcut)
Steam Deck you would need to try using different Proton layers and maybe install Lutris or other tools, work out where it is e.g. /home/deck/.steam/steam/steamapps/compatdata/2893894692/pfx/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/ then use tools to pull images for shortcuts (Steam GridDB) and add the correct shortcut.

Granted, Steam games are much easier to play on Steam deck!
 
I do wish the windows > Linux file sharing was easier.

However I now just use winpinator to wirelessly move any files I need from PC > Steam deck - mostly roms TBH. If I need anything else, I just do it all directly on the SD itself. Got myself a little bluetooth keboard / mouse all in 1 thing, use desktop mode, firefox, explorer etc. and it's dead easy really.
 
HeadlessChicken said:
I'm not massively sure what some of the specs mean, but not sure I like the stick positions. Assuming it's as powerful as I assume it is, you'll be wanting to run PS2 / GC / Android games on there, and so be using the stick a lot.
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Russ has a review up already.


He seems to like it, but I'm not convinced.

It's overpriced, and if it is aimed at GC and PS2 I agree you'd want the stick up top. And the lack of analogue triggers is going to be an issue for some games.

For this price I'd expect OLED too. You could get the Retroid Pocket Mini v2 for less, yes it has a slightly smaller screen but is OLED and has analogue triggers.

Edit: you could get the regular RP5 for the same price which has a 5.5" screen 16:9 not 4:3 mind) but again is OLED etc.
 
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HeadlessChicken said:
I do wish the windows > Linux file sharing was easier.

However I now just use winpinator to wirelessly move any files I need from PC > Steam deck - mostly roms TBH. If I need anything else, I just do it all directly on the SD itself. Got myself a little bluetooth keboard / mouse all in 1 thing, use desktop mode, firefox, explorer etc. and it's dead easy really.
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If you have a look at the video I posted above, that method will mount both your Steam Deck main SSD and the SD card as drive letters in Windows so you can explore all the folders on the Deck via windows explorer just like any other folder. You can then drag and drop roms, mods, or whatever to and from the deck directly into the folders. You don't need to use winpinator as an intermediary and move files on the actual deck in desktop mode. You don't even need to put the deck in desktop mode to mount the drives. It is a doddle really.
 
I dunno what it is about the 4:3 screens that are just so much more appealing to me than a widescreen one. I only have an RG351MP which I've mainly used to play SNES and a bit of PS1, but the RG477M looks like a direct successor with the same design but bigger and better specs, so I can't say it hasn't piqued my interest.

Having said that, the non-staggered shoulder buttons aren't great, the flat back design isn't that comfortable, and the sticks positioned at the bottom are awkward to use. The start/select buttons moved to the bottom right is also a downgrade, and front firing speakers would be way better.
 
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