Best Retro Handheld

Raymond Lin · 1 Jun 2025 at 16:55

I have no idea why, pulled the TrimUI Brick out of the cupboard after a couple of months not using it, it won't boot....SD card in or not.

Tried leaving it charged for 30mins, tried again, nothing. The charging light comes on (red) but nothing when I press the button.

WTF.....I love that thing.

TrimUI Bricked....

Lustral · 2 Jun 2025 at 09:05

Raymond Lin said:
I have no idea why, pulled the TrimUI Brick out of the cupboard after a couple of months not using it, it won't boot....SD card in or not.

Tried leaving it charged for 30mins, tried again, nothing. The charging light comes on (red) but nothing when I press the button.

WTF.....I love that thing.

TrimUI Bricked....

Have you tried press and holding down the power button until it boots up at all ? Sometimes they go into a weird locked sleep state.

Raymond Lin · 2 Jun 2025 at 09:16

Lustral said:
Have you tried press and holding down the power button until it boots up at all ? Sometimes they go into a weird locked sleep state.

I pressed the power button, held it down for 5 seconds. I looked up Reddit and people say you take the SD card out and press power button and Vol down button to reset something, which should give you a prompt.

I tried all that, all nothing. Only thing I haven't done is open it up, disconnect the battery and reconnect it again.

Lustral · 2 Jun 2025 at 09:24

Raymond Lin said:
I pressed the power button, held it down for 5 seconds. I looked up Reddit and people say you take the SD card out and press power button and Vol down button to reset something, which should give you a prompt.

I tried all that, all nothing. Only thing I haven't done is open it up, disconnect the battery and reconnect it again.

yeah that is to force to update the firmware from the SD doing the vol down and power button trick.

Raymond Lin · 2 Jun 2025 at 10:10

Lustral said:
yeah that is to force to update the firmware from the SD doing the vol down and power button trick.

It's like the 3rd one that died...

RG35XXH
RG35XXSP (this might just need new format SD card with OS)
now the Trim UI brick, all seem to work then left for a bit and died....

What's going on?! I might stick to Andriod, at least my RP5 still works.

Kyle009 · 2 Jun 2025 at 10:32

Raymond Lin said:
It's like the 3rd one that died...

RG35XXH
RG35XXSP (this might just need new format SD card with OS)
now the Trim UI brick, all seem to work then left for a bit and died....

What's going on?! I might stick to Andriod, at least my RP5 still works.

What are you charging your devices with? They need a really crappy plug otherwise they look like they are charging but they're not (in my experience)

Raymond Lin · 2 Jun 2025 at 10:59

Kyle009 said:
What are you charging your devices with? They need a really crappy plug otherwise they look like they are charging but they're not (in my experience)

I have an old Amazon Fire Stick psu that I use for this...but I did plug in the TrimUI bring into my Caldigit Dock's 7.5w front port.

I might get the Classic next month, I would like an AMOLED (and larger) screen anyway.

Guest2 · 3 Jun 2025 at 18:10

Raymond Lin said:
I have an old Amazon Fire Stick psu that I use for this...but I did plug in the TrimUI bring into my Caldigit Dock's 7.5w front port.

I might get the Classic next month, I would like an AMOLED (and larger) screen anyway.

I found many older devices didnt like certain cables or chargers. The only thing I used to charge them was an Anker 737 Powercore 24k via the USB A port (5v) with a USB A > USB C cable that came with my OG RG35XX.
It does take forever though to charge devices.

My primary device now is my AYN Odin 2 mini pro, which thankfully fast charges

Muska · 4 Jun 2025 at 19:11

My Retroid Pocket 5 has arrived today. Initial thoughts are it’s a lovely looking thing. I won’t get chance to set it up properly until the weekend, suffice to say I’ll be following the guide I posted religiously!

Guest2 · 4 Jun 2025 at 22:11

Muska said:
My Retroid Pocket 5 has arrived today. Initial thoughts are it’s a lovely looking thing. I won’t get chance to set it up properly until the weekend, suffice to say I’ll be following the guide I posted religiously!

God knows how many times i've watched this now for Android setups, at least 6

Mainly for the smaller things I always forget in Retroarch

NF7-S · 9 Jun 2025 at 20:27

I love my GP Wiz, so small and a lovely OLED...powerful enough for most the 'real' retro games

kaku · 10 Jun 2025 at 09:53

Raymond Lin said:
It's like the 3rd one that died...

RG35XXH
RG35XXSP (this might just need new format SD card with OS)
now the Trim UI brick, all seem to work then left for a bit and died....

What's going on?! I might stick to Andriod, at least my RP5 still works.

Are you using the SD cards that come bundled? They're often prone to failure.

TrimUI Brick does have a firmware bug too where it doesn't turn off properly. From what I've seen online you can disconnect the battery internally or use the reset button by the bottom charging port.

Raymond Lin · 10 Jun 2025 at 10:25

kaku said:
Are you using the SD cards that come bundled? They're often prone to failure.

TrimUI Brick does have a firmware bug too where it doesn't turn off properly. From what I've seen online you can disconnect the battery internally or use the reset button by the bottom charging port.

No, I never use those, I use a combination of Samsung, Sandisk and Lexar (whichever one is cheapest for that size i need).

I guess I will do a reset at the bottom of the charging port next, didn't know about that.

Shep_Cobain · 11 Jun 2025 at 11:07

So, without sounding rude or lazy, I don't have time to read through the whole thread - I am looking at purchasing the best retro handheld for my Dad and father-in-law for Father's Day. I am overwhelmed with the options and the number of articles and websites all claiming to be the best. The budget is up to £80. Looking for retro, portability, and comfort. As well as out-of-the-box ease and setup. Which models am I best considering?

Thanks.

Kyle009 · 11 Jun 2025 at 12:49

Shep_Cobain said:
So, without sounding rude or lazy, I don't have time to read through the whole thread - I am looking at purchasing the best retro handheld for my Dad and father-in-law for Father's Day. I am overwhelmed with the options and the number of articles and websites all claiming to be the best. The budget is up to £80. Looking for retro, portability, and comfort. As well as out-of-the-box ease and setup. Which models am I best considering?

Thanks.

Are you happy to tweak it before you give it to him? In my opinion all handhelds benefit from installing a customOS and the romsets they come with often have broken elements to them (not to mention the obviously dodgy copyright breaking too).

What systems are you hoping for him to be able to play?

Shep_Cobain · 11 Jun 2025 at 13:17

Kyle009 said:
Are you happy to tweak it before you give it to him? In my opinion all handhelds benefit from installing a customOS and the romsets they come with often have broken elements to them (not to mention the obviously dodgy copyright breaking too).

What systems are you hoping for him to be able to play?

Everything from NES -> PS1.

Kyle009 · 11 Jun 2025 at 14:58

Shep_Cobain said:
Everything from NES -> PS1.

And are you happy to tweak and set up before giving it to him?

Some of the Anbernic devices, rg35xx or rg34xx would be my initial shout but their stock firmware is a bit poor.

Lustral · 11 Jun 2025 at 17:59

It's taken almost a month but it is finally here. My RP5 with Grips and screen protector installed. Will get it fired up later on this evening when the kids are in bed. Grip deffo does make a big difference to the feel of the console.

Guest2 · 11 Jun 2025 at 19:17

Shep_Cobain said:
Everything from NES -> PS1.

If you’re happy setting it up beforehand with MinUI, I would say the TrimUI brick.

£50 from Aliexpress delivered then a 512gb microsd card (amazon basics) from Amazon for £35.

Easily enough power for up to PSX, OS is simple to use, loads of games and the Amazon basics card has been the best (write speed) card ive owned, even better than sandisk extreme pro!

1024x768 screen is fantastic for the price and its a solid device compared to all Ambernic offerings (even more expensive ones)

No analogs but up to and including PSX, consoles had no analogs anyway. It also does a bit of Dreamcast, arcade and N64 (and very basic Saturn - Saturn bomberman for instance)

HeadlessChicken · 12 Jun 2025 at 08:11

Shep_Cobain said:
So, without sounding rude or lazy, I don't have time to read through the whole thread - I am looking at purchasing the best retro handheld for my Dad and father-in-law for Father's Day. I am overwhelmed with the options and the number of articles and websites all claiming to be the best. The budget is up to £80. Looking for retro, portability, and comfort. As well as out-of-the-box ease and setup. Which models am I best considering?

Thanks.

Slight swerve to the above, but you mention comfort. May wish to consider whether you want vertical or horizontal; personally I much prefer horizontal, vertical just isn't comfortable for anything other than very short sessions.

The verticals can be very narrow. If this is a factor, it will definitely change what model you are looking for (luckily there are essentially the same internals with differing form factors out there. RG40XXH, or RG35XXH for example is the horizontal version of the RG mid-range handhelds, which would run all the consoles you are after).