u/SchrodingerSemicolon

Tl;dr: Flippad won't fit phones if the USB port is not in the center.

I know it's gonna sound obvious to most people, but I'm dumb and maybe there are other dumb people out there that this might be of some use.

---

I really liked the Gamesir Taco form factor, something truly pocketeable to give my phone physical controls. I ordered one, and took 5min upon arrival to realize the dpad was catastrophically bad and beyond fixing.

The 8bitdo Flippad was the 2nd best thing (not a fan of all front buttons, especially the menu button right under your thumb), so I ordered one too. It just arrived, and took 30s to realize I made a very basic miscalculation.

My phone is a foldable so the USB port is towards the back and not the center like most normal phones. For some reason I expected the Flippad USB connection to be more flexible to allow for that, but... it isn't at all.

Well, at least it was cheap. But I said the same thing about the Taco, and I ended up with paying not a lot for zero usable controllers.

I adopted her at under 3m, now she's about 1.5yo. She was a skinny baby, but in the last 6 months she got quite rotund, at about 4kg. Not enough to change her habits, she's still playful and flexible, but I know it's not healthy.

The thing is, I have 3 other cats, from 8m to 2yo. They're all bigger than her (she's a bit of a runt) but all at healthy weights according to my vet.

I'm not sure how to get her to lose weight without putting some stress on the other 3. Can't limit food intake because she's just eat their share. Would need to separate them at food time, which is doable since it's a big house, but that's 4x a day and often I'd have to wake them up for that. I also thought about diet food but it's ridiculously expensive; I don't spare expenses for the babies, but I'm talking 4x more expensive.

Any ideas?

Tl;dr:

Xbox Rog Ally X = very good, best value among PC handhelds at $1k (in the current market 🤷‍♂️)

Xbox Rog Ally X with SteamOS = Steam Deck 2

---

I've had a Deck OLED for a couple years now. I posted a few days ago asking if the swap was worth it. Every other PC handheld had a price hike, so I figured it'd be a good time to pick this up and try to futureproof a bit. Worst case scenario I can just resell it.

Mental ramblings after getting my hands on it:

• Man it's a thick boi
• Man it's comfortable. I thought the Deck was perfect, this is just as good
• Except by the back buttons, that I can barely reach. Whoever designed this has MASSIVE hands. If there's a back plate mod to make these usable I'm buying it
• Jesus christ these face buttons are LOUD. If I play this on a plane the noise will wake someone up and I'll get punched in the face. I'm modding this shit to-DAY
• Oh god there's no way I'm getting used to this screen. There's nothing on it and yet it's GREY. I miss OLED so bad, I'm sending this back
• Okay, it's grey but at least 7" 1080p is a lot sharper than 800p, and it has VRR. I'm keeping this for now, let's just never do a side by side comparison with an OLED
• Gotta factory reset since it's second hand. Cloud Recovery took over an hour on a 500Mb connection...
• ...and then there was the Windows first boot experience to add another 30min. It feels a solid 10 years behind SteamOS in this department, it's downright embarrassing for Microsoft
• No I do not want OneDrive or Office365 or Teams inside my videogame, thank you Microsoft. Oh you already put them in there for me? Thanks I guess. Copilot is just around the corner waiting to ambush me during a game, isn't it?
• Ok, FSE is not bad and-- nevermind, it's mostly a frontend for ads for Gamepass. Can I disable these ads?
• I cannot disable these ads
• The Xbox and Armory Crate buttons are so redundant. It's like a whole button on Switch 2 for a subscription-based microphone. Hope I can rebind these for somethign actually useful
• Thanks FSE but Steam Big Picture will take from here as my main interface. anyfse to the rescue!
• Still need to fiddle with Armory Crate for per-game performance profiles. Why does it take so many clicks to get anywhere? The UX is better than having to deal with pure Windows, but still years behind SteamOS
• FH4 running at 1080p@120fps and I can't even hear the fans. Not just run, but I can actually play Nioh 3, Expedition 33, MHWilds and Crimson Desert on this. This uplift from the deck's Zen2 is wild, that 50% I was told might be actually on the low side
• I want to install SteamOS but I'm afraid I'd miss Auto SR, so let's try it. Nevermind, on a 4k TV upscaling from 720p looks & runs worse than just running at 1080p
• Ok, I don't mind FSE, but the SteamOS UX is just plain better. I'll install it on the SSD the Ally came with, if it runs well I'm taking the 2TB SSD that's on the Steam Deck and put it in here and then SteamOS again
• It took FIFTEN MINUTES from downloading the SteamOS image to my PC to downloading my first game on the Ally X. Microsoft for fuck's sake, copy their homework
• I get it's the same CPU architecture, but everything just works, on a non-Valve hardware. Bless you Valve
• I don't have Gamepass, I don't play games with anti-cheat, and almost all my games are all on Steam. I will miss zero things from Windows. I'm keeping this. Time to swap the SSD
• What in the absolute fuck is this. Took the drive from Steam Deck, put the drive on Xbox Ally X, literally haven't done anything else, and it just booted like it belonged there all along. Everything works. Why does everything work?
• Again because my flabbers are thoroughly ghasted:
• I TOOK THE SSD FROM THE DECK, PUT ON THE ALLY, AND EVERYTHING JUST WORKS AS BEFORE
• Nah, that can't be. Let's fiddle around and boot some games, there has to be something wrong
• *20min later* nope, everything does work, this is magical
• I'm holding a Steam Deck 2
• ^...but ^I ^miss ^OLED.

Teams go ^(DING) ^(DING) ^(DING) ^(DING) ^(DING) ^(DING) ^(DING) ^(DING) ^(DING)

He likes to tuck himself under my arm, do some biscuits, then purr himself to sleep.

I rescued him only a couple months ago. He took shelter at a neighbor's (open) garage and had been sleeping under their car for a few days. I felt so bad for the baby that I had to bring him home. It makes me feel fulfilled and even a bit emotional that he feels so comfy and safe.

Device: Retroid Pocket Classic 6 sg

Game: Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga (GBA)

---

I unfortunately might be too brain rotted atm to sit down and play something for hours. Took me 20 or so hours to beat this game and I don't think I ever played for longer than 30min in a session.

Having a device with ridiculous battery life (both running and in standby) that I can leave on my desk always ready to go to pick up and play 5min here and there did the trick.

Yada yada yada, during renovations last year a piece of the wall fell squarely on my deck. Screen surprisingly still works perfectly, it's just that there's a vertical crack on it, and I assume I'm gonna have to replace it entirely.

I know I can get a replacement on iFixit for about $100, but I'd have to import it (and therefore pay import taxes), so I'm looking for cheaper options. Looking on Aliexpress there's a bunch of them for half the price, anyone tried those? I'd be inclined to, but I'm not even sure they're actually OLED screens or just IPS.

Also, if I'm getting it from iFixit, should I get a glossy one like the original, or one with anti-glare glass? I'd like less reflections, but some people said they prefer the glossy one.

> Devices shown, apart from the reviewed one, are: Miyoo Mini Plus and Galaxy Fold 7.

---

The good:

- It's light, slim, and overall smaller than my smallest device, a Miyoo A30. It's actually something I could throw in my pocket without much thought and have it with me just in case I want to play something.

- There's no way something this small could've been comfortable, but it's not uncomfortable either. It also feels sturdy, it didn't feel like my phone would slip out even though I use a weird ass phone grip. Buttons feel good too.

- Latency is good. I was afraid this would be a deal breaker after hearing some negative reports, but it actually feels better than my Galileo G8+ - tested on the same phone, emulator, and game. I did update the firmware before testing though, no idea if this fixed something.

- It makes DS games unexpectedly nice to play, as long as you're not relying on touch controls too much. On my phone the two screens end up stacked almost perfectly on the screen space left.

- Just like most telescopic controllers it can be used "detached", so you could use it as a regular controller with your phone on a table or stand.

The bad:

- If you're not using the Delta emulator on iOS, the software experience is... inconvenient. I can't think of a launcher (like ES-DE) that's usable in portrait mode. RetroArch is okay if you tweak a few things like vertical screen position so it's not at the top of the display. The best I managed on Android was to save a shortcut to two apps in split screen with ES-DE on top and drag so it's split 70/30. It's a chore that I don't look forward to doing every time I wanna play.

- They have an app called Gamesir Boy aimed at helping with the software experience. It's an emulation frontend made to use with the Taco that will open games on the top 70% of the screen, while also automatically downloading emulators for you. But it's very basic, if you're used with other launchers or have more than 10 games, you won't want to use this.

- Unless your phone is particularly wide, you'll end up with a very small image. A 4:3 will look like on a < 3.2" screen on my phone with a 6.5" display, and 3:2 like GBA is like 3".

The ugly:

- It's not a bad dpad, but diagonals are so finnicky that you might think there are ghost inputs. Some people reported it sort of "fixing itself" over time after some use, and maybe some simple hardware mod could help, but as it is it's not great to put it mildly. Play Tetris at your own peril.

https://imgur.com/0wustY7

Bonus:

- Someone asked what'd it look like on a foldable phone. It's... kind of awkward, but still somewhat usable. It grips well enough, but I couldn't easily reach the L2/R2 buttons. Not sure I'd trust it to not scratch the extremely fragile inner screen though, but it does have a rubbery padded interior. Honestly, I might actually prefer this way of playing over a tiny screen in portrait mode.

---

All in all, it's a 7/10 if the dpad is fixable somehow. It's small, cheap, and will do in a pinch - after all, the best device (or controller) is the one you have with you.