u/ninjapirate9901

Pictured: Onexsugar Sugar 1 (Cocoon FE, Cocoon U Light Theme)

It flips and shit.

Ordered a Thor Pro from Aliexpress (coupons + rakuten) on June 5th, delivered to the US on June 23rd. Purchased from the AYN Official Store (i assume it's legit?).

Setup with Cocoon FE as the default home launcher, basic underclock in clustertune, and back on my bs with Mythics Arceus (Legends Arceus QoL romhack).

Ultra Slim Pocket Grip from Etsy fitted and waiting on a couple other accessories from etsy.

Ayaneo Pocket Ace and the Pocket Vert.

5th Gen with an iflash uDual and 3000mAh battery. Running Rockbox and the bunnyPod theme.

Pictured: MagicX One35 + Pokemon Lazarus (Retroarch, mGBA, gbadotmatrix.slangp preset)

If you're in the market for a fairly compact 3:2 handheld with the same 3.5" LCD from the Pocket Micro (and the Micro 2...), the MagicX One35 is worth considering.

General Notes on the One35:

• Dpad is both stiff and fairly small, might be a dealbreaker for some.
• I do like the screen on the One35 more than the regular RG34XX, but the RG34XX SP screen is pretty damn good too. The One35 has 4x integer scaling for GBA, good vibrancy, and fairly high PPI due to the small size.
• My One35 has some noticeable black light bleed around the left edge. Worse than my pocket micro, probably just luck of the draw.
• Battery life is great, 4300mAh and mostly running lower end systems means it seems to last a lot longer than similarly sized devices.
• Works great as a PSP device, the left thumbstick isn't the most comfortable to use but neither was the stick on the PSP.
• Has a headphone jack and can serve as a solid DAP alternative with some cheap buds. Also runs android so all your typical streaming services should work and you can listen with the screen off.
• It's $85 + shipping for 4/64GB.

It's over a decade old but an amazing way to play through a fully translated Trading Card Game 2 that never made it out of Japan (or at least never got an English version). Link to the IPS mod files: HERE (you have to supply your own base ROM).

You might also be interested in TCG Generations, TCG Neo, and Kanto TCG if you're into exploring the Trading Card Game Romhacks.

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You might also be interested in HackDex: https://www.hackdex.app/

It's a growing collection of pokemon rom hacks where you upload your own base files and then you can download the latest rom hacks pre-patched.

Pictured: Ayaneo Pocket S Mini (nethersx2, GT3 A Spec) + Anbernic RG477M (retroarch/swanstation, GT2 A spec mod). Both have ayn thumbsticks, 477M has the etsy getbetterbuttons stacked triggers.

I do think the Nova is the one to get, on paper it looks amazing. But if for some reason you're not into the Nova, you want something metal, something smaller, don't f with oled? There are two options you can buy right now:

• Anbernic 477M - $249 (8/128GB). Has the godly 4.7" LTPS 4:3 screen that it shares with the Slide, 477V, 476h. I hope the OLED is good in the Nova because this screen is peak honestly. Nice dpad and face buttons, shoulder buttons are eh but can be improved if you want stacked bumpers instead. No analog triggers, fan can spool up running PS2/GC, and maybe not the most comfortable device being fairly heavy due to the metal shell.
• Ayaneo Pocket S Mini - $319 (8/128GB). If you can get past the steep asking price and the lower quality 4.2" LCD it shares with the Pocket Air Mini, it's a decent compact handheld. More powerful (theoretically) than the Nova, has my second favorite dpad of any device (RP6 is still #1), has analog triggers, and it looks nice in white. But it's the priciest option regardless of memory configuration, doesn't have a headphone jack, has a smaller than originally advertised battery (smallest of the bunch at 4700mAh), and the sticks jut out quite far for a portable device.

Other devices worth considering:

• 476h, that godly 4.7" LTPS screen, might struggle with full PS2/GC library.
• 477V, vertical but I actually like this more than the 477M.
• RP6, larger, 16:9, black bars for 4:3 but would make much better use out of that 8 Gen 2 level chip.
• RP Mini V1 or V2, if you can find a deal, still solid devices.
• Brick Pro U - 💀

Would I still take the Nova over any of these devices for 4:3 gaming? Probably. But options aren't a bad thing.

Heading into Boston for the day and packing a few random trinkets. Not enough to even fill a pouch but I'm backpacking it today just because two straps are more comfortable than one.

• XTEINK X4 - pocket sized e-reader that sticks to the back of any magsafe phone/case. A recent purchase to replace an old kindle oasis. Haven't packed the kindle in over a year but still use it regularly at home. This I can just toss into any pack/sling/pouch and it takes up no space.
• Ayaneo Pocket Micro Classic - Not quite game boy micro levels of compactness, overpriced for what it is, but I dig it as a solid GBA portable. 4x interger scaling for gba, and it has one of my favorite dpads out of any handheld I've used. But you can also just get a MagicX One35 for half the price with slightly worse dpad/buttons.
• Bose QC Ultra Earbuds (2nd gen) - Tuning is mediocre but the wireless convenience and decent ANC means I'm usually grabbing these for travel vs any wired sets I have. I like my music, and do value audio quality, but out and about, convenience is king.
• Ugreen Qi2 Power Bank - 10,000mAh so more than enough to keep everything i have charged through a day. Not the fastest wired charging but the wireless charging is pretty handy.

Just got this yesterday and I'm loving how compact it is. Coming from the original Kindle Oasis (my only e-reader I've owned), the decrease in screen size is noticeable but still very usable.

Running cpr-vCodex.

Well, there you go.

EDIT: Aaaand it's actually selling out.

EDIT 2: Sold out all 100 units apparently.

Pictured: Onexsugar Sugar 1 - Pokemon Luminescent Platinum (Eden) + Dualscreendex, Pokemon Prismatic Moon (Azahar), and Pokemon Volt White 2 Redux (MelonDS).

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Reasons why you shouldn't buy the Onexsugar Sugar 1:

• It's $699. That's twice as much as a Thor base, and even makes the Ayaneo Pocket DS seem like good value.
• There is a noticeable brightness difference between the top and bottom display, but it only has one brightness adjustment... And even more annoyingly, the bottom screen is brighter.
• The dpad situation sucks. The magnetic hat works but it squeaks in use (at least on mine) and without it, the buttons are too separated to be comfortable for dpad centric titles.
• The top screen is 18:9 (typical phone aspect ratio), so nothing other than android and probably some pc titles run on this without black bars. Watching youtube or movies on the top display? Black bars.
• The L2/R2 bumpers are terrible in the dual screen mode. No triggers here at all, and for some reason they designed the device so that the L2/R2 are easier to reach in the single screen mode vs what I assume most people would use this for. It's like you're giving the L2/R2 a reach around with your index finger every time you go to hit it.
• The software kinda sucks. You can't have separate wallpapers on the base aosp. Moving apps between the two displays is clunky. The default orientation for the top display (maybe both) is vertical, so in various apps, you're tilting your head sideways. No widevine support so limits what you can stream.
• The volume wheel sucks in the dual screen mode, it's very recessed and hard to turn.
• No headphone jack.

Reasons why you might still want it anyway:

• You're an idiot like me.
• Disregarding the longevity of the hinges, it folds and shit and thats cool.

Pictured: Ayaneo Pocket Vert + Fatfreq GMs.

Yes the face buttons are small, yes it's ayaneo, yes its somewhat expensive, yes its overpowered for my use case, yes I'd still rather have an Analogue Pocket as a DAP if it had an audio player, and no it still doesn't sound as good as my $20 dongle. Happy Monday!

Heading out on my buds boat this weekend for a boozy fishing trip and I'm not much of a fisherman 😅.

Bringing my 34XXSP along to kill some time (and hopefully not get sea sick), doing another run thru Pokemon Heart & Soul, lcd3x shader with mgba color correction turned on.

Pictured: Ayn Odin 3, Eden Emulator, Pokemon Mythics Arceus (vanilla+ mod for Pokemon LA).

Spent 170 ish nights in hotels last year for work and 2026 is proving to be another busy year of travel (mostly driving tho vs flying which is nice). I've mostly settled on a MBP and a handheld of choice when I'm on the road and these days it's been the Odin 3.

Small enough that it's not a pita to whip out on the middle seat of a plane, lightweight, and powerful enough for all my non PC emulation needs.

It's not perfect, the fan is annoyingly loud sometimes running switch emu. Stock ergonomics without the TPU grip are worse than the O2/O2P for my preferences but I pretty much always have the tpu grip attached along with a grip shield cover for easy transport (no case). And there have been a lot of issues with this OLED screen it seems. But as a whole package this is one for me.

PS1 era survival horror/JRPG with an ATB battle system? If that sounds like you, go play Parasite Eve.

And please, let it be GOTM at some point 🙏

Pictured: Anbernic RG477V, Parasite Eve running on Duckstation.

Pictured: Top - Anbernic 477V, Bottom - Ayn Odin 3, both running RetroHrai

RetroHrai Github: https://github.com/retrohrai/Releases

Visual Showcase from u/Saladov: https://www.reddit.com/r/EmulationOnAndroid/comments/1rdr5to/retrohrai_customization_showcase/

A couple of months ago I had asked folks what frontend/launchers they were using these days and a number of folks recommended trying RetroHrai! Got bored over a weekend and decided to give it a whirl.

Like folks had mentioned, it does feel a lot like Beacons in the way that it is just very fluid and quick to navigate to a game. The initial setup was fairly simple since I had ES-DE installed already and thankfully the scraped data can be linked/imported. It has all the typical scraping sources to chose from. ROM auto-detection follows the ES-DE folder structure for naming of platforms. And there is currently no built in Retro Achievements integration.

Overall usage is slick, there aren't any noticeable slowdowns/hiccups when navigating the UX unlike iiSU. It feels as snappy as Beacon, which in turn feels more snappy than Daijisho to me so this is high praise. I'm using the Grid Layout here for the different platforms purely for aesthetics, the default view is more akin to Beacons with the main view showing games within a platform, and the platforms separated by tabs that you navigate with the shoulder buttons.

The biggest draw point for me was the visual customization, using what u/Saladov showcased as a reference, I was able to very quickly setup a mishmashed visual style using gifs as both folder and launcher backgrounds. I don't think there are community themes (?) but it also seems easier here to make something that looks nice without too much effort (as long as you can source your own gifs/pics).

If you're weird like me and find joy in customizing what you have, give RetroHrai a go!

TLDR - Ergonomics are poor, $150-300usd more than XAX, but it has a much better, bigger LCD screen 🤷‍♂️

We've got some pretty amazing handhelds available to us in 2026 but the pricing just isn't there. When the Legion Go S Z1E costs over $1k and the Go 2 is more than the Apex/Win5 were initially selling for, you know things have gone to shit.

Enter the Claw A8. On paper it checks off a lot of desirable things, Z2E chipset, 80Wh battery, and the biggest draw for me, the 8" 1200p VRR IPS display. Current MSRP in the US is $1300, not great when you can still get the Xbox Ally X for $999. I got mine from B&H photo for $1150, still a lot of money but considerably less than the Lenovo options and competitive with other vendors like Onexplayer, Ayaneo, Aokzoe, etc.

The screen is my biggest draw point here, about as good as it gets for an IPS panel on a handheld currently. Same display as what's in the Legion Go S and 8Ai just based on specs. It's not as nice/contrasty/vibrant as the 8.8" oled in the Legion Go 2, but it also doesn't cost $2k+ right now, nor is it as bulky. That 1" difference and a change to 16:10 aspect ratio makes the display look considerably larger than the usual 16:9 7" displays on a lot of current and previous gen devices.

Build quality of the A8 is ok, I'm not the biggest fan of the angular design but the plastics feel fine, no creaks when gripping mine hard, and the surface finish of the case is matte and not too slippery to hold onto.

I do like how the thumbsticks, dpad, and face buttons are generally arranged. Having sticks at a diagonal to the dpad and buttons is always a big plus and MSI has done well here. Start/Select being above the other two back/home buttons on the front is an odd choice but you get used to it. The sticks actually have a nice knurled thumb cap so I don't immediately feel the need to add my own cover. Dpad feels ok here, basically the same as what you get on the Claw 8/7 but hopefully without the failure issues.

The triggers and grip in general are definitely not my thing. The triggers are very narrow/slim in shape, as are the hand grips despite also being a little chonky. MSI went for the pistol grip style design which should in theory be quite comfortable, but the angular shape means it digs into my hands when I hold onto it. I can't find a purchase on it without it feeling somewhat awkward (my hands are roughly 19x10cm). It's somehow the least comfortable feeling handheld to grip out of what I've owned. I wish MSI had just stuck with the 8Ai design or something with a bit more curve but I'm sure some folks out there prefer this style of grip.

Performance is what you'd expect Z2E with 24gb of ram, so Xbox Ally X levels of perf with a small penalty due to higher native res. The XAX's Auto SR has a lot of hype around it and potentially could see a big scaled performance uplift over the non-apu z2e competition but we'll have to wait and see how much of a difference it actually makes.