r/sidephone

My Sidephone has arrived - absolutely buzzing! 964/1000

A question for people though - I bought 2x screen protectors and have managed to ruin both of them - I genuinely couldn’t get them on properly without a bunch of bubbles being on the inside, and couldn’t squeeze them out. Anyone got any ideas?

Also - what are your tips for what I should do to make using the device as good as possible? I’ve read other Reddit posts but just interested in what people suggest 🙂

Hi everyone,

When u/chrisristovski, u/sebastiansnell and the Sidephone team sent me the Mini Controller Keytile, the obvious first question was: can I play Game Boy on this?

That experiment turned into SideRetro: an emulator designed specifically around the Sidephone's tiny screen and physical keys.

It supports:

• Game Boy and Game Boy Color
• Game Boy Advance
• NES
• Mega Drive / Genesis

The Mini Controller is the best way to play, and the interface is designed around it first. But limiting the app to one tile felt wrong, so SideRetro also maps controls onto Compact QWERTY, T9, Classic Keypad and Sundial.

An on-screen legend shows what each physical key does in the current game. SideRetro passively figures out which tile you're using from your keypresses, so there's no controller setup screen or profile to select. You can hide the legend once you know the controls.

There are deliberately no touch controls during play. The SP-01's screen is already tiny, and every Sidephone has physical keys directly underneath it. Long-pressing the screen opens the menu for save states, display settings and the rest.

🌅 Making the whole screen part of the game

A lot of old consoles don't naturally fit a tall portrait display. Rather than leaving the unused space feeling accidental, SideRetro can make it part of the presentation.

My favourite is Lit mode. It samples the game while you play and makes the rest of the screen glow like an old CRT, with the dominant colors of the game. The SideRetro logo and Keytile legend inherit the brightest version of the sampled colour, so the entire phone changes with the scene.

There's also a console-inspired frame, an optional CRT filter, stretched fullscreen and landscape mode (if you're willing to accept the ergonomics of holding a Sidephone sideways – I am not, lol).

📦 Adding games

SideRetro has its own library. Download or transfer a compatible ROM (with LocalSend for example), choose Add games, and SideRetro imports it into the app. Regular ROM files and ZIP archives are supported.

SideRetro does not include games or links to ROM sources. You'll need to provide games you have the right to use.

It's also completely offline:

• No permissions
• No internet access
• No accounts
• No analytics
• No ads

🔗 Install it through the Sidephone Library

SideRetro is part of the SideSuite App Pack, so you can install it directly through the SP-01's built-in App Library and receive updates automatically.

Scan the QR code on sidesuite.app in the App Library. SideRetro will then appear in the Library alongside SideHome, SideType and SideCall.

If you're reading this on the SP-01 and can't scan your own screen, enter this address manually:

https://fdroid.sidesuite.app/fdroid/repo

GitHub Releases and Obtainium remain available if you prefer installing APKs yourself.

💛 Thanks for all the support so far!

I'm so grateful for all the support from the community for my projects. SideRetro exists because the Sidephone team supplied the Keytiles I needed to build and test it and because you guys keep staying excited about these projects. So thank you! ❤️

SideSuite itself is independent and not affiliated with the Sidephone team. All of its apps remain free and open-source.

I've also opened GitHub Sponsors. Sponsorship is completely optional, nothing is locked behind it, and the apps will stay free. But if SideSuite makes your Sidephone experience more enjoyable, supporting the project genuinely helps me spend more time building and maintaining it.

SideRetro is a v1.0, so there will inevitably be odd ROMs and control combinations I haven't encountered. If something breaks, reply here or open a GitHub issue with the game system, which Keytile was used, what happened and (if possible) a screenshot.

Get it: https://sidesuite.app

Happy gaming! 🕹️

- Oliver

PS. Tell me what games you're going to play.
PSS. I'm leaving for a 5 day hike in the Finnish Lapland on wednesday. Should be beautiful. Will take photos. Will try not to play too much Pokemon in the tent.

As it says in the title. I've installed MicroG through F-Droid, and have otherwise followed the instructions in this post to try to prepare everything for Beeper to work.

I thought the least-insecure way to get Beeper itself installed would be the Aurora store. Downloaded that through F-Droid, too, and looked for Beeper. It downloads, but I then get a very basic error message saying the app is "incompatible."

Has anyone encountered this? Could this be the result of a recent Beeper update breaking compatibility with Android 12?

If anyone who currently has a working instance of Beeper installed share their app's version number, that'd be much appreciated. Maybe I can try downloading an earlier version through Aurora.

Grateful for any help anyone is able to provide.

Hello,

Hope you’re doing well.

I’m noticing these purple/magenta vertical lines on my screen specifically when I use the camera app (see photo, was scanning a QR code when it showed up). It’s not a crack — I’ve checked and there’s no physical damage to the glass. The lines seem to only show up during camera use.

Has anyone run into this before? Trying to figure out if this is a camera sensor issue, a display issue, or something else entirely. Any ideas what could cause this?

Thanks in advance for any insight!

Hi,

Unfortunately the screen protector that was factory-applied to my Sidephone scratched (I think it's made of plastic, so it's on the softer side and it scratches more easily than a glass one).

I wanted to purchase a new screen protector, but I noticed that it disappeared from the store. Is it due to delays in the manufacturing/shipment? I don't mind too much waiting for it, as long as it will be available at some point.

Also, will there be any difference between the pre-applied plastic screen protector and the one that will be available in the future? In the picture here I noticed that it says "glass" on the side of the package, so I guess that it will be actually different and more scratch resistant, but it's just my speculation at this point.

Thank you and keep up with the great work you're doing with Sidephone! I've been using it for about a month as my main device and I love it, especially after the last software update!

Hello, as we can see on the screenshot, my side phone is blocked like this since 10 minutes, would anyone know how to solve this ?

Add that glow in the dark sticker from yesterday or some other lighting solution and it'd be literally perfect.

Hi, I didn't expect such interest for this but if yall interested I have questions.

1. Do you want stickers to be like mine (image 1) of like official Sidephone concept (image 2)?

The difference is esthetic and functional (larger surface will absorb more light, glow longer and will be more visible)

2. Are you interested in added letters to numeric keypad (image 3)?

Cheers to the wonderful & growing Sidephone Community-

Happy to report all orders of the BCS cases including those from today have shipped effective today. Thank you for bearing with us as we fine tune the new sku’s.

Today we made the blue magnetic ring and ‘Beautiful Blue Circle Back’ cases available !

Excited to gain your feedback here :).