BittBoy Handheld
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Yeah I picked up one. Kind of regret it the screen is really to small to play seriously. It may look Gameboy size but its scaled down. Also no SD card although from the case looks like a slot for it but I opened it up and sadly no....
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@hurricanefan it comes with 300 games. No way to upgrade. Most of them are terrible nes hacks.
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@edmaul69 Weird they don't advertise that fact on their site. Thanks for the heads up.
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If anyone has one that they don't want, let me know. Seriously. I'd like to pick one up to potentially mod, but I don't want to pay $40.
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@hurricanefan i saw an article on it yesterday. I would only pay $40 for it just for something to put a pi in. But i would rather make a gameboy zero and i have some of the parts already.
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@edmaul69 I'm hoping some land on eBay for cheap after people are unhappy with the game selection.
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I want to put a pie zero in a mini arcade machine. The ones that are pretty loaded with games.
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The new Bittboy was released sometime at the beginning of December 2018 and was a huge improvement over the last. While generally favorable, the reviews online have all been pretty light on details. A friend gave me one for Christmas and I wanted to see how well it can stand up to everyday use, rather than just a quick look, so I've run through nearly a hundred games here and there over the past two weeks. Below are a list of pros and cons I've found.
Pros:
$40 price point
Original Game Boy design and color scheme
Feels very well made
Beautiful IPS screen displays games well
Video out, albeit composite from headphone jack
Turbo B&A buttons
Includes no ROMs
Standard Micro SD slot
Supports unaltered Famicom, NES, GB and GBC ROMs
ROMs are installed at root level of card with no special folder hierarchy
Three save state slots for every game
Original and 4x3 aspect ratios
User-serviceable battery (same as GBA SP)
Most games work well (Including complex titles like 'Mr. Gimmick' and 'Summer Carnival '92: Recca')Cons:
Short battery life (between 2-3 hours)
Menu sorted by 'date added', leading to non alphabetic list
Games are scaled to nearest neighbor, causing shimmer in GB & GBC
Original battery saves don't persist between sessions
When loaded, NES save states can corrupt graphics until screen redraws
Low refresh rate causes fullscreen flashing effects to render strangely
rare graphical issues from emulation on some games (Only in 'Rad Racer' so far)
rare game slowdown in some games (Only in 'Castlevania III' so far)
Speech synth is almost unintelligible (worse than original)
Button combos for volume and brightness interfere with the rare game that uses those combos
Some games don't work well (Mostly Hacks, but also the rare licensed title as well)I've seen quite a few of these Chinese retro consoles over the years and while not perfect by any means, the new Bittboy is easily the best I've personally experienced. The bar is of course pretty low, but the biggest step taken here, in my opinion, is the decision not to include any ROMs. The 300/600/800/XXX-in-one NOC devices that have come before have traditionally always been loaded with garbage that's not only illegal, but mostly illogical. Between repeats and unwanted hacks, they're never worth the asking price, however low it may be. While this won't be replacing my GPD or my Raspberry Pi, it's really nice to see these products evolving out of the primordial muck they've been swimming in for so many years.
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@mediamogul Thank you for the detailed review. Do you know how the Bittboy compares to the Odroid Go?
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The biggest thing that differentiates the two are the two product classes. The Odroid Go is obviously an open source hobbyist platform like the Raspberry Pi, whereas the new Bittboy is a closed, single purpose device. Both classes have their merits, as the Odroid emulates more systems and can be upgraded, but requires a certain amount of work to do so, whereas the new Bittboy only supports four systems and cannot currently be upgraded, but can be fully operational in five minutes out of the box. I generally prefer open freedom and extra options myself, despite the additional work that goes along with it. However, with this, I got to see how the other half lives and I have to say that with all my devices that require different amounts of attention, it's kinda nice to have one that requires none, despite its shortcomings.
One other difference to note between the two is aesthetics. The Odroid Go looks great with its clear case, displaying the board nicely, whereas the new Bittboy decided to ditch the multicolored shells from the previous model and settle on a color scheme that matches the Original Game Boy exactly. I must say, that decision really pays off, as the overall look and feel is very close to what you would expect from an official Nintendo Game Boy Mini release.
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@mediamogul What about the RS-97? I like the system and afaik the same developer is working on a BittBoy-mod. So chances are good for SNES/Genesis/GBA/PSX and PORTS and likely more ;)
From RS-97 handheld system I really miss nothing!
The price for all 3 systems is compareable ;) -
From what little I know about it, the RS-97 is sort of the middle ground between the other two. It's not an open platform, but does have custom firmware being actively worked on. In my opinion, the ergonomics of a landscape-oriented device are always better than portrait, but superficially, I've really come to like the the look and feel of the original Game Boy. I do hope they release custom firmware for the new Bittboy, as I would love to play me some Sega Master System on the go.
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