Miyoo Mini + and Analogue Pocket My Thoughts a Year In
by Pixel Pusher
Summer before last I really jumped into the deep end of retro handheld gaming. I had pre ordered an Analogue Pocket and while waiting picked up a Miyoo Mini Plus. If you want to know which to me is better? Well will save you the read it is the Miyoo Mini plus. Well if you want to know more about my take and time with them please keep reading.
This all got put into motion when a few years ago my Gamecube started to have trouble reading discs. So for me this was bad news. I also use my Gamecube to play all my GameBoy games form OG to Advance on the TV. I even picked up a Gamecube to SNES controller adaptor. I have a memory card reader SD adaptor. I use it to load teh Game Boy Interface for near perfect gameboy playback. It is great. However like I said trouble reading discs. So I wanted a replacement to playing my off GameBoy games on TV.
In 2021 Enter what to me seems like a perfect replacement the Analogue Pocket with Dock. This is an FPGA device. So the result is very accurate gameplay. It emulates systems at a hardware level. They are called Cores. The Analogue Pocket itself is great with the dock it is more like a switch type device. It plays GameBoy, GameBoy Color and GameBoy Advance games from the cartridge port. There are cartridge adaptors now finally out. They are for the Game Gear, Atari Lynx, Turbo Grafx 16, PC Engine and Neo Geo Pocket. It took years for the Analogue Pocket to get most of the adaptors. My first handheld is an Atari Lynx I was so looking forward to play on this and the TV. So the Analogue Pocket is great if you have a big cartridge collection. I really enjoy playing Lynx Surfing on the big screen.
Besides playing cartridges the screen is the biggest feature of the Analogue pocket. They really did something unique and smart when it came to the screen. So many retro handhelds and screen replacements are often like 480 or older lower native resolution. Instead this is way higher resolution. Whit the resolution being so much higher than the native game resolution for these old handheld devices it replicates the sub pixel layout to give an authentic look. It really is stunning. Now if you don’t like one look many have choices. This cool display feature recently was added to Open FPGA cores.
After the Analogue Pocket came out it later added Open FPGA cores. This was a huge improvement. Now you can play games off the SD card. On top of that console games and arcade games. There are a great amount out now and more being developed. Even with a big of a cartridge collection I have I prefer to play off SD card. Having all the games on the device and not having to make more room in you bag for games is great. There have been some nice additions feature and cores made available since I got it last summer. It is nice but I still want Ms. Pac-Man and no idea if that will ever happen.
The Analogue Pocket is nice but is bulky and big. It is not like in the name pocketable. While it mimics the SNES controller scheme it is a design love letter to the GameBoy Pocket. While that was small in the 90s it is huge today. This is fun to play but I just don’t play it for the longest stretches. I find I play it at home and on long trips. I enjoy playing the arcade games on the TV with my Arcade sticks. It is a great alternative than getting an arcade board and a supergun and arcade controllers but the closest thing.
There is one thing that the Analogue Pocket can do that so far the Miyoo Mini Plus can’t do. That is sub folders. It is mostly my issue in setting these two devices up with game. So while work arounds exist it is an ill elegant solution. SD cards are cheap and most of these old games are tiny. So no issue if a game is duplicated not and issue. I have folders of games by name by genre by year by developer. Also folder with sites top lists. Folders for fan translations hacks and others.
Analogue has still promises left to keep like the DAC Digital to Analog Converter. Also the ability to customize the button layout for players 2-4. As Cool as Street Fighter 2 on an arcade perfect core. Without a correctly configured player 2 it makes it hard to play. These days their site is removing references to the DAC and controller customizations is fine as long as they need to be the same as controller 1.
So you made it this far and I haven’t said much about the Miyoo Mini Plus. This thing is great. It is a Linux based software emulation handheld. No cartridges. This also has a great screen not as high resolution though. Also there are some consoles the Miyoo Mini Plus is capable of. Notably PlayStation and Sega CD games and some others. You wouldn’t think PlayStation would be so great on this but it really is a joy. The Miyoo Mini Plus has Wifi. This is great because once you have it setup you can update it over wifi in the future. so nice. This has had some updates since I got it. So nice that it is so easily updatable. This can also play now DS games.
So if you like me and Love Castlevania Symphony of the Night then you’ll love this device. I even got a rom hack that have it fill the tiny screen. I wouldn’t use that hack on a TV but on this it is great. Hell you can even put movies on it. I have watch shows on it. I even spent some time making a custom boot screen and I’m looking at making a custom UI. Playing Sega CD games on this is also great.
The Miyoo Mini Plus is so pocketable. I love taking this out with me. Goes in the pocket with my phone. I wish it had Bluetooth. Since this is software emulation save state is there for everything. Makes it easy to pop in and out of games. I find myself wanting to constantly tinker and add games. The Miyoo Mini is a tinkering device. I have learned a little about Retro Arch. The Miyoo Mini Plus is great hardware but you have to do two simple things. You buy a known SD card and install Onion OS. The install is so easy you copy the SD card contents and the Onion file. Boot it up and it installs. Once you get it setup little need to tinker.
Both Devices have USB C and for some that is and should be a given. It is too bad it is pretty much just charging via USB. The Miyoo Mini since software emulation is not always perfect. However software emulation has come a long way. The buttons are slightly too close for me but I am a gamer and I adjust. The D-Pad is solid on the Miyoo Mini Plus. That was one of its strongest attributes. I found out early that if the controls are bad you will not spend much time playing. The battery life on these seem good. I haven’t felt like I had a problem. I keep going back and forth to each. I just use each for their strengths and there is a lot of overlap.
I’m glad I have both and I really love the Miyoo Mini Plus. Thank you for reading this stream of thoughts.
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