Current best handheld for retro gaming

eggy81

As per title I’m looking to get myself a handheld console for emulation and retro gaming ideally up as far as ps2/ game cube era. There seems to be a few on the market every week these days and hard to know what is good quality product and what is Chinese tat that will end up in the bin.

One that springs up in google searches near the top of lists is the Ayn Odin pro. Can anyone who has a device like this or some good knowledge recommend something based on quality but also value. Don’t want to spend 300 quid if there’s a device doing the same thing for 150. Also not the steam deck. Looking for more of a built in system where I don’t have to jump through lots of hoops to get stuff going on it.

Tia

McFly85

You’ll be doing very well to get a PS2 capable machine for less than €300. I have a Retroid Pocket 2+ that I got for €100 that handles up to Dreamcast games nicely but really struggles with anything above that, so the Odin Pro is probably your best bet(although I’ve never used one).

Its worth noting that due to legal reasons there’s always some hoops to jump through getting emulators set up on these things(you’ll have to source roms and bios files yourself) but it’s not too bad.

I know you said not the Steam Deck but it would be my choice! €120 more than the Odin is pricey but you’ll get a seriously beefier and more versatile device, and honestly it’s not much more work to get everything setup than it is on an Android device.

Mr.Saturn

Just to the echo the above, you're not going to get anything to run Gen 6 stuff in the sub-200 quid range quite yet. The Retroid Pocket 3 has some Gen 6 compatibility, but it's a very small selection of titles and nothing at full speed save the very odd exception.

I'm still happy here with my Anbernic RG351MP cause it runs everthing up-to-PS1 grand and it's also a solid lump of metal and that's always going to be fantastic.

Retr0gamer

Considering PS2 is still pretty poorly emulated on pc I doubt a handheld will do it well. GameCube is quite resource intensive but is a lot better emulated so you might get a handheld to run that.