I couldn't disagree more. You owe us all an apology for this video. Aladdin for Game Gear IS a funny game, and I will fight anyone who claims otherwise.
Was into emulation decades ago, around the time when MAME first came out, and now I have picked up 2 of these devices after watching reviews. All I can say is oh my God, the progress of the emulation scene is outstanding, dedicated OS's, dedicated hardware. This device is excellent for its price. I have one setup as a home console and my kids will be shown the history of computer games starting from the Atari VCS 2600.
Hehe yes people who know the history appreciate these devices a bit more. I’m on a journey to discover as many of the original hardware devices I can get my hands on, but I think we are nearly at a point where these emulators are better.
Great video, I really enjoyed it. My RGB30 is actually out for delivery right now, I can't wait to get it in my hands. I bought it with GB/GBC and even GBA in mind, and of course Pico-8! Can't wait to see how awesome those systems look on it.
Who the hell wants to play retro games on a stupid phone? i mean come on man. these consoles are designed from the ground up to be gaming devices, phones suck
If powkiddy releases true successor to v90, with better chip , buttons and hardware shutdown - this would be a hit imo. Not gonna outsell miyoo mini or anything, but still it would sell very well. I'd buy two of these
Perhaps the best reason to buy this system is if you always wanted to try Neo Geo pocket. Because those systems in working condition are stupid expensive. And require backlight and IPS mods to be realistically enjoyably useable. All in one of those systems is going to cost you over 300 dollars. This will play those games flawlessly on a 100% aspect ratio accurate screen. Will cost you less than half and will play a bunch of other stuff too.
screen is very good in fact id say its hard to go back to wide screen handhelds after using this as it plays retro games in their native format. but the downside is the d-pad is cheap and the overall shape of the device is bulky and uncomfortable to hold and awkward to use the shoulder buttons at that thickness the shoulder buttons could of been placed normally the perfect handheld would be one of these screens with a more streamline shell with grooves and a proper d pad like playstation and switch has. thats the handheld im waiting for
I totally agree with you on this. There is a lot I love about the RGB30, especially the screen. However I have issues with Powkiddy's quality control in general and I feel that the RGB30 is one of their best, but still some way off.
Hey man, ya it’s a tough one as a reviewer but Powkiddy have really done well this year, but I am always reluctant to recommend their devices to friends and family.
I put both of these devices on my Christmas list because I couldn’t make up my mind. Love the idea of pico 8, and I would enjoy fussing around with Linux. But the quality of the rp 2s is so tempting. Plus having access to the google play store seems great. 😵💫
@@adinwalls currently I am using a sn30 pro and your Retro Arc iOS guide with an iPhone 13 mini. Could you imagine If apple allowed easier access to apps outside their store? Looking forward to getting a dedicated device in the not so distant future.
Great review Adin !! I've owned a RG35XX since January and love it. Three things that disappoint me about the device: 1) not quite enough power for some early 90's arcade games such as many of the "super scaler" games (Galaxy Force 2, Rad Mobile, Final Lap series etc.) 2) being a 640x480 screen, vertical orientation arcade games naturally are unplayable 3) dpad heavy games such as any sports titles are painful to play due to the small size/grip Hence these three faults of the RG35XX are why the RGB30 will be my next handheld. And saying "Powkiddy RGB30" out loud just sounds so right !
I look at this as one of the best sub $100 devices... for those that don't need a dumbed down experience. For one of my kids, a miyoo mini plus was the one to buy and just hand over on his birthday. Even before garlic/onion OS, it was very accessible. For me, I love to mod/tinker. Specs are important to me. And I have big hands. So I am looking to pick up a green one (new colors just released on their official store). I think this will be popular enough that we'll see metal shells and other mods within the next few months. And hopefully this keeps up the trend of oddball aspect ratio models from Pow and other brands.
It's really funny like at first I didn't have any interest on this device. I thought I wouldn't need to have a device specifically for Pico-8 and GB. But then everyone started to talk about how good it is, and then I decided to give it a try. Turns out it's one of the best also for NES and SNES with their 8:7 aspect ratio. It's also a perfect 3x integer scale for GBA. The screen is really my favorite thing about this, not because it's square, but because of the color reproduction. It's beautiful to look at!
@@cosmojg yes, you are correct. Idk what I've been thinking at the time. Anyway viewing area for 4:3 content is still about 3.5" in size, and with some shaders the image looks very good
I've kinda wanted one of these just for gameboy, GBC, and pico 8. But I started playing pico 8 on my 35xx and 405m and realized that the pico 8 is really just not what I'd hoped it would be. The game size restrictions just mean that games aren't really complete. Everything feels like a tech demo, and there are so few "finished" experiences. I hope the Pico team comes out with either a further 16 bit Pico16 or just seriously expands the file size of the pico8 .png to like 3-5 megabytes at a minimum. It'd be so cool to see what people make with just a bit more room to breathe, and a dedicated pico 8/16 machine would be a true console worth dedicating to.
There's some fun stuff, but I 100% agree with you, the library isn't good enough to justify buying a device like this IMO. Just something like a Miyoo Mini or any other 4:3 screen is "good enough" for PICO-8. I'm thinking to sell my Miyoo Mini and could probably enjoy pico-8 just fine on my Vita.
You are aware of people programming their larger Pico8 games to use multi cart, where the game boots from the cart, but with Wifi it can stream the necessary data to expand the game size. Of course not a perfect solution as it requires you to be connected to Wifi, but it's a thing.
i don't know why all are saying that this screen is perfect for snes and similoar. with integer scaling, a snes on a 4'' 1:1 is smaller then on a 4'' 4:3 like the rg40xx . an rg40xx is able to fill the 4'' with almost non noticeable stretching. 8:7 on a 4:3 is almost perfect with a very thin horizontal bands. on a 1:1 you have a massive horizontal banding or a hughe Stretch
New subscriber here: Excellent video and review! Thank you. I've had mine for a month, and I'm super happy with the RGB30. GB, GBC, and GBA with shaders look fantastic. Pico-8, vertical form factor, vertical arcade games... The high-resolution screen is great for CRT shaders (which don't look okay on 480p screens). The only negative is the sleep function on JELOS (it seems to work on ArkOS, but I haven't tested it yet).
Can I offer some constructive criticism? I can see that you're trying for a higher quality presentation, with your cinematography and editing, switching between two cameras, etc. Your studio could really use some sound dampening to help with the echo.
Hey man I do have a challenge with this. While I’m lucky to have a large room at my disposal, dampening it properly is a costly endeavour. On the other hand there was a glitch on my video export that disabled the voice isolation feature that usually hides this quite well.
it is the best for GB, GBC, and maybe nes and arcade vertical gaming.... there is no perfect handheld for all emulation, if people think that they will always be disappointed. For me the RGB30 fills a void, the others are so very similar with nothing that really separating them.
For 200 bucks I would still recommend the Retroid Pocket 3+ (shipping included) but I haven’t tested the Odin but it’s probably the best device for 200 right now excl shipping.
The Retroid Pocket 2s is fantastic, especially if you'd rather spend 5 hours setting up your device and searching for bios and roms instead of playing games.
Like I always say, the setup isn't that bad if you work one emulator at a time. Sometimes just a basic NES standalone emulator on your home screen is all you need to start.
I gotta say. I think this is a great writeup of what makes the RGB30 so special and why it bothers me to see so many people tout the RP2S as the "superior" device but they're also not "wrong," they're just saying it in the wrong spaces AKA handheld subreddits and discord servers. They both don't really compare when you think about their use cases. I think your one and done device will easily be the one that properly handles more systems. The RGB30 is becoming the handheld of the year for many within this niche hobby because to many who are already in this hobby, the RP2S is largely redundant. It offers nothing new to the table for those who already have plenty of other systems. Whereas the RGB30 really brought something with that 4 inch 1:1 display. I already have a Retroid Pocket 3+ that plays Gamecube better than the 2S and in widescreen for many many titles. I have my RG35XX which is my favorite pocketable handheld with a 4:3 display that plays all those older systems great. I have zero need for the 2S. But the RGB30 actually convinced me to purchase a new handheld as having a large 4 inch display for vertical shmups, GB, GBC, NGP, NGPC and a dedicated PICO8 machine running actual PICO8 and not through emulation, was such a value buy at under $80 bucks. (I bought mine through gogamegeek with a coupon code that knocked it down to $76 shipped.) Which as you mentioned in your video, is nowhere near the price that you would be able to find the RP2S for. I legitimately think more reviewers in this space need to make the distinction of who and what the device is best for. And what you touched on in the beginning and end of the review is a welcome discussion that more should be having. Well done.
Thanks for watching the whole vid (you clearly did!) and yes I try to look at it from all angles. Obviously no reviewer is perfect but I hope I covered all the bases here.
JelOS is terrible. I wasted a day trying to get it configured the way I like, only to find out it's really buggy and not all the settings work. I installed ArkOS and it is way better. First step of buying a Powkiddy RGB30 is getting rid of JelOS. Sleep mode works in ArkOS, I can have it in sleep mode for around 2 days. It's about the same as my 3DS. The only thing I've found that doesn't work great in ArkOS is the HDMI output. I don't know if it's any better with JelOS, but it's not a feature I need or even want. I turned down the screen brightness so it's not too bright at night and it's way easier on the battery. edit - I just checked my Powkiddy RGB30, because I've had it on for almost 24 hours, mostly sleeping. I played a little FF7 before bed and again on break at work. Probably around 30 minutes or so all together. It's at 80%.
I've had this device for about 2 weeks and it has given me nothing but problems since about day 2. Cleary 'Powkiddy' and 'Quality Hardware' should not be used in the same sentence. I've had terrible battery/hardware issues and have been going around in circles with their support for about 10 days now. Have requested to return it and get a replacement but they seem very reluctant to do that despite providing them with videos showing how the device cannot seem to stay on for more than about a minute without rebooting or often just not wanting to start at all even though the battery is fully charged. They have had me open up the device and disconnect and reconnect the battery, checking all connections, etc etc.... feel like I have done a lot more than a consumer should be asked to do to try and fix their clearly faulty hardware and yet still they continue to send me around in circles. I have numerous retro handhelds but this was the first time I have purchased a Powkiddy one.... will most likely be the last too. A pity because I do like what this handheld is trying to do.... just hoping Anbernic or another supplier with a better record for quality do something similar.
Hey there, yes as I said I do have concerns with Powkiddy and I am sorry you’ve had a bad experience. Have you tried doing a fresh installation of Jelos?
@@adinwalls lol, you sound a little bit like Powkiddy support.... I have been going around in a constant circle with them. This is how it as felt like.... POWKIDDY: 'update Jelos/firmware' ME: done, POWKIDDY: 'ok open it up check battery connections', ME: done, but unit still has problems, POWKIDDY: 'ok update firmware', ME: already done that and told you it didn't do anything, POWKIDDY: 'ok open up and check battery connections', (repeat routine several times) ME: This is unacceptable, can you just let me return this and get a replacement? Clearly there is some sort of hardware/quality issue here.... POWKIDDY: Can you please update the firmware ME: Arrrrrrgggggggghhhhhh make it stop POWKIDDY : Our plan is working, they are weakening and will go away soon!
@@wuggleworld what you described was basically my experience with rk2023. if i ever buy another powkiddy device it will be through amazon to get around all the unnecessary returns/refunds hoops
You say that jelos is a great operating system because it is updated regularly, but recently it is no longer supported and replaced by rocknix. What is your opinion on that?
Hi Adin, thanks so much for taking the time to make such an in-depth review of the RGB30. I'm considering getting this device, but my experience with JelOS on anbernic rg353p was not so great due to the fact that the battery drained so quickly in sleep mode. Is there this similar problem here for JelOS on RGB30?
This is a weird one. The first thing I did with mine right after unboxing it is to replace the SD-cards with faster ones running the latest version of JELOS. Then I slapped ROMs on my own much-faster 256GB micro-SD card. So far so good. It plays up to PS1 pretty well and the only thing I play PSP are RPGs and so far it's been playing those just fine. The weird part is that this is the first of these Chinese handhelds I've owned that came with a built-in 802.11ac wifi chipset that actually works well. It connects right up to my 5Ghz WLAN just fine and is pretty speedy with JELOS. Every other handheld like this with "built-in WIFI!" always had the cheaper, slower 2.4Ghz 802.11bgn chipsets forcing me to connect a USB LAN adapter to them for those firmwares that do over-the-air OS updates.
Rgb30 right out the box cant find any mario games. Also battery drains rapidly not sure why. Put battery savers on. Drained in 2 hrs hardly playing just lookin thru menu and stuff. Any ideas?
Generally speaking li-ion batteries have to be fully charged and drained several times in order for the cell to reach maximum capacity… So as you use it the first few times, you should see that two hours creep up a bit… How much is hard to say because these batteries are not always top-of-the-line so you can get a great one or you can get a really poor one… Either way cycle a few times to figure it out.
@@adinwalls Strange. I’m used to having + before - . The way it’s on my phone, iPad, CD player, Walkman… haven’t seen it with a - first on anything before.
My friend offer me to sell his RP2+. Is it worthed or I should just buy RGB30? They're at the same price point ($90). RP2S is not an option. It cost $50 more.
@@adinwalls it turned out great. You have become one of my most trusted sources on this stuff. When I refer friends to videos on a device I refer them to your videos if you have one!
Holding this device feels horrible and the buttons are so bad and hard to press . It was my favorite screen device if they shaped the sides to hold a little better and made better buttons . Everything else is solid
Well you can’t win everyone. Honestly most people really like the controls. I know Retro Game Corp spoke about how the controls are weirdly positioned by I really enjoyed it.
It’s nice when they’re still young honest RU-vidrs telling us their honest opinion. Young, cuz when they get big they get bought a lot. $$$$ So let’s enjoy you while it last :(
Btw. Your production quality is amazing, the studio camera equipment that you’re running is top notch. I can see you’ve done your beefy investment and I respect that so much for a passioned RU-vid like yourself. Either both ways, I hope you’re a billionaire behind the cam telling us your true honest opinion about these devices but in the other side if that’s not the case, we are here to support you as much as we can in order to maintain that honestly away from the big sharks and hopefully you don’t get bought like the rest of them. We‘ll do our part and support your channel as much as we can. We understand your time and those devices have financial inputs from your end, hope the rest of your followers do understand it as well.
Second day of owning the RGB30 with barely any use as that first day was alll setup and the select button stopped registering inputs. You are 200% correct as I’m brand new to this hobby. The build quality even before the select failure, really through me off. But the button failure It was really deflating as i already invested a significant amount of time into setting up OS, learning retroach etc.
@@adinwalls yes, I have already scheduled a refund. So it’s not that bad. But it’s just not the experience you want to have with your first device especially when you’re super excited about getting back into retro games and you’ve already spent so much time during setup and now just want to jump in and play games. I still have my SD card that I can swap into another unit if I decide to purchase this thing again but I am concerned that something else will go wrong so I’m considering getting something with better QC.
Once/if the more premium manufacturers do a similar screen this one will be quickly forgotten. Do you know if it's powerful enough to play wave race 64 smoothly?
True. I don’t know about that game but the RK3566 chipset is pretty solid for N64. Maybe just do a search for that game and the RK3566 processor. There are a few devices with it.
You should maybe comment on the poor quality of the SD cards sent with these devices. You're better getting tiny best set go and sticking the Roms from it onto a good quality SD card.
I noticed the Powkiddy uses the same joysticks as the Nintendo Switch- meaning drift will be an inevitable problem for these devices. I'll have to wait until they use better components. Thanks for the honest review.
Watched this after you mentioned the RGB30 to me. Probably not the one for me overall but - like so many of these devices, it does tick some boxes. Finding the device that ticks the most boxes is where I'm at. Think I'm getting closer. Keep the knife btw - if it scares viewers, so much the better, haha!
Lol okay I have been unsure about it :-) I'm more sold on the RGB30 now than when I made this vid. But if you want a larger screen, check out Powkiddy's new RGB10 Max 3 - it is looking good
Id be so much more excited about this product with a touch screen. Square ratio for retro gaming and ds with touch. Its such a strange thing i dont see people mention.
Where can I get the theme you’re using on the RGB30? There aren’t many out there but no one seems to have this one you have. Nice vid I’ll be looking at you’re newer content soon.
@@adinwalls thanks for the reply. All other reviews have the one theme that comes with JelOS none have looked like this they’re all set as the strip menu. Unless this is ArkOS? Could you put up the theme or send it over to me? Thanks
@adinwalls it was between that the rgb30, 353v, and rg arcD... and even the 3 plus. 10 max3 was there till you mentioned some real issues. The rgb30 was my other serious choice. The screen looks so good in every review.
@@adinwalls it's very likely, I'm afraid. But at least some units don't have it at all, at least mine doesn't (it's the black model, if it makes any difference).
Thank you for this video. I was baffled by the absolute whoring that reviewers have been doing for this console. I'm old enough to remember begging for a Gameboy Pocket and Game Gear, so I remember what those consoles looked and felt like...not great. Prior to jumping on the Chinese handheld train, I held onto dear life to my Gameboy Advance SP and slew of Everdrives. Once you go widescreen, you don't go back. To me, if makes sense to crop a 3:2 or 4:3 screen to play 1:1. Or stretch 1:1 to fit. Not the other way around. You make smaller bigger. Not bigger smaller. Which is what you'd have to do with anything beyond Gameboy games on this device.
