Not Bad for $40! (PowKiddy X39 Review) 

Hi everyone, I've seen a few comments and questions about custom firmware for this device. Unfortunately I don't think it's very likely for two reasons. First, the firmware resides on the internal storage (including the unoptimized emulator cores), and PowKiddy is not apt to share their source code with community developers. So at best we could maybe see some user interface improvements, but the rest would require some serious reverse engineering. And secondly, I am not sure there is enough community developer interest to put in that amount of effort (I'm secretly hoping that by making this video, someone will become more interested!). I think this chip might be sufficient for improved SNES gameplay if properly optimized, but I wouldn't recommend buying this device specifically with the hope that we'll see custom firmware on it.

I feel like they teased their high end X28 and then went radio silent. Powkiddy and Anbernic are gonna have to decide if they want to compete with AYN and Aya Neo.

Just ordered the Miyoo Mini and there's no chance I'll ever buy this, butttt here I am because I adore your channel. Cheers

I bought one last week and I’ve been playing it a lot. I really like the look of it. I used two different nintendo switch usb controllers and both worked.

This device seems great. Perfect for someone that wants to get into retro gaming but not wanting to have to set anything up and wants to stay well below the $100 starting point of the the Retriod pocket 2+ or RK3326 systems. Thinking about getting one for my niece (12 years old) that always plays with my Retroid 2+.

I got one, not a bad handheld! I especially love the build quality, it has some weight doesn't feel cheap. I also like the fact that it has a 4 inch display, a little larger than that standard size of 3.5 inches. The interface looks almost identical to that of the Powkiddy A20. Adding roms is super easy.

the morbius joke got a good laugh out of me, thank you for that

I like the shell. Not expecting great performance for $40

Twin sticks, stacked shoulders, smaller bezels, dual speakers that aren't covered by hands, and most importantly, a board that has reasonable power that can be developed for. Love the slab shape, it can fit larger batteries.

Thanks for the new review Russ! I agree with you, I'd rather spend an extra $20 or so to get better functionality. But they did a good job with the physical aesthetic on this nevertheless (agree the UI is dated though lol)

Personally I think if I was going to buy someone a gift regardless if they knew much about emulation Id probably get them something that I would use myself and spend the 10 minutes to show them...getting someone a gift and explaining all of its downfalls are mainly because its cheap isn't a hallmark of a great gift.

The X39 truly does have that PlayGo / PocketGo 2 vibe! Build quality is top notch. I wouldn't call it the next step up because it has poor SNES emulation while the PocketGo 2 has much better SNES emulation. Also, you can swap out the battery in the PocketGo 2, you can't with the X39. I know what to expect from this X39 so I have mine for up to GENESIS emulation and playing video files. I like mine for what it can do.

For $35 Dollars to be able to play Sega Genesis is pretty good! Thanks for the video Russ!

Even tho i have no intention or interest in buying something like this your videos alone are enough to keep me watching till the end...#entertaining

The USB ports read data. I've used it to transfer roms to device without ejecting msd card. That said, it needs some CFW and some emulator ports esp for SNES. As is, it's a decent Sega 8-bit/16-bit and GameBoy (all eras) machine, with caveats on anything else. Which is fine by me but also kind of a tease when Powkiddy has the excellent V90 and Q90 out there for similar pricing...

wow that powkiddy is pretty good thanks for the review Russ 😊

REALLY surprised with the amount of IO on this little thing! Most handhelds don't bother with USB-A, as C ports can be used for peripherals and such, tho perhaps this is more user-friendly in general.. I've been looking to find an emulation device for under half of what I got my rg351m for, was thinking about miyoo mini or the Q something or other by powkiddy. Cool vid tho, keep it up!

Aspect ratio is always kind of funny. Coming from a PAL territory, nothing looks precisely right to me at 4:3. PAL CRTs had 576 lines, to NTSC's 480, so our screens were a little taller. Our screen aspect ratio was closer to 5:4, and things made for PAL first often had closer to square pixels. NTSC screens had much more rectangular pixels. Usually this meant that NTSC games and TV shows were letterboxed for us. Sometimes they were stretched vertically to use those lines, and then TVs could do weird things to the geometry on their own. The 50Hz signal and lower framerate we suffered was rough, sure, but the display aspect ratio and pixel aspect ratio mishmash we got was pretty rough, too. All this said, the 8:7 rendering doesn't look awful to me. A little skinny, but not as skinny to my PAL eyes as to your NTSC eyes. Even the stretched look on this handheld isn't terrible. The screen definitely isn't 16:9, so it's not stretched that much. I guess, in the end, the venerable V90 still rules this price point. It's a shame, because the X39 seems like such a well put together device, by comparison. It's not premium, but the build quality looks good. The V90 gets solidly trounced in performance by things like the Miyoo Mini, but if you want a cheap handheld to shut the kids up, and you can get it at a good price (I caught my V90 on sale on AliExpress for $29), it's still the best budget option. I wouldn't even be mad if PowKiddy would just put the V90's internals into a non-folding horizontal or vertical bar. I realise the Q90 exists, but nobody seems to be talking about that one these days, despite it being identical in specs. Was there some serious qualitiy issue with it not shared by the V90 or something?

I'm really surprised you didn't mention the PowKiddy V90 during this review considering they're at the same price point!

Taking inflation into account these things are going for the price of those cheap tiger electronic toys went for in the 1980s and 1990s. I would have lost my mind if I got this handheld as a kid.

Great review! God bless you and yours. Praying for you.

I have the updated X45 and it's improved in some ways but not much. Great for GBA. Completed Minish Cap on it and I have to say for $45 I'm happy with it.

I brought this on Ali express for my disabled brother but only just found out there is the x70 which is a 7 inch version of the x39 haha I wish I had looked about a bit more as he would definitely be better with a 7 inch screen But presently he has a genesis handheld which only has a 2.5 inch screen on so a 4.3 inch screen will be so much better regardless Thanks again for the video Russ

For a newbie this is more than enough

Thank you Russ great review I think this will be great for my disabled brother who loves genesis mainly Hoping I can add game art to titles as he cannot read so goes off of visual aids Thank you again love this channel

Usually the X range devices are not great, but this device is not so bad considering the price. Yeah great value. Thanks for a great share as always👍🏾

oh man that looks nice for pow kiddy

If the position of the analog stick and d-pad were swapped, and the resolution and aspect ratios were better for the games, I'd pick this up without hesitation.

That's crazy for $40!

It sort of reminds me of an unoptimized Q90. And the the Q90 has become one of my favorite devices to carry around with me if I want something to diddle with while I'm waiting somewhere. This is a pass for me, but I can see the appeal, or it could be good one for kids that requires no set up.

Is there a different OS or whatever we could use in it? Get some better performance?

I got the same fuzzy screen for HDMI output. I solved it by connecting it before turning on device. Works like a charm. SNES works fine on mine. My only criticism is the incorrect naming of the games. Just load your own collection to sort that issue.

Anyone know what the most powerful fanless (no cooling fan) retro handheld is at the moment? Thanks.

To think that this thing has exactly the same screen size and exactly the same resolution as PSP...makes me wonder when we will get a PSP-sized device capable of actual PSP emulation?

A powkiddy V90 comparison would be a cool video.

That UI makes me very happy for some reason and I don't even know why

Might be okay as a beginner’s emulation device, especially for kids. I might end up getting one for my nephew.

Was thinking about getting this but wanted to know if those shoulder buttons work for other systems like GBA?

Thank you Russ. Great review. Excellent entry level device. I was able to add games easy. Great value for money and helped me wait till i was ready to get a decent device RGB Max 2 from pooooowkiddy!! That is next level digitation..

Dig the intro music. Strange Things vibe.

The standard Super Nintendo or Sega Genisis usb 3.0 controller worked on the x51

I like the look of it.

This looks very much like the PocketGo V2 externally, are the shells the same size, or completely unrelated? They obviously can't be the same, since the D-pad and analog stick were the other way around in the PocketGo... EDIT: 4:19 nevermind...

To be honest the weird screen resolution and mono sound are a bit offputting for me and all those software and configuration problems are the nail in the coffin for me. For that price I'd stick with the V90.

Pretty sure that's a psp screen, which was great in 2005. It does use same size and resolution. So, V90 still rules the cheap and cheerful segment

IF the screen wasn't so small and low res this looks like it would be amazing for what it offers.

Great video, I liked it so much that I actually bought the console! I have a question though about adding games that I was hoping you could help me with. I have tried adding games but they don't even show up on the list. I have put the zipped games in a folder, just as they are on the card that came with the console, but as I said before, they don't even show up on the list when I turn the console on. Do you have any idea why the games I add don't even show up?? Thanks again for the video!

There are way too many compromises at this lower budget. I'd take a Miyoo Mini over this for sure.

Is this better or worse than the q90? Think they cost around the same?

Powkiddy talks about 4:3 aspect ratios, "Genesis does what Nintendon't!"

Gonna come back to this with custom firmware? Usually a better experience than just out of the box.

Have you ever looked into some of the older open source handhelds like the gp2x wiz, caanoo, openpandora or dragonbox pyra

I saw that an X39 Pro is releasing, are you doing a review of that soon? I'm looking for a cheaper gem, and hope that the "pro" is a bit of an update.

When it comes to cheap emulators to give as gifts, which is the better choice: this or thier clamshell V-90? (Or is it Q-90? I forget the name)

I got the same exact one and I like it alot and it has alot of games on it and the only thing I don't like about is that it's heavy and I could only play for twenty minutes and my wrists started to getting tired! I was fantastic to play Castlevania sympathy of the night and Power Rangers on the Playstation one emulator and if you change the sound to mono it sounds perfectly fine.

I have found that with SD cards you need to reformat them when adding new files and folders. I couldn't tell you why, I've just always had to.

Do they ever test these systems out before shipping? They really aren't trying, even for a cheap device. Like don't include features that don't work. My GP2X from 2006 plays SNES flawlessly lol. Another great video, still happy with my Odin!

This actually looks good for powkitty....but they just keep pushing stuff with the same chips out. Maybe drop it down to one or two devices a year. They have this pattern of pushing stuff out before everyone else to have a powerful hand held but everything else suffers....then the fix it later

Is anyone having trouble with the saving? Some of the save states here won't well, save, and even using the in-game save system doesn't work for some games, but the saves are saved in the folder as stated in the video. I like it, but if this issue persists, it might collect dust.

Looks like a decent piece of hardware for the price if someone with the know-how was able to come up with some custom firmware, and assuming that the SNES emulation problems are a software issue that could be fixed. Don't know much about the power of that processor, no idea how realistic that is. As it is, though, hard to imagine it being a good pick even as a gift when for $20 more you can get someone a Miyoo Mini which, warts and all, has some of the most dummy proof custom firmware around and the horsepower to play SNES and PS1 at a "just works" level.

i think pixel distortion give it an authentic feel of what a retro screen would look like lol

Dude! That morbius hit!🤣

HDMI worked great for me as well. but controllers still dont work

yes this handheld was a disappointment but at $40 i didnt expect much..i'd like to hear your thoughts on the gamemax A380..maybe someday😎👍

So when did we start using 2007 for a long time ago? 😩 It seems like yesterday.

Looks pretty good, but the lack of a right analog stick is a big no for me.

I really wanted to love the playgo. It was small but felt great in the hand but the build quality was lacking. Analogue stick constantly moved the cursor on its own, which I had to disable physically. Then the battery died and would not charge. So I ordered a new battery and same thing happened. Oh well

Cheers Russ, flawed but I do really like the look of the thing. Shame about the firmware situation, I'd get one to give away as a present and enjoy 'setting it up' for a month or two if its potential could be released,, someone would think I'd spent proper money on them. :) As is it's a tougher sell. Nearly Powkiddy, nearly.

i've just bought one of these and i'm impressed. Does anyone know which mame romset it uses to work in CPS? I've tried Mame4all (037b5) romset but it doesn't work

Just looking for a GBA with a bigger screen for my old eyes. This looks to fit the bill.

Thanks for the review! Too bad the hdmi out and external controller didn't work.

Could you not add a version retroarch to an SD card and run alternative emulators?

Hi I want a emulation station no screen needed, arkade are at the top of the list late80.and up. Anyboby?

Did you try connecting the power cable for the controllers?

I like mine, but I think I like my PlayGo better. Not bad for $40 though.

I've been wondering, what is the best way to tell if a screen is OCA laminated just by looking at it? I don't think I'm familiar enough to make that distinction.

Permisi kak mau tanya apakah powkiddy x39 pro lancar main bloody Roar 2 game PS 1 ?

Hey anyone know what file type the ps1 titles are at all Just wanted to know so I can get a few ready for when mine arrives for my brother Thanks all

I'm a little fed up with these handhelds being released with features that don't even work. Not very impressive. Pay 10 bux more n find a Miyoo mini 🤔😉Great review!🙂 No SNES here people!

For 40 dollars, one could certainly do worse, but it's a shame a lot of the features do not seem to work or work well.

Good product from X series But I want to ask how to fix a broken screen for the X39 Pro And where can I get it? Thank you for your reviews

can it use wireless controllers if you insert a USB wireless adapter?

Looking on the bang-for-your-bucks-factor, is there any reason to choose this one over the 'golden classic' budget king PowKiddy V90 ? 🤔

Which consoles support? Psx nes?

Great review as always. Charge you half of the price of a decent product, then give you a "similiar" product that is 50% completed, typical chinese stuffs.... whether it is for you really comes down to you are those willing to compromise with flawed product to save money, and whether those "unfinished" sections affect what you are going to do with the device, personally (for a poor guy like myself) I would rather to save up for a more polished product like Miyoo Mini or RG351P than buying unfinished devices over and over again (if you are rich and just want to collect everything that is "fun" my opinion is irrelevant to you tho).

Before I even watch this, I gotta say - 'not bad for $40' is the most 'damn by faint praise' thing I've ever seen for one of these devices. Guess we'll see how damned it is.

There's a lot of knowledgeable people here, so it might be the best place to ask! I'm looking to gift my mother with the easiest to use handheld emulator possible specifically for just NES, SNES, and GameBoy. All I want is for her to be able to play the Mario Lands with a backlit screen and a decent battery. Any recommendations?

I'm not sure adding HDMI and two USB ports to something like this adds value. Powkiddy really needs to do something with the software. Also, it is strange that they picked a 16:9 ratio screen for a device that can barely run SNES. It might have been a better choice for them to subtract the extra ports, throw in a 4:3 ratio screen and add 128MB of ram for 256MB total.

Hmm 🤔 40 bucks that’s not bad. I don’t have a need for this but it could be a good device for those times you’re at the station or the store. I been bringing the Miyoo Mini around lately for the trips on the metro and while waiting for my food to be cooked for lunch and stuff and that’s been delightful but the ergonomics are rough for me this is better. I’m only playing gameboy advance games for the most part anyway

its like an anbernic device had a baby with a psp

The buttons i think can be used for the miyoo mini black transparent version. Heheh just saying

Searched a bit and stated that it has a quad core chipset, but can't even emulate SNES properly? Hmm...

While the device by itself seems okay-ish, I think there are just too many better options in at least a similar price range now, that have already gotten the 3rd party firmware treatment. I wouldn't want to gift this with its out of the box experience, to anyone, really. For friends and family: I don't want them to hate me. For enemies: I don't spend that much money on them. ;) Also: Even if this _gets_ better software at some point, the screen's still not a good resolution for the games it could run. 40$ -> Powkiddy V90 is a better option. And for about 60$, there's the grandiose Miyoo mini. And one step above that, you get the RG351P, which kinda still is unbeaten for GBA for me with its screen that's just perfect for it and has perfect 3rd party software with AmberELEC.

What happens when you turn on the machine without sd card ?.

Do you think an average 5 year old would be able to play this if i did all the setup, and narrowed the ROM list down to a few dozen appropriate games? Seems like an amazing trial to see if your kid would destroy a switch or not

Any idea how to make the R2 and L2 buttons of the powkiddy v90 usable ?

Hi Russ, I got this device just recently, and I’ve ran into issues when it comes to save states. Some of the games I have on here would not even save, whether it be in-game or save state. A deal breaker, if you ask me.

I've heard this has trouble with Pokemon in-game saves and has trouble with in-game events

By the looks of it the PS5000 is a much better value buy. Games run better, I'd like to put better firmware on it but there are no English tutorials. Ps1 runs well on it but I'm sure it could be slightly improved with better firmware.

Without custom firmware this thing is really gonna be less then ideal... I'm sure they could get most of the PS1 games to run on them and even some N64 games, but alas until their is custom firmware, I don't think it's worth it.