The Best Android Handheld! (AYN Odin 2 Review) 

Edit: I'm dumb, I've played through Persona 5 twice and still forgot the beginning has masked faces for story reasons. Persona 5 runs perfect, ignore my comment in the video. Also Genshin does run better than I had, apologies on that one. And apparently the washed out grey look is an Android bug, not Odin 2 related. It happens in dark mode, doesn't happen in light.

I'm considering getting an Odin 2 because it's a much lighter, ergonomic & power efficient. I have a SD, and the reality is that it's large, unwieldy & heavy. It's comfortable for a large device, but the overall weight induces quite a bit of wrist strain for longer sessions. This is something that a lot of people write off, "Why not just get a SD," -- it's one of the least portable handhelds.

I don't need this but if they ship out on time and people are happy, I plan to pick one up.

This is the first indiegogo campaign I've ever supported and I'm really excited! Wasn't sure initially but seeing them ship out reviews units this early made me very hopeful they'll meet their deadlines.

I never doubted the final product. Loki and Odin1 ended up being amazing, and now this is as well.

wow this is a really thorough, well made review!! thank you for this!

This is pretty much the exact handheld I've been waiting for!

Great review. Special thanks for showing 2 player on the big screen

I'm stoked i preordered the black base 🔥🔥🔥

Every other reviewer has been complaining about the LED brightness not being ajustable. Good find diving into the RGB settings! It would be great, if you could make a setup video like for the Anbernic RG405M.

Calm review 💯 had to preorder this, can't wait till December

I'm so exited to get this! I got the pro and they've just said they are shipping at the end of October instead of December

My Razer Edge is my current handheld emulator machine for gaming, but I always loved the idea of picking one of these devices from Ayn.

Finally! At first I wanted a rg405m, but this beats that.

I have a comment about the software issues. For the FPS counter, it doesn't display the accurate fps on the sidebar but the floating fps counter should be accurate but it needs about 1-3 seconds to start displaying the correct info(Just tap on the fps on the side bar and the floating icon will show up whenever the sidebar isn't extended). This behavior is consistent with the Odin 1 or at least the Odin lite. Dolphin focus issue is the same on my Odin Lite, I think the issue may be more on dolphin than the Odin.

Actually, the "Charging Seperation" mode is to be used if you want to charge the device so the battery can get some rest.

Let's go Joey! Fantastic review, and why do I want the Black model all of a sudden 😂❤ - Stubbs

Amazing review planing on pre-ordering one right now

Finally, this is the one!! Hopefully I get mine before the summer though 😂

Love you Joey, amazing video as always keep up the great work

I have an RG405M that I'm waiting for a second replacement side board for. I've loved it so far and I've been trying to test its limit with Gamecube games. With the issues I'm getting from the 405M it's really making me consider ordering an Odin 2...

Wow I just ordered mine to I could not help myself. I have the steam deck but this one looks amazing

Enjoy your turkey! Happy thanksgiving Joey!

Hopefully this will drive forward some better front ends for emulation

When showing loudness of fan etc, also use something familiar like a mouse click so we can adjust the volume on our end to hear how they loud they will actually be in real life.

I can't decide between the Loki or the Odin series. I'm kinda new to all this. I modded ny Vita which i love but I wanted something a bit larger so I can see. (I'm 53) reliving my childhood. I have the typical handhelds, Ds Lite, DSi, New 3dsxl, Modded PSP, Modded Vita, RG351p (I need to reflash the SD card), and My newly purchased rg35xx. I just learned how to cooy my SD card and I live it. But I want another device that not only does the retro but the Android stuff too. I looked at the Logitech G cloud but the price point is ridiculous. I feel like the Odin series has more to offer than an Anbernic or Powkiddy device. Im so confused!!! I just became a new subscriber to your channel and I really like your review style. Keep up the good work!👍

Thanks for Adding Chapters to long Videos, 🙏👍😎

Awesome video, were all the games in handheld mode ,(30fps ) or docked mode (60 fps cap)?

I've Been studying on which to get, this or the Steam Deck and I finally landed on this. Havent upgraded my gaming handheld since I bought my GPD Win 2 about 5 years ago. I Think this will be a fine upgrade :3

Just ordered that exact model. Thank you for a great review !!!

Is 8gb of ram good enough for PS-Vita Emulation? I might get the Base model because I'm not into Switch Games (or android)

I have the white one preordered, I can't wait to receive it! Nice to see you still have a very positive opinion about it, now just crossing my fingers that they will hit that December ship date!

😅i was just wondering, do you think we will be able to run nswitch on here soon with low dips?

Good video :-) What happens if Yuzu runs out of RAM? Does it just crash? Or error gracefully? Also confused as to why you'd do 4k on a 1080p screen. I'm going to have to brush up on my original screen sizes for each console to work out what the multipliers are.

According to AYN, they'll ship the odin2 at the end of October! That's great news!

I love your video style. Very matter-of-fact and utilitarian. Thanks for this.

The question is if totk will run better on this than on a switch once software is optimized. Is the core better than the switch and if yes by how much

If it shipped from Europe I would boy one, but 330€ + extra 21% + other fees is just too much, all that just because it's shipped to Spain from outside of Europe.

will you do an update video to these games you played? I've heard Yuzu had some updates since the Odin came out

So is there any reason at all to get 16gb one? Is there a use case for it?

Thank you for your great Review, but i need something to clarify about VRAM 4G Swap, it is safe to turn on? Because i saw a video on youtube about ram swap and in the video said it will shorten the life span your device. Is it true? And if i get the pro model, do i need to turn on ram swap like the base model of ayn odin 2? I need an explanation about this so i can decide which model should i get. Thank you.

Any tips on transferring games save slates from Odin 1 to Odin 2?

One more question. Do it come fully loaded like rg353v? Or do you need to load your own roms?

Great Review. Congratulation.

Not sure if missed it, but any reason why vulkan was not used for PS2? And was dolphin on opengl or vulkan? Kind of funny the high performance did nothing for intensive systems, maybe a software bug like the Pocket Air 's?

Im gonna wait til this one has been out for about 6 months and all the tweaks have been added/fixed and also to make sure that everyone is still happy with it. I never buy these on launch. I let everyone beta test it for me for at least 6 months then swoop in and try to find a deal 😁

I thought this was an excellent review. While your review broadly hit many of the same notes as other reviews I've seen; you brought up some things I don't recall seeing or hearing about elsewhere. The rumble issue being a big one. Another being the Navigation Bar bug. I'm kind of surprised they included software nav buttons in the first place considering this device has hardware Android Home and Back nav buttons below the D-Pad and Right Stick. They should've mapped the Overview/Recent Apps screen to a long press of the Back button and been done with it, IMO. As a temporary fix; do they still work if Gesture Nav is used? All in all; I still very much want to buy an Odin 2. I'm very impressed with the sheer value this offers and I prefer Android OS devices. I also like how modular the internals are; so, depending on parts availability, I can service or replace things that die from old age or accidental abuse. However; because of your review I'm going to hold off a bit to see if there's any more quality control (QC) issues with these. Maybe you got the one bad apple? And; honestly, I could totally live without rumble if that ends up being the only issue with these. Then again; maybe skimping on QC is how they can offer such crazy specs for such a competitive price? $300 is kind of a lot of money to me, right now. I can afford to spend it on something I'll get a lot of use out of it; but, I can't exactly afford to throw $300 away on a mistake. And a mistake it'll be if your rumble issues are the tip of the QC iceberg. You've got me just a wee bit spooked. Thank you. No one else mentioned any downsides at all and I was all gung-ho to buy one; but, this review has put a bit of sense back into my head. For me, it's probably worth missing out on early bird pricing to gain peace of mind that I'm buying something that'll last.

Thanks for covering Rogue Galaxy and Steambot Chronicles 😊

No issues using compressed images such as chd, cso, rvz? I don't expect any issues but would like to know your experience.

Great review. Thanks.

Can you play with it while it is being charged.

I’m checking this out and thinking about getting the pro version for I play mostly sega Dreamcast and Nintendo DS and 3ds and psp and vita games.

Do you think that as the Switch Android emulator matures, that the Odin 2 it will be able to run BOTW and TOTK at 1080p 60?

Will the base model run these games?

Yuzu now has native execution so the switch code can run natively on the processor. In a way it's not even emulation anymore. That should greatly help the performance of things like tears of the Kingdom, especially if you let the shaders load in for a little bit

Over time will it run those Zelda games perfectly or is the Snapdragon 8 Gen2 just not enough to handle it?

Which version did you test please? (Base, Pro, or Max?) Thanks!

Ive got both an oled switch and the OG Odin.. would it be worth it to buy this?

Thanks Joey! I really appreciate you taking the time to talk about the pros and current cons, which mostly seem like software-fixable things. My bet is that the software is the primary reason for December release -- seems like hardware and packaging are pretty much finalized.

What kind of Phone are you using to film videos with?

Awesome video ✌🏻😁

Only just ever heard of these handhelds, might be a stupid question here im asking, but all these games you playing, do they come pre loaded to the console?

Been holding off handhelds, but ayn made me buy one 😂

This is amazing! Eventually we're able to run PS2 game perfectly (almost).

Makes me mad to see some lazy ass reviewers like ETA Prime throws the same 5 games on every devices, called it a day and gets more views. Here's some Genshin Impact, COD Mobile, Minecraft, God of War, God of War 2, Auto Modellista.

crazy how good the android yuzu emulator is already considering the same games still struggle on high end PC rigs...

Great review. Just a heads up for people trying to emulate Persona 5 Royal (cause it’s one of my all time favorites), I think Persona 5 didnt have rendering issues on the character sprites. The first part of the game puts a shadow on the faces of characters to build suspense for their introduction. Even on the PS5 theyre censored

Great video!!

Looks amazing, is there any reason why are you upscaling games to 4K on a 1080p disply?

I dont know if it exists, but it would be cool if this had a way to be able to use the handheld screen as touchscreen for NDS and 3DS lower screen while being hooked to a TV showing the upper screen.

Amazing video Joey! Answered pretty much all my questions and even provided RAM amounts (and advised on the gain changes for the fan haha). Seems like Switch will be usable on the light weight stuff on the Odin2 Base, similar to the RP3+ performance. And I cant quite put my finger on it but... I've got this overwhelming urge to play Persona 4... I wonder why...

My son just dropped and broke my tablet, and your video just dropped..perfect timing😅

@joestretrohandhelds is it possible to use wired usb controllers with the synctech dock you use?

Thank you for this video I can't afford to buy this now so I went ahead and purchased the RP3+ hopefully they make a Odin 2 lite in the future

can the base model not handle switch?

can you enable rumble feedback via bluetooth controller setup?

So the only game that uses more than 8gb of ram is totk which doesn't even run that well? So would I be okay just getting the 8gb?

Switch EMU is not great only until ARM version of emu matures. It is more than powerful enough to do max fps. This is equivalent to a higher end mobile phone processor so everything gaming wise also applies to this.

First of all, thank you so much for testing Driver Parallel Lines. It's a niche game, but I loved it growing up. I am curios, with the resolution of the display only being up to 1920*1080, is there a reason or benefit to pushing PS2 beyond 3x? Is there any real performance difference since you aren't being shown that additional resolution?

This is bought. I don't mind performance of its Switch emulation as I do have a Nintendo Switch. Besides, I doubt if I can use Pokémon Home on this device (ie deposit from emulated games to Pokémon Home). But for everything else, this is perfect for me.

Are there any other handhelds out there that do PS2 without a lot of tweaking settings?

How is this going to compare to the Lenovo Legion Go?

Nice video. What was the old King?

Can you put Parsec or Moonlight on there?

i liked my original odin pro but man the power limitation with ps2 and GC games shows. its hard to shell another 350+ for odin 2 pro,

What’s the latest generation PlayStation can we expect to play on the Odin 2?

Yeah this thing looks pretty sweet.. I'll probably wait for next year's inevitable sale - but this FINALLY looks like _the_ portable emu-device I've been waiting for.. ticks practically every box I've held fire on buying one of these things for years because they haven't had all the features I want in any one device - don't really have a reason NOT to buy one of these, long term

Do you feel that the 8gb ram model will be able to handle ps2 emulation easily?

Looks cool. That's still android. Is there sim card slot to use as a phone? >< that would be funny. You said you got steamdeck. That runs ether steme os or windows. Different platform. Probably more powerful. I just use a gaming phone for now. runs dolphin. I don't think that good thou. Got a link of version of dolphin your using?

So the base model is enough if I don't emulate the Switch? 😅

EPIC!!!Although my only fear is that the device was running many a time above 70 degrees Celsius. That's not good for electronics, so not sure how long it will last but definitely picking one up. I just bought thr rg405v and very happy with that but i think this thing will be with me even on my death bed.

Can it Run super Mario Odyssey or luigis mansion 2 or 3?

I really love this device, I just wish the screen was ~7", as I just feel 6 is too small

So I don’t know anything about emulators. What exactly is this handheld? And what console games can it play? I want something where I can play my old school games. Games like Simpson hit and run, (ps3) all of Breath of fire games (gba,ps1),Matrix path of neo (ps2), Ultimate Spider-Man (ps2), Can this handheld do that?

i just wish it can play some older pc games as well with out using winlator

Hello friends ! I saw in your video F-Zero GX running at resolution X6, it's crazy... Is it more powerful than the Steam Deck ? As home Gamecube doesn't go so smooth at this setting, it's incredible !

You already know that switch is gonna run great when yuzu gets better. The switch multi-core efficiently is less than the single core efficiently of the snapdragon 8 gen 2.

is it possible to hide the small white bar on the right side?

Is there any way to access one's steam library on this?

Do this has Bluetooth for headphones?