The new KING of budget handhelds! (M17 Review) 

dude, I can't get enough of the visual aesthetic of your videos, your lighting is so bloody perfect in very video. So many channels overlook this aspect or go way overboard with overly chaotic and vibrant colors, you do it just right, awesome awesome work.

If actual psp performance is bad, the least you could do is put a question mark instead of an exclamation mark in the thumbnail.

I got this for my stepson for Christmas, he loved it.

Another banger! Taki really is great! ^_^ I appreciate your style more and more the more I watch.

I HATE when clicky bumpers wake up my wife’s boyfriend and I have to sleep on the futon after

Not a bad device actually. I got my daughter one for Christmas, and she loves it.

great video TD might grab this one

I've been following you since the early days when you had around 3 or 4k subscribers. I just wanted to let you know how much I love your content. I don't have the money to buy the products you review, but it's enjoyable to watch and appreciate your content, I genuinely enjoy watching your videos. Thank you for creating such great content, and please keep making videos. Your dedication is truly inspiring. Much love to you, and never quit-you're doing an amazing job. love you bro

The subtle, in-stride jokes are frigging gold, TD! I think I choked on Oreos like 3 times because I didn't see them coming haha... Great video as always! I've had my eye on this for gifts, and knowing there is a good, third revision probably tips the scales for me. Thanks TD!

People are also working on other firmware for the M17. Batocera and SpectralElec.

I am loving your content man and really well put together vids

Video is on point as always 👌

Idk why but I keep coming back to this video. I love the background music, it’s like hypnotic or something. And Thanks to you I setup my m17 as a dedicated GBA machine and I love it! I slapped on Corak’s custom MinUI with the pixel art theme and it’s a pretty special experience, ngl! Cheers TD!

AMAZING! All hail indeed!

Tbh, with the TrimUI Smart Pro dropping in price on various sites, that might be a better option than the M17. It handles PS1 games perfectly, Dreamcast emulation is solid, PSP performance is solid, and the arcade emulation, especially CPS1-3, is near-perfect.

Naw. YOURE the king of budget handhelds

It's getting CFW lately like an Alpha build of Batocera that greatly improves gameplay. If you put a screen protector from a PSP on it it fits (mainly because it's a PSP 1000 screen they're using in this device)

Thank you for your video, m17 is definitely intetesting device, but it needs tinkering with settings and cfw! 😊

These are $37 on Ali Express right now which makes it even more of a deal. Got one just for GBA since my R36S suits my PS1 and below needs for now.

You make me laugh ! you are full of knowledge also ! fantastic !

Great review! I hope you make a review of the upcoming Gameforce Ace, that one looks a real RP4 competitor (same price range and similar specs)

Can you please make a comparison of this and the ambernic rg35xx h? Thanks

My favorite handhelds are the super cheap sleepers. Always loved my Family Pocket FC3000 and recently my RG blah blah H is what im playing more then anything. What i like the most about this is ive never heard of it. God bless Taki, I still really like Emulec for my Anbernic devices.

How would you compare it to RGB30? I'm looking to buy my first handheld ever (my first console ever, too) and I'm unsure of what to get.

Hi! Thanks for this - great video - super useful. I have a question - did you try any game that requires the use of the shoulder buttons? For example - Street Fighter 2 for SNES. I got mine yesterday and L1 does the same as R1, while L2 and R2 do nothing...? Thanks!

MinUI got an update and now officially supports the 3rd revision!

Ooh, I love me some BCAKLIGHT settings on my handhelds.

hey, I followed the firmware guide and everything seems to load fine but my controls dont respond while playing any games, however it works during the emulator menu's and setting menus just not during any games would you happen to know what I can do to fix this?

When I saw that a new T.Dweeb video had dropped, I stopped listening to my Quirks and Quarks podcast and immediately spooled up that orange and black Dweebie goodness. Conclusion? T.Dweeb > Canadian Broadcast Corporation.

How do I get the games to play? They open but are only demos or something. I have the sd card in my computer and am curious do I have to open each zip file per game to be able to get the games to work?

"Next to your sleeping wife..and her boyfriend." 😂😂 Another excellent review, Dweeb! Also: I love how you point out at 5:30 that the default front end is janky and then right at 5:39 it shows "backlight" misspelled as "bcaklight"

Another budget handheld review I see 👀

Speaker mod would be good. Do you think it would be difficult?

10:50 I literally just had this same problem on my PC I haven't used it in ages and it just showed up like this. Assuming you can get into the Retroarch settings, you can navigate to Settings > On-Screen Display > On-Screen Overlay

I really appreciate your review style, info, and humorous editing. The effort you put into this video. But I’m “meh” on the latest M17. Multiple revisions means it’s easy enough to get an old one by mistake, not to mention the custom firmware headaches (which you mentioned). But even with the ability to adjust Retroarch settings, it just seems like an underpowered device, even for $55. Wasn’t the RG35XX more powerful for around the same price? I got a Powkiddy RK2023 (would be neat to see an RK2024), which normally sells for $10 more and I realize sometimes that’s lunch money that some people cannot spare (I skipped the same price difference for the WiFi edition, which I wish I had instead), but I got the RK2023 (non-Wi-Fi, like this M17) for just $58 brand new. It’s a trade off of a more square 4:3 aspect screen (like… all the home consoles from the 90’s and 80’s) and in-line shoulders, but gained is full SNES and PS1 performance, some N64, Dreamcast, PSP, and even Saturn games, a better D-pad with priority placement (which… most 90’s games either relied on or had D-Pad option). I watched your Powkiddy RK2023 video before I bought it… that’s how I discovered your channel (might have been your first video I saw)! So it’s hard to get excited about a less powerful device that’s so close to the same price a year later. Maybe the M17 is better if you prioritize Gameboy Advanced emulation, which you pointed out is a highlight. More GBA Gems, please!

Still hoping for an review of the actual PSP. It's still better than many of those cheap retro handhelds.

I wanted to ask what's a good all-around emulation handheld console is for majority of games?

I believe the earlier iterations weirdly didn't L3 and R3. Is that something they changed? Also, the price is nearing Miyoo mini plus and RG35XX (not plus) pricing. Granted, it's a different form factor, but those are some pretty good options to be competing with.

I installed the taki firmware and the quick menu is still the locked down one. What am I missing?

When I get mine I think I’m going to experiment with painting the shell. Which color should I do?

Between my Vita and Steam Deck I cant justify ANOTHER at to play PSP… but this is super cool and I love the videos Dweeb

Hi buddy. just looking at the screen on the handheld i have ordered. the screen looks bigger on the ordered one than the one you are showing??? any help appreciated, cheers mart

Great for kids out of the box since they cant mess up anything.

Damn it TB, I think I need one of these just to have a horizontal setup... to the bath bombs!!!

was going to say better get the Trimui Smart Pro but found out that one costs 70 euro.

I dont know if I should get this, the trimui smart pro or de rg35xxh, any recomendation?

Hail to the King baby!? Missed oppertunity to show some Duke3D content!

TechDweeb sounds a little sleepy but it's still a well made and informative video.

How does it compare to similarly priced R36s? They should be similarly priced.

I heard the X and Y buttons are reversed. Is that fixed now?

No bad for the price inded. I removes the front screen lens , so much clearer now.

😂😂😂 this was funny brother

Finger pointing was a nice touch

For those newbie like me, the original files needs to be in the 'minigui' folder. Not outside of the files hierarchy..

Big sale on this right now on Ali. Got one for $34 shipped.

Mine came today and has no sound! The headphones don’t work either. Any ideas?

How does this compare to the ANBERNIC RG35XX H? Curious which one you prefer and why?

Emulation is the way to go.

Hey TechDweeb! I recently bought two of those for 28 euro each. I Installed custom firmware You recommend, but the controls are mapped all wrong. For example on PSP joystic is dublling the dpad and GameBoy is not mapped at all. I can access RetroArch on GameBoy, but I can't map any buttons. On PSP I can only access save/load/quit menu.

Even “Backlight” is misspelled in the menu 😂 5:38 That’s some jank

Nice, I could do without the battery charging capabilities. Rather have a Y adapter for HDMI and outlet power. 😊👊

Quickly becoming my favourite channel. Sorry Russ 😢

Wny do these low powered devices have 16:9 screens and dual sticks??? Powkiddy RGB30 got the screen right at least.

I need those four files does anyone know how to get them if I don’t have the original firmware?

I seen the E6 out there

tried taki udons custom firmware but it just gets stuck in a boot loop. i have the newer version without the m17 branding. tried several sd cards. formatted to exFAT everytime. extracted files. replaced those 4 files. yet everytime boot loop. the furthest i got was first copying the original sd card to a new sd before pasting takis files but in that instance it just did a boot loop with the emuelec logo being visible. not sure what im doing wrong or if my m17 is a weird revision that doesnt work with a simple drag and drop! anybody have any tips? in the meantime i guess ill try spectralelec 3.0

I've been looking at this model and the trimui smart pro. Looking at specs I think the trimui probably gives better performance but the actual controller buttons look nicer on this one.

I feel like I'd be more drawn to this if it was 3:2 or 4:3. The systems it does well aren't optimal with 16:9. I guess that 16:9 screen was what kept the price down.

Sorry i have to disagree budget king is still RG36s. Just got another one for $36 shipped. Mario 64 port by itself is worth the $36. Sure PSP isnt perfect but it runs alot better than on this device.

HEADPHONE HOLE AND AN AHH-hole!??! DAMN IM IN!! Excellent review and for those that care I have been overwhelmed by the surprisingly professional and great customer service over at LITNXT in 2023.

Why can't I use my controls ingame ? They work on the menu but not ingame

hey i want to know does m17 have a god of war chain of olympus

I ordered one, Its coming tomorrow. I expect it to run PS1 quite nicely, will it?

R36S is still better. Performance seems similar, but the aspect ratio on the R36S is better for most of the games the system can actually play and the default OS isn't so locked down. Even with the vanilla included SD card it's easy to add or modify game libraries, too. Best of all, Aliexpress has it for $35 shipped right now, so just over half the price of this. It's unreal what a good deal the R36S is.

That’s a great budget handheld. I need to pull out my old game boy color with the worm light + Pokemon blue (yellow is too easy in my opinion). By the way, you can still catch mew without any cheat codes on Pokemon blue.

R36S is better value for me, it's $38 on aliexpress at the moment. I like that it's offline too and has 2 SD card slots for OS and games library.

MinUI OS and its a PlayStation pocket handheld for me. Heck it has the look and colors of a PlayStation almost so... Figure it works. GBA as a bonus!

Anyone knows where can i get the v3 4 original files? im dumb and didn't make a backup ):

How do you know if your m17 is a rev 3?

Which handheld plays psp/ps1/n64 games the best?

The 4 files of the original SD Card, can you post a link to it? My original SD is dead, so I have to start from scratch here.

Can this run tekken 6 for the psp out of the box?

better than r36s,trimui pro or rg35xxh?

thanks Dweeb, good price, but no room left, I got too pass) Sweet for kids though)

This or the RG35XX H? Seems they're in the same price range and the RG35XX H is a bit better overall?

I think its set on kiosk mode. Thats why you cant change any settings.

please review the r36s

It's a bit stuttery on psp and n64 but the rest all work great

Im still waiting on my retroid 4 pro ... they told me 7 to 14 more days till they ship ...

@4:17 next to your sleeping wife and her boyfriend... Bro i can't 😂😂😂

So I take it Dreamcast is a no-go on this. Hm, bummer. For what it's worth, there's an emulator suite for the Vita called Emu4Vita Arch that makes the system far more appealing for playing older games. The number of systems is limited, but it's really easy to use and the emulation is rock solid.

I highly recommend the R36S, it’s all around better and around the same price ( probably a little less $ )

Can you stream games on it? Does moonlight work? GeForce now... How about using it as a Bluetooth controller?

If 36S gets Horizontal? Will easly beat this with Ark OS

Free Worldwide Shipping! Dang.

Wow, that plastic shell is a real basic bit.... well anyway I love your videos! 😃

Hey bro do we get tenchu ?

Can you Download other emulators ? Be like psp emulator or ps2 or yuzu emulator??

Hey TechDweeb! Can you explain why the Gameboy Advance is your favorite retro system to emulate? I'm looking for a quick "pick up and play" type system to emulate. On low spec handheld hardware or phone. And the GBA seems like a good choice. What do you think? Thanks. And thanks for all the great contents on your channel ! Say hi to your mom! :)

Is the usb power only or can it transfer data?