The Ayaneo Pocket Micro is the modern Sony Walkman of gaming handhelds – that is to say: its boxy, high-end design is strangely attractive, and due to its high price and narrow focus, it will only please a certain type of person. To stand out from the crowd of Android gaming handhelds, of which there are countless models all emulating the same games, Ayaneo has reimagined the Game Boy Micro as an enthusiast’s device. It costs $191 to pre-order via Indiegogo for a limited time before it becomes more expensive, but I’m also not convinced it’s worth the current price.
As someone who’s always wanted to get my hands on Nintendo’s cutting-edge handheld, I was excited to try out the Pocket Micro. It felt like a second chance to reconnect with the long-discontinued handheld – one with dual analog sticks, two sets of shoulder buttons and, oh yeah, Android OS. That may sound tempting to some, but in reality the Ayaneo Pocket Micro feels overcrowded with inputs, some of which are not comfortable to use. And, as is the case with all Android handhelds, launching games isn’t exactly easy.
Ayaneo’s Pocket Micro is built with just enough power to emulate PlayStation 2 titles and almost everything that came before them; Jet Grind Radio, Metroid Prime, Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracyand some other games I’ve tried all run acceptably, but not without stuttering visuals. It’s not the most powerful handheld you can buy for $200 (check out Chris Plante’s review of the comfy Retroid Pocket 5, which is a much better value at $219), and the display is a small window into emulated games I’d rather play on play on a computer. bigger screen. I can’t deny that the Steam Deck has conditioned me to prefer big-screen handhelds. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s very difficult to read text on the Pocket Micro’s 3.5-inch screen, despite it being larger than the Game Boy Micro’s and offering four times the screen resolution.
It turns out that being able to read on-screen text is more important than gaming: unlike the average plug-and-play console that comes pre-loaded with an easy-to-use marketplace, consumers are expected to do much more of the heavy lifting on Android does. handhelds like the Pocket Micro. Most of these hardware companies don’t offer pirated copies of games, so you’ll have to do the dirty deed yourself, either by searching the handheld’s Chrome browser or importing them from a PC.
And to play them you need emulators (usually in the form of apps that you have to install). Things can get messy and tricky before you even start your first game, as you’ll have to spend a fair amount of time digging through Android’s file system, configuring a control scheme, tweaking graphics, and possibly troubleshooting issues as well. if not. work as intended. Ayaneo simplifies the process a bit by implementing a proprietary interface called AyaSpace that lets you add emulated consoles to a dashboard once you link them to the appropriate folder in the device’s file folder. You’ll still use different apps to launch games from different consoles (Emulate GameCube? Dolphin. Dreamcast? Redream, etc.), but it offers some order in the midst of chaos. Yet it is still mainly chaos.
I don’t say all that to disparage the Pocket Micro in particular. Even on the Steam Deck, where the super clean EmuDeck exists to make game emulation a fairly user-friendly experience, you’ll still have to crawl through folders to make sure files are in the right places to be able to properly work.
The Pocket Micro is undoubtedly an attractive gaming gadget, with wonderfully clicky buttons and analogue sticks, and a near-seamless glass panel covering the front. But the charm of its appearance largely disappeared when I started using it. Retro games are the best titles to play here, as using the D-pad is much more comfortable than the analog sticks, and the 3:2 aspect ratio screen (960×640 pixels) mimics that of the Game Boy Advance, but then with four times the resolution. However, the sticks are placed close to the bottom of the device, almost forcing me to awkwardly hold the Pocket Micro with my fingertips like a point-and-shoot camera instead of pressing the edges into my palms like I do. would do with my old GBA.
While I love that Ayaneo has gone with an homage to the Game Boy Micro, some aspects of the design feel shoehorned in. For example, the shoulder buttons on the top rail require a learning curve to use, as do the rectangular buttons inlaid below the analog sticks. are difficult to distinguish and easy to fail. Additionally, the sound quality is atrocious through the bottom-firing speakers, and there’s no headphone jack available for wired listening.
And so, if you’re looking for the device that will satisfy your desire to reconnect with the Game Boy Micro, I’m not convinced that the Pocket Micro is worth it at nearly $200. As for other options, the less powerful Anberic RG300X is one of the most faithful re-creations I’ve seen, even though there are no analog sticks. Although it is less similar to the Micro, the Miyoo Mini A30 and the TrimUI model S are other options that people seem to like, each costing about $30 through AliExpress. Despite the software and ergonomics issues, none of these alternatives come close to the sleek build quality of Ayaneo’s device.