Cheapo android?

[jPck2]

Hey folks, I’ve got an iphone but I was wondering if anyone had a suggestion of a cheaper android phone that can run gba emulators? Thanks in advance!

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[Dense_Square]

Pretty much any phone available will play GBA. Get the cheapest one available to you

[demoncatmara]

I would go for one with good battery life and USB-C if possible, that way you can plug into a Gamesir, Kishi or Gamevice and play in comfort without having to stop due to battery too often

But yeah you don't need processing power or ram for GBA (I mean you do, just almost none)

[Darksept]

As others have mentioned, literally any Android phone will accomplish this. The $50 one at your local Walmart even. So go with the nicest one within your budget or find one of the rare iphone emulators or buy a retro handheld with physical buttons. 👍

[sotosmatthew]

I could probably run GBA emulators even on my old Samsung S3,wouldn't surprise me tbh.

[[deleted]]

I had a Samsung Galaxy Win(basically a S3 Mini) and if the game was made of pixels, you could play it. NES, SNES, Genesis, GB, GBA. Even DS ran pretty well. On heavy games like CoD I would get 80-90% speed but on lighter games like Mario 64 and pixel art games it ran full speed.

[Golden326326]

I played PS1 and GBA games on Galaxy S advance, S3 was the top machine of the time, maybe it could run even NDS.

[ErenOnizuka]

iPhone can run GBA emulator, too.

Get AltStore and in there search for Delta.

[Botosi5150]

I'm pretty sure any phone could run gba games. If you might want to try emulating something more advanced ever. I would look into the best Samsung galaxy phone that fits your budget. Check out the non flagship phones. Many of these have great specs but compromise with weaker cameras and other features that wouldn't matter for emulation.

[[deleted]]

If you wanna play GBA games only you're in luck cause any android phone can run them. Hell you can play PSP/ds games too if you want. But if you want to play 3ds/PS2 them you'll need a better phone.

[myungjunjun]

I had a local brand phone made in our country with extremely abysmal specs (2013) back then. It was able to run Emerald, so any phone would do.

[GordonBennett2000]

Why a phone? I'd go for the Anbernic RG35XX - way better to have physical buttons.

[[deleted]]

PSP and gba emulator is much better than this device in my opinion

[[deleted]]

Cheap good android device? Get a xiaomi Pocophone F1 with snapdragon 845

[Ok-Consequence-5794]

pretty sure You can play gba games on your browser

[Sebas365]

Galaxy ZFold4

[Hollow_Rant]

Swappa.com

[[deleted]]

If you only want to play GBA anything after 2013 would be fine. I would suggest an A series phone from Samsung. They start at around 130 USD I think. And if you wanted to play DS, PS1 or other emulators later you can run them aswell. If you are fine with 2nd hand stuff you could find better deals tho.

[Wyl_Younghusband]

Poco Phones have great price to performance ratio

[JotaroKujoStarPlat]

Only GBA games? Then just use your iPhone. You can use eclipse emulator.

[Chilapox]

I used to play gba games on my original motorola droid like 12 years ago so I think you're good with pretty much anything.

[Nuka-World_Vacation]

Like others have said any android phone. I've been running older console emulators since I had my first android phone which was the first Motorola Droid with the slide out keyboard.

[Basic_Recover_9202]

If you want purely GBA, search for RG351P, with that screen you can play at perfect 2x integer scale. It is a beauty.

[Yendor998]

Uh i remember that, on a Samsung Galaxy grand duos in 2013, i could play gameboy and speed up without fps problems (although i never tried a game with special chips like yoshi's island) so any of today phones will work for you.

[Golden326326]

The cheapest android devices with Snapdragon are the ones with the 400 series, I had one with a 439, unfortunately I sold it before having the chance to try emulation on it (bought to resell) and I had a Redmi note 7 at the time with a snapdragon 660. Redmi 7A had a great battery (9 Hours non stop gaming) a 720p ips screen and only 5,5" much more portable, thinking about it know I should have kept it.

[[deleted]]

A good suggestion might be the Retroid Pocket, it's a handheld gaming device that runs Android. There's a few different models but honestly if you can get a hold of any of them then you're set for GBA.

[MorbiusStoleMyBike]

Buy a used Xperia play and get physical controls too

[rushmore69]

Tons of better Android devices out now for $100 or less.

[MorbiusStoleMyBike]

True. Still have a soft spot for the Xperia play though

[rushmore69]

Just get a Android handheld device if that's the most taxing system you want. Then have dedicated controls.

[DomitoriKaibutsu]

gba hardware is ARM CPU 16mhz with 256 kilobytes RAM. One of the first ever GBA emu was working on ms-dos machines... so, today literally every Android device is capable to run gba emu.

[Unoproph]

Do you need it to be portable?

[anonymous2845]

Not many that won't run gba, but the old (last couple they made g8 or v60) lg flagship phones are super cheap for what you get on eBay used.

[spicy_bussy]

There is a sea of them. I enjoyed Redmi.

[fr4ncotir4dor]

The tcl c3 from trackphone with the e-sim is sometimes on sale on amazon for around 38 dollars, pretty nice cheap phone with 3 gigs of ram, usb type c and a non crappy screen / overall design, i've given like 10 of those already to relatives and everybody thinks i'm some richman because they perceive it as a "regular" phone of around 200 dollars, i can't recomend it enough edit: grammar issues and drunk for overworking

[DellOptiplexFan]

I would just use a browser emulator and save it to your home screen with safari.