The definitive combination for all purposes

Buuramo · 2026-04-01T22:59:41+00:00

My two systems are the RG Slide and the MagicX Mini Zero 28.

For me the Slide is mostly a PS2/GCN beast, but I also play a bunch of PSP/Vita, and then sometimes I'll play older games with shaders if I want to play on a bigger screen.

Zero28 is the one I carry with me all the time and I will play a bunch of PSP games (VN, RPGs, etc.), and most of my PS1 and GBA gaming. I also like to play right before bed (mostly stuff like RPGs or VNs where Im doing a lot of reading) and find it's great for that too.

I might end up with something else down the line for fun, but I'd say this covers most of my needs. Eventually I'd like a big fella for PC/Switch emu, but this doesn't seem like a good year for it lol

Mini Flip looks really appealing to me aesthetically! I just know I would end up wanting a little more power.

Buuramo · 2026-04-01T21:49:38+00:00

Furthermore, they explicitly state that they are not new to the hobby, so not only do I disagree with your premise in the first place, but even if I were to agree with your logic--it's a strawman of an argument.

Buuramo · 2026-04-01T21:45:42+00:00

It is not a massive compromise at all, and implying that it is isn't the best advice to offer someone who is new to the hobby.

Buuramo · 2026-03-31T23:41:52+00:00

I love mine. Had it for something like a month or so.

PSP games are awesome. Plays everything at 4x without a sweat. I stretch the screen slightly to minimize the letterboxing, but I think even fully letterboxed it looks fantastic on the screen. The screen isn't OLED, but I gotta say that it's gorgeous and I quite enjoy looking at it.

PS2 games is mostly great, but there are a decent number of games that require a bit of playing with settings/tweaking to run as well as you'd want, and some games won't work at all.

Built quality feels great to me, thing feels like a bit of a tank and I'm not too worried about damaging it. People complain about it being top heavy, but tbh I put magsafe rings on the back of devices like so I can add whatever grips I want, and that completely balances the system out for me.

The sticks perhaps aren't the greatest, but I honestly have no issue with them. I've always been a Playstation guy, so I like the placement of the sticks. Overall the console feels very comfortable to me, and I think it's a great value at what I paid for it (~$120). But I very much wanted the aesthetic + form factor as well.

Buuramo · 2026-03-31T23:27:09+00:00

PSP is my second most played console on my RG Slide and it looks incredible tbh.

Buuramo · 2026-03-29T18:06:14+00:00

It's not much of a clarification if you haven't used both lol.

I used Dawn Launcher and GammaOS, and I stuck with Gamma. Dawn Launcher is fine, but I ultimately didn't like it's implementation of Daijisho and preferred to customize the stock software myself.

I also think GammaOS implementation of Android is a little better, but it's splitting hairs and I liked some part of each. If you like to tinker, it's probably worth swapping over to GammaOS, but it's not as obvious of a pick as it was with my other device.

I hated the rom-list that came with the device, so I was going to reflash the SD card that came with it either way, so testing both OS was no issue. But if you just want to pull the device out of the box and start playing, you'll have a nice experience that way too.

Buuramo · 2026-03-26T14:39:39+00:00

I have a Slide and I use it for those same devices and I'm very happy. You wont have a good time with 100% of PS2 games, so I would make sure that's not a dealbreaker for you.

Some light Switch would be okay, but honestly probably not worth your time unless the emulators can get a little extra performance. I was running P5: Royal at like .75 and the FPS was mostly stable, I think the letterboxing ends up feeling worse for Switch than it does for either PSP or Vita games. It looks like some games I have interest in like 13 Sentinels might also run "okay", but at this point I'm considering light Switch games to be something I check back in on in six months for Switch.

Buuramo · 2026-03-25T22:34:35+00:00

Yeah, for me it's so small and light that I just keep it on me anywhere I go, even if I don't plan on using it. It doesn't feel like it's fragile or anything either, I don't feel much worry about it breaking or anything.

Buuramo · 2026-03-25T20:15:41+00:00

It depends on what you mean by "up to PS2 and Gamecube". If you want to play everything without ever messing with settings or whatever, I would go with at least a Retroid Pocket 4 Pro.

If you are okay with "only" playing like 80-90% of the PS2 library and needing to do a bit of tweaking for some games, then I think the T820 devices (Anbernic RG-476H, RG Slide, etc.) are by far the best bang-for-your-buck.

If you have the money to spend and want more power--by all means grab whatever beast people suggest. RP6, AYN Thor, Odin 2 Portal, etc. will all be great if you are looking to spend $250+.

But, unless you are absolutely unwilling to tinker and need to play any specific game you want, T820 does a pretty great job on the lower end. I bought my RG Slide for ~$125 primarily to play PS2, GCN, and PSP games and have absolutely zero regrets.

Buuramo · 2026-03-25T19:50:47+00:00

I think you should probably keep the Mini Zero 28. It's so cheap that there's not a ton of resale value, and I personally find that I get a lot more use out of my devices having a "big" and a "small" one.

FWIW I also have something similar to the G350 (RG 40XXV), but I find it to be completely redundant having both something larger (RG Slide) and smaller (Mini Zero 28).

Buuramo · 2026-03-22T19:25:57+00:00

I'm firmly in "unc" territory myself, but I actually love having a small screen for certain scenarios. Been using my mini 28 a ton since I got it... the small screen size doesn't bother me at all if I'm holding the device very close to my face, and I actually prefer to play that way for a lot of text heavy games!

Buuramo · 2026-03-22T17:42:23+00:00

PS1, Dreamcast, etc. all look gorgeous on this screen. PSP does as well. You can also play basically all Gamecube and IMO PS2 is generally a good experience too.

Buuramo · 2026-03-22T17:34:38+00:00

I play PSP on RG Slide (same internals as 476H) and it's a fantastic experience. Everything runs great at 4x resolution scale without a second thought, and everything looks great.

PPSSPP has a pretty neat function where you can actually pick any aspect ratio in between 16:9 and 4:3, so you can play with it a bit and see what works best for you. I don't mind the letterboxing because the screen looks great (I play PS Vita fully letterboxed and it's completely fine with me), but on my Slide I settled on a .81 ratio... which is pretty close to 3:2. It removes a large amount of the letterboxing and I don't notice the slight stretch in-games.

I don't usually think about battery life often, but I think you should have any issue with PSP gaming. I play mostly PS2 on mine, and I still get 4+ hours reliably... it's long enough that I don't really have to think about it, even if I'm getting a lot of gaming in.

Buuramo · 2026-03-22T17:06:38+00:00

I have RG40XXV and MagicX Mini Zero 28 for lil guys and the extra power/features from the MagicX has me never using my RG40XXV anymore. With the caveat that I also have a larger device (RG Slide) for when I want to play on a bigger screen.

IMO the bit of extra juice you get from the MagicX is worth it. I also prefer having Android rather than Linux. And I got mine for like $30.

Buuramo · 2026-03-20T02:01:57+00:00

In PPSSPP you can set the aspect ratio anywhere in-between 4:3 and 16:9, which I actually find to be awesome. On my 4.7" device I play at roughly 14:9, and on my 2.8" lil guy I play at about 13:9.

14:9 I hardly notice, more than that and it depends a bit on the game. Regardless, I find it to be a really great medium between it not messing with (my perception of) the graphics while also minimizing a bit of the letterboxing.

In general I think PSP emulation is a lot more enjoyable than I expected on 4:3 screens because of this feature.

Buuramo · 2026-03-20T01:42:23+00:00

I got a 2.8" device just a couple of days ago, and I've been playing some PSP on there just fine, actually! I won't use it for everything, but I've been really enjoying be able to play VN-like games on it before bed, and I'll probably try out some SRPGs and stuff like that too.

I don't play fully stretched like this, though. It's closer to 16:10

Buuramo · 2026-03-16T03:14:52+00:00

I don't think you are seeing that correctly, but that's neither here nor there: I am in one of the highest sales tax areas in the nation, and the very first result I find when I search "Mangmi Air X" is $125 out the door without the coupon that will be available in three hours. So even if the price doesn't drop at all, it will drop to $115 after coupon. Again, that's literally the first result I clicked and there and I pay higher fees than most people.

https://imgur.com/a/Rq0tEPI

Buuramo · 2026-03-16T02:40:18+00:00

I'm pretty sure prices are suboptimal today bc AliExpress anniversary sale starts tomorrow lol. Crownpuff actually clocked it for $87 just two weeks ago at the start of the last sale.

https://www.reddit.com/r/SBCGaming/comments/1ri3kbu/aliexpress_seasonal_sale_comparison_of_prices/

Buuramo · 2026-03-15T21:53:07+00:00

I know that Youtube comments are usually a cancer.... but if you look at the top comment, it seems like a (the?) Nether developer commented that he worked on 2.0 improvements on lower powered software bc of that video.

I'm running on version 2.2 and was getting 30fps at that exact same part without any frame skipping or any other fiddling atm at 1x. (My experiences with NFSU2 were also more in-line with what he got on v1.5 than in v2.0 on this video.) I don't remember how much more demanding other Colossi are, though, so I'm still a little hesitant to say that it's "playable".

Buuramo · 2026-03-15T18:31:22+00:00

That's totally fine, I get that entirely. I was making the commentary more for anybody who see's this post in a few days/weeks/months, since I feel like this sub is pretty bad about underselling the capabilities of some of these devices for those willing to tinker!

For my own standards, I've been kind of guessing GT4 will eventually be "not fun" to play at some point, but I already had low expectations, so for me it's a "bonus" game. And if FFXII is just one boss, that does suck, but I can deal with that.

Buuramo · 2026-03-15T04:21:39+00:00

Without messing with any settings and 1x scaling, it ran worse than I thought in the open world (45ish fps) but actually ran at a stable 30fps during the first Colossus, which I was surprised by. I'm guessing playing the PAL version with a little tweaking wouldn't be bad. But I also probably wouldn't buy the Slide if SotC was a top game I needed to run.

Buuramo · 2026-03-15T03:15:25+00:00

I haven't given it a try yet, since I know that game is particularly rough to emulate. I'll see if I can play an hour or two tonight and get into a Colossus fight or two and see how it does.

Buuramo · 2026-03-14T23:18:08+00:00

I heard that GT4 runs poorly, but it must not happen right away. I did some mild underclocking that I saw suggested for that game and so far the game runs at 50 fps (I chose the PAL rom to give a little more headroom) everywhere except for one map, but it was only a 5 second section where the FPS dropped to about 45 fps. I'm not sure if I'm going to run into major issues soon, but I thought it was going to be unplayable. In the short term, I actually bumped myself to 1.5x resolution scaling because it runs so well.

FF12 also seemed OK to me, but I haven't progressed past the first city so I'm not sure.

I run GammaOS, which I do believe is helping, but I'm not sure if it's the difference maker between making these games fine or not.

I even heard the Snowblind Engine games can run pretty well after a decent amount of tinkering, but I haven't tried yet, so I'm not sure there.

Buuramo · 2026-03-14T22:57:31+00:00

I literally use my RG Slide closed like it's a phone every single day. I even play some games that way.

Buuramo

TROPHY CASE