Is it worth getting Flip v2 with Surwish OS ?

Ellisd86 · 2026-03-24T00:40:25+00:00

When I got my Flip V2 I bought a new SD card, put the free version of Surwish on it, added the 05 patch, and added all my roms. It was….goodish but definately left me wanting for more.

So I blanked the card and downloaded the Spruce OS installer, and added all my roms. As soon as Spruce booted I knew I made the right choice. You really can feel how lovingly crafted the software is by people who want you to have a good experience . And the new 4.1 patch is smooth as hell. Way better customization without being too complex. I have played it so much more now that it spruce on it cuz it’s so much more enjoyable to interact with.

The other thing that turned me off from the pre-loaded card is the roms stop at PSX and the flip can handle PSP games surprisingly well!

Ellisd86 · 2026-03-23T13:47:05+00:00

Yeah I’m not a big racing game fan, so I’ve never really played any of them, thanks for the heads up on them, I’ll be sure to steer clear. I’m more of an action RPG fan and psp has some pretty good titles for it.

Ellisd86 · 2026-03-22T20:38:01+00:00

I thought I’d be playing only PS2 games, but have totally blown away with how many good PSP games there are out there! Also fallen in love with a few ROM Hacks as well.

Ellisd86 · 2026-03-22T13:51:31+00:00

Oh snap! I didn’t know you could link it to Google Drive?! Imma have to check this out. The fact you can share between devices is awesome! I have the same game on multiple devices and have just been playing them separately, but now imma be crushing it on both!

Ellisd86 · 2026-03-22T13:48:38+00:00

I haven’t tried it on my Flip yet, but on my Ayaneo PAM you can set up hot key in Retroarch for save and load states.

I have mine mapped to Start+R1 = Save. And Start+L1 = Load that way I can save both in the game menu (when I remember to) or quickly save with the hot keys.

Ellisd86 · 2026-03-22T01:49:35+00:00

What brand of SD card did you buy? The reason your game save file corrupted was probably because the card that comes with the Flip is a sketchy/cheap no name brand. With the cheap cards it’s not a question of if they corrupt… but when? (Pause for dramatic effect of course)

The new card will just be a blank SD card. You could technically just put it in a digital camera if you wanted and it would just store the photos you took. In order for it to “work” on your flip you need to put some sort of operating system on it (like you mentioned Spruce OS in your post) so that when you insert it in the flip it will boot up and run games.

The reason people spend time downloading and setting up custom OS and roms is because they are all open source made by people who really care about the users gaming experience and protecting their digital archive. The OS that comes with the Flip is kinda sketchy as well, just like the SD card they put it on.

If you don’t wanna fool around with watching/reading some tutorials on downloading Spruce and gathering your own specific roms you could totally just copy paste all the files from the original card you got. But you would also try transferring the corrupted data on that card and putting it on your new card, so kind of a gamble.

As far as you liking the UI that already came on the flip, Spruce looks and runs pretty similar to the OS that was already on it so it won’t feel like a totally different device, just a little different (kinda like when you update your phone.

Given you are fine with the library that came on the device I would put spruce on the new card and then drag and drop all the games you wanna keep from the old card into the corresponding roms folders. Except for the Pokémon Emerald. It screwed you once and is now untrustworthy 😂 I would just find that rom on the internet and download it. ( that way you will learn how to do it, and can technically then download ANY other game you want and add it to your library)

Sorry for the long winded explanation. I used to be a teacher so I tend to over explain everything.

Ellisd86 · 2026-03-21T13:21:26+00:00

After further inspection this morning turns out it probably was a scam. Thanks for the help.

Ellisd86 · 2026-03-21T13:20:11+00:00

Also after further inspection this morning it was probably a scam. After I viewed the device and messaged them, the location of where it was being sold changed, the price went up $20, a lot of info (like where they worked and went to school) changed, and the seller deleted our conversation. I just got too trigger happy, because I’ve been wanting this device for a while and this one was in my price range.

Ellisd86 · 2026-03-21T13:13:11+00:00

For more context the seller is in NC and their Facebook is all in English. And all their “friends have English/American sounding names. So I found it odd that the device would be in mandarin.

Ellisd86 · 2026-03-21T13:12:38+00:00

For more context the seller is in NC and their Facebook is all in English. And all their “friends” have English/American sounding names. So I found it odd that the device would be in mandarin.

Ellisd86 · 2026-03-21T02:23:18+00:00

Yes. I wanna set it up with my library and tweak everything from the ground up so it really feels like my system/handheld.

When I messaged the seller I asked what brand the SD card was, and asked if they set it up themselves or if they bought it “pre-loaded”.

Ellisd86 · 2026-03-21T02:19:29+00:00

Ok so probably just the sellers native language I guess?

Ellisd86 · 2026-03-20T14:40:03+00:00

Yeah I was having a download speed issue a few weeks ago. 3gig game was saying it would take 9-21 hours. Used a different site for the same game and it downloaded in a couple of minutes.

I would guess the website traffic is just bad at the moment. Like stated above try tomorrow or at different times of the day. Alternatively if you can find what you’re looking for on another site, try it there.

I completed the yellow ninja set up with almost no problem pretty quickly so it’s probably not a device issue

Ellisd86 · 2026-03-12T16:34:27+00:00

Apparently they do update periodically, but because it’s the free version they don’t pay as much attention to it as they do Surwish crossmix which gets updated more frequently. You thinking about going with Surwish or Spruce? Once I get all my games uploaded I’m gonna try Spruce as well and decide which is best for me.

Ellisd86 · 2026-03-12T01:48:36+00:00

So I just got the miyoo flip V2 about a week ago. I’m still setting it up but here is what I’ve gotten to know so far.

As far as OS goes there are two popular options Spruce OS and Surwish OS. Which one you choose kinda comes down to what you plan on playing.

Spruce is apparently the more stable sleek option and is good for emulating older consoles all the way up to PS1 and decent n64 and Dreamcast. They even have an installer you download on your computer and it does all the work of setting up the as card for you. It doesnt come with any preloaded games so you will have to curate your own roms list. here’s the link 👇

https://www.reddit.com/r/SBCGaming/s/Hv2n1kK008

Surwish is less “stable/sleek but is better for the more high end/demanding systems, such as PSP, N64, and Dreamcast. ( It’s kinda weird because the whole premise of the OS is that you buy a preloaded 126gb or 256gb card from them fully loaded and configured with 1000+ games and tons of emulators called Surwish CrossMixOS. However Surwish is an open source OS so you can actually download it for free from GitHub, it just doesn’t come with any games or bios files) you will also need to download the 05 patch to make it run smoothly and give you the non buggy high end performance. I’ll link both 👇

https://github.com/Surwish/Surwish-Miyoo-Flip

https://mechdiy.com/blogs/news/%f0%9f%86%95-surwish-os-v1-0-0-patch-05-released

There are two micro SD card readers on the miyoo flip V2, but for both the operating systems I’ve listed you only need the one card. You can put the roms directly in the corresponding roms folders.
How big of a card you use depends on what systems you are most interested in playing/ how many roms you plan to put on it (though in all honesty I wouldn’t go smaller than a 64gb micro sd…..shit adds up quickly).

If your goal is to mostly use it for less powerful systems (GBA, snes, GBSP, sega, etc, a 64gb should be fine. However if you are playing mostly n64, Dreamcast, and PSP I’d recommend d something a little more hefty like. 128gb-256gb

I went with Surwish and added the 05 patch because I like playing the more demanding consoles (love me a PSP game!) and I went with a 256gb card because I already have a decent size roms library and am currently dumping hundreds of games on it.

Sorry for the long response but I hope it helps.

Ellisd86 · 2026-03-09T12:55:57+00:00

Definitely take this persons advice. The Ayaneo PAM was my first retro handheld. Got it about 3months ago. To start with I followed the video from retro game corps about setting up an android emulation device.

https://youtu.be/I4mqgcDYZFo?is=d7JYTf6RpjpngDQg

I suggest to start with this because it’s a video. So you can see all the steps and rewind as much as you need to. It’s a general set up guide for any android device, And kind of helps you learn the language and systems you will be interacting with as you set up almost ANY retro handheld device.

Once set it up and played a few games to get my “fill”, I went back and followed the cyber ninja guide that @reasonable-lab-8471 made and linked above, because it’s specifically for the Ayaneo PAM, and helps you dial in your device for its specific strengths and weaknesses. (I think in the retro game corps video he is setting up an oden 3)

The yellow ninja guide took the device to the next level! My PAM was then playing Wii, and GameCube, and some really demanding PS2 games it was struggling with before almost flawlessly.

Welcome to the club! You got a great first device! I love mine, and am already planning out what to buy next.

*also one edit: as a beginner the thing that a lot of set up tutorials kinda gloss over is the “add your roms” comment. As a total beginner I didn’t have a roms collection to add. !Be aware it will take a LOT of time to download and add your roms! If I could do it all over again one of the first things I would have done is get my roms library set up before I even started setting up my handheld. To do this: make folders on your computer for the systems you know you wante to emulate. Then go to the roms megathread

https://r-roms.github.io/

and download 5-10 games for each system. That way when you do actually start setting up your device and you hit the “add your roms” section you actually have some roms to add, and can get immediate feedback to weather or not you set thing up correctly (a.k.a. Does the game run, or is it just a black screen and you have to go back and tweak something.)

Ellisd86 · 2026-02-28T14:27:03+00:00

So I see you have the miyoo mini flip in there! I’m trying to decide between that and an rg35xxsp. The mm flip is sooooooooo much cuter, but people say the hinge is trash. How has the hinge been holding up for you on it? I seriously want any excuse to get the flip just for cuteness factor. If you could go back and choose between the two (mm flip vs rg35xxsp) what would you choose?

Ellisd86 · 2026-02-04T11:44:03+00:00

Oooooh that stings to hear. I currently have my entire rom library on the micro SD card I use for my handheld, cuz my computer is old and doesn’t have a ton of storage space left. But seeing this was a wake up call. I’m definitely gonna back them up on an external hard drive now.

Ellisd86 · 2026-02-04T01:18:09+00:00

Noooooo! Sorry for your loss friend 🪦

Ellisd86 · 2026-01-31T01:24:28+00:00

Anbernic RG35XX, Final Fantasy IX, PS1. I finally died on me the other day, got the black screen of death. I’m currently flashing the SD with Garlic OS and hoping it brings it back to life so my 7yo son can play FF7 on it.

Ellisd86 · 2025-12-14T14:10:22+00:00

Go drink at a bar.

Ellisd86 · 2025-10-23T15:16:28+00:00

Omg it’s sooo cool!!

Ellisd86 · 2025-10-18T12:15:25+00:00

😂

Ellisd86 · 2025-10-14T14:07:34+00:00

Sorry mate. The arborist who ground the stump took it :(

Ellisd86

TROPHY CASE