My Retro Gaming Experience

I grew up with NES, Genesis, GB, GBC, GBA, Dreamcast, and PSP. I currently only own these two handhelds (RG35xx and Mini+), plus the Switch. I have dabbled in emulators many times in the past, but recently rediscovered them now with the handheld retro gaming scene. I bought a Powkiddy V90 for my SO to fill a desire for the GBA SP experience, which made me realize how interesting and mature handheld retro gaming has become.

I am currently in awe at how great retro gaming is with these devices, being able to save scum at my leisure with button combos to trigger save states, add cheats, and drop in and out of games with the tap of a button. Lots of games I gave up on in my childhood are now games I plan to finish. As someone with not a ton of free time I really appreciate being able to experience more of a game but in a way that respects my time and also on the go.

Unboxing Experience

Both of these consoles are playable out of the box and come with 64gb cards preloaded ROMs. Both also came with a glass screen cover which was easy to install. The boxes for either were nothing special, but the Miyoo Mini felt a little more special coming out of the box as there was no paper cover to remove before revealing the console.

Anbernic is now shipping the RG35xx dual booting with Garlic and their own Linux, which makes it a slightly nicer experience than the stock Miyoo one.

Build Quality

I got the Miyoo Mini Plus in translucent purple which makes it feel a lot like the original Game Boy Color. It’s a great purple and the plastic feels really good.

The RG35xx I ordered in a more subdued retro scheme. Combined with the wider screen bezels it has a sweet old school brick Game Boy (DMG!) feel.

The Miyoo Mini Plus feels notably more premium with only a slight button rattle and a nice weight to size ratio that makes it feel very solid. The RG35xx on the other hand, feels very durable, but not as polished or premium due to a rattle that the triggers make every time you handle the device. I did already drop the RG35xx on laminate flooring from waist high and it didn’t take a dent. The Miyoo Mini Plus took a similar hit when it fell off the bed, about 3ft, and the battery compartment cover fell off, but nothing was damaged and it continued to work fine, although I now feel the cover creaks a tiny bit.

I wound up cracking open the RG35xx (easy if you've opened any electronics before) and slipped in a cut piece of foam from the retail packaging to eliminate the trigger rattle. Now it feels just as good and premium as the Miyoo! If this is something you are willing to do it will take the RG35xx up to a much higher quality feel.

For some reason, on the RG35xx, the included glass screen protector doesn’t adhere to the last 2mm of the screen (I think the LCD glass on my copy is slightly curved towards the bottom) which doesn’t really affect visibility but it might irritate some people under some lighting conditions. I haven’t heard anybody talk about this before so maybe it’s just my console.

The RG35xx screen gets noticeably brighter and slightly dimmer than the one on the Miyoo Mini+, and the sound also gets louder and sounds slightly cleaner to me. However, both get bright enough and dim enough for my needs as well as being plenty loud and quality is fine. The colors on the Miyoo Mini Plus look slightly better, but I can only really tell having them side by side.

One great feature I rarely hear discussed is that the screens are laminated to the glass. In practice it means for a device that will glide in and out of your bag or pocket, there is no way for lint to make its way somewhere inside and obscure the screen. I once had a piece of lint stuck this way in an old 3GS as well as a GBA SP.

Booting up both devices requires holding the power button, however on the RG35xx the button protrudes a bit and must be held for like 3 seconds and released on the Miyoo Mini+ it’s flush and just needs to be pressed for 1 second. It doesn’t sound like a huge difference but there will be plenty of times I press the power button on the RG35xx and wonder why it doesn’t turn on, the ridiculously dim power indicator doesn’t help either.

The power light on the RG35xx is laughably dim and I often have to shade it with my hand to see if it lights up. On the Miyoo Mini Plus you can hold the power button for 1 second and when the power light turns green you can let go. This is a much nicer, more positive “turn on” experience whereas the RG35xx can feel mildly frustrating.

I couldn’t get either of these to charge off the USB-C Macbook power adapters nor my 45w Anker Powerport with C. I saw that some people were able to charge with low watt C-C setups but I wound up grabbing the old 5W Apple iPhone wall wart to use with an A-C cable which worked fine. This makes both annoying for me to travel with as I have now switched entirely to C-only wall warts for onebag travel.

Finally, for completeness: The RG35xx has an RTC for in-game time like Pokemon Gold/Silver. You can also use a micro-HDMI cable to connect it to the TV. The Mini Plus has neither of these features. The Miyoo Mini Plus has a battery compartment cover like the GB, GBC, GBA, but in order to remove the battery you must also unplug a tiny 2-prong plug.

Ergonomics/Controls

Both of these are very small devices so they are about the same to hold. I have L/XL hands and I have to cradle them just in my finger tips to have a gaming session, preferably with my elbows out as wide as possible, resting my elbows on a table if possible but okay pinned to my torso. I can hold them in my palms in a more hand-filling grip but it’s not so great on my wrists this way, although if I keep my forearms parallel and rest my elbows on a desk it’s reasonably comfortable. For those of you with a few old bones (I get some flare up from an old cycling injury), a handheld this size probably can only afford an hour at most for comfort.

I didn’t find the triggers to be in a great position on either of these devices. If you play a lot of games that are trigger dependent, you will probably not be that comfortable. However, I still was able to make use of the triggers just fine in Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, where the triggers are used for dodge and ability mechanics. The triggers are slightly nicer on the RG35xx as they afford a slightly larger grip but they sound and feel obnoxiously clicky compared to the Miyoo Mini Plus which feel very refined. Finally, the Miyoo Mini Plus sits flat on a table which looks amazing for photos and the RG35xx sits at a slight angle upward facing you which looks awkward but is maybe better if you want to play the device on a table, although you will be triggering the shoulder buttons.

The face buttons and D-pad feels about the same on both of these, but the D-pad on the RG35xx can feel a bit sloppy in some games as you can hold a direction and wobble it a bit which can make your character move side to side when you are say, pointing straight up. In some games, like with tank controls, this can be an advantage, and in others like Tetris, it could feel a little imprecise. On the Miyoo Mini+ you have to be a lot more deliberate about triggering diagonal movement, but it feels pretty good and precise.

Both devices are easy to pocket, although the Miyoo Mini Plus is a little shorter and has less protruding triggers. I feel more comfortable putting the RG35xx bare in my bag or pockets due to feeling sturdier, but with a little care the Mini Plus should hold up just fine.

Installing Custom Firmware

I understand that not all people feel it is necessary to install custom firmware but after reading a lot about it, it seemed to me to be a great way to get optimal performance for absolutely free in exchange for 20-30 minutes of my time. For people who are not going to tinker and just want to play anything, you can skip this section.

I followed the excellent setup guides from RetroGameCorps. Miyoo Mini Starter Guide, RG35xx Starter Guide. I bought two microSD cards for the RG35xx (64gb and 256gb) and I had a spare 64gb microSD that I put in the Miyoo Mini+, however the RG35xx only needs a single card if you don’t want to buy two.

For the Miyoo Mini+ all that it takes is ensuring it’s running the latest Miyoo firmware before copying the OnionOS 4.2.0rc onto a (fresh) card (1). Downloading, unzipping, and copying over the ROMs (I used Tiny Best Set Go!) took awhile, but it was just as easy. As MacOS does not unzip folders into existing folders, I had to use the terminal and cp -r (2) to merge the directories.

Installing GarlicOS 1.4.9 on the RG35xx was a little trickier. I needed to install a disk image tool and flash the image with partitions to the first SD card. I disliked that the default partitions didn’t make use of the full space for the OS card, so I had to use the terminal to resize the partitions. Installing ROMs was the same as the Miyoo, but I put them on a second card.

It’s worth noting that GarlicOS on the RG35xx is capable of reading the ROMs off the OnionOS system card from the Mini, so you can swap them back and forth into the second card slot as you like. However, while normal saves will load fine, save states will not load correctly. Also, the setup for Tiny Best Set Go offers separate optimized preview images and MAME files for Garlic and Onion, but the Onion images still view on Garlic.

(1) It’s not recommended to use the SD cards that come with these things as they’re considered low quality and may not last many writes.

(2) *nix idiosyncrasies are out of the scope of my review, sorry!

CFW OS and Gaming Experience

While OnionOS and GarlicOS look very similar and use a compatible file structure they are actually more different than I’ve been able to read about elsewhere on the internet.

OnionOS on the Miyoo Mini Plus is a lot more featureful with the Package Manager that allows you to select which systems are installed as well as all sorts of apps like AdvanceMENU alternative frontend, Easy Netplay, an ebook reader, a media player, and a way to search games by title (hit “X” anywhere in the system menu). It feels very powerful, but on the other hand I did manage to crash the game switcher once which felt weird for such a “simple” gaming device. (Turning the device off and on again fixed it.) One nice feature is you can sleep the device with a quick tap of the power button and come back to the game instantly, although it looks like it will drain power more quickly than shutting it off.

GarlicOS is a lot more streamlined and lightweight. Booting up the console takes less time (12s vs. 17s on OnionOS) and shutdown is essentially instantaneous. Besides RetroArch settings there isn’t anything to configure on this device and I loved being able to press “Y” to favorite a game. (In Onion, you have to hit Select and then choose “Add to favorites” from the menu) I also loved the fact that holding down the Menu button shows a cheatsheet of all the key combos you can press to trigger special functions like Fast Forward, Cheats, and save state management.

The Miyoo Mini Plus running OnionOS has one huge feature that RG35xx does not- WiFi for RetroAchievements and wireless link play. The WiFi could use a better antenna (I couldn’t log achievements sitting in my home office) but otherwise worked just fine.

On the flip side, the RG35xx on GarlicOS has clocking (hit Select in the main menu) where you can underclock to save some power or overclock to squeeze out a little extra performance. I found this made a difference for some games but I don’t know that the Miyoo Mini Plus suffers for lacking overclocking. In some games at standard clocking on the RG35xx, I've noticed some stutter, particularly in audio on the SNES. Going back to the menu and hitting Select overclocks or underclocks the device (there is +, ++, -, and -- in the battery icon) and overclocking does clear up any stuttering issues.

It’s worth noting that OnionOS seems to have quite a fast pace of development and can also be updated without a computer by simply connecting to WiFi and triggering the OS updater. GarlicOS is stalled (but incredibly stable) at 1.4.9, but creator BlackSeraph is working on a 2.0 update that will run on more devices and add more features. Both feel “complete” so any new features will likely fill in smaller niche needs and quality of life upgrades. 
Gaming on SNES, Genesis, Sega CD, and PSX all feels great on both of these devices and Game Boy games feel right at home on the vertical format. I haven’t noticed performance issues on either machine.

Both run RetroArch under the hood which is a system for managing and playing ROMs. It provides a unified interface to all of the emulators (now called "Cores") and allows quite a lot of configuration to tune the gaming experience how you like it. The depth of availability is huge but the most important thing in this case is both the makers of GarlicOS and OnionOS are highly opinionated and have already configured it to work great on both systems. I did not need to adjust anything to enjoy playing, although I did wind up changing it so it did not stretch the screen aspect ratios.

Buying Experience

The price I see the Miyoo Mini Plus for on Amazon Prime is $90. The price I see for the Anbernic RG35xx is $72. I rate these to be good values, but it seems the price on both of these handhelds is much better if you are willing to wait and order from China or AliExpress. Shipping will take around 2-4 weeks, although sometimes there is a snag and it can take longer. Right now until August 27, 2023, Anbernic is having a sale on their website and the 35xx is $46 and no tax. Their normal price is $56. The Miyoo Mini Plus goes for $56 on AliExpress.

You also will want to buy a microSD card for these. 64GB is the minimum you will be happy with. I've been advised by the kind folk over at RGH Discord (shoutout to Axcelon) that 32GB is sufficient if you keep your PSX collection to a only a few discs and plenty for all the other systems. If you want a lot of games, 128GB will hold the currently largest easy-to-use ROM collection (Tiny Best Set GO + Extra! 128GB Expansion) and 256GB is the max addressable by many of these handhelds due to using old FAT32 filesystem. There is no real benefit to buying faster cards.

Looking across the broader landscape there are a lot of devices available. These two happen to be the cheapest and most popular "entry level" gaming handhelds. There are some cheaper ones but they are more interesting curio than gaming gadget. The vertical style systems (like GB, GBC) are appealing because of their classic nature. Both of the reviewed consoles can be one-handed for subway riding and playing slow games like Pokemon. The horizontal style systems (GBA, N-Gage, PSP) are more comfortable for longer gaming sessions. There are a few cheap horizontal systems but I don't know anything about them. Then there are more expensive systems that can play DC, GCN, PS2, NDS, PSP. And Vita. There is a sprinkling of support for 3DS, PS3, and even Switch but beyond some lighter games those start to have serious hardware requirements, more like Steam Deck.

Conclusion

The Miyoo Mini Plus is undoubtedly the nicer device in my mind. It looks and feels way more premium, and it just brings me joy to see it on my desk. I am a little worried about durability as the predecessor non-Plus Mini was well known to break the screen with even the smallest of drops and mishandling, but it doesn’t feel fragile at all. Having WiFi with RetroAchievements is super cool and it definitely encourages me to push further in games although it only works if you are online.

The Anbernic RG35xx is no slouch however and feels built like a tank. I actually honestly prefer the GarlicOS experience for day to day gaming as it’s a little faster to boot up. It definitely has more power to unlock as newer CFW like Koriki have better GPU support and allows PSP, N64, DS, and Dreamcast gaming. I also really like having the twin card slots for the flexibility of file management. Finally, I didn't try it out at all, but it has a micro-HDMI port allowing you to play your games on the big screen, which could be a big plus if you want to kick back on the couch at home or at a hotel.

The Miyoo Mini Plus has a larger battery but I haven’t felt a noticeable capacity difference, particularly with the RG35xx underclocked for most of my gaming.

Overall, I’d say the RG35xx is a better handheld for children and the accident prone, or people who might want to tinker with Koriki for gaming above PSX. The Miyoo Mini Plus is better for people who want a premium experience and RetroAchievements. If I were giving one as a gift I would want to give the Miyoo as it feels more impressive and grown up.

I originally felt like I was missing out by not having both, but honestly I think it’s best to just pick one for vertical gaming and if you must have more devices, get a more powerful handheld in horizontal format for games above PSX. Neither is strictly better than the other and both are good enough that they’re essentially interchangeable.