The New Powkiddy X18S Promises GameCube In Your Pocket

It’s been a long time since Powkiddy first teased their powerful upgrade to 2019’s X18. The Powkiddy X18S has finally gone live and devices are shipping out now.

It’s a new era for handheld gaming, and there’s a long list of upcoming machines powered by a host of different SoCs this time. (Check the menu top right on desktop to see them). One of those is the Unisoc Tiger T618, a mid range octa core processor with two fast ARM Cortex A75 cores at up to 2 GHz, and six power efficient ARM Cortex A55 cores at up to 1.8 GHz.

Whilst this chip doesn’t fare too well against the Snapdragon 845 in the upcoming Odin from AYN, it does pack a punch. It’ll allow for very good PSP emulation, with a smattering of GameCube games being playable too.

We’ve known that the X18S was coming for almost a year but it has been delayed multiple times. The chip shortage woes probably played a part in this, but as things begin to ease up we’ll hopefully see a steady influx of new machines in the coming months.

PowKiddy X18S Inputs and Outputs

The PowKiddy X18S is one of the first off the block. It’s the natural successor to their black clamshell X18 from 2019. It is built in what looks to be the same shell as its predecessor, albeit with a white and grey colour scheme this time around. The handheld will run Android 11, though some of the earlier promotional material is careful to point out that the Play store won’t be available out of the box.

POWKIDDY X18S SPECS

I am cautiously optimistic about the success of this machine. On paper it does a lot of things right, I love the clamshell form factor and we’re getting a powerful SoC running a current Android version with the X18S.

PowKiddy X18S
SoCUnisoc Tiger T618
CPU2x A75 @ 2.0GHz / 6x A55 @ 1.8GHz
GPUMali G52
RAM4GB LPDDR4X
Storage64GB eMMC + MicroSD
WiFi2.4GHz / 5GHz
BluetoothBluetooth 5.0
OSAndroid 11
LCD5.5" 1280x780 Capacitive IPS
OutputsHDMI
Battery5000mAh
Size152 x 92 x 22.5mm
PortsUSB-C, HDMI, 3.5mm, MicroSD

But the Android build of their previous X18 was a mess, and it took a long time for developers to manage to clean it up. Unfortunately it looks as though the same can be said for the X18S, with early reports suggesting the OS is very buggy. Some menu options are so broken that they ultimately lead to a bricked device if clicked. In this case, DO NOT go into Settings > About X18S > Switch System as it causes the system to brick itself. They’ve probably ported an OS over from a device that had 2 OS installed, but forgotten to remove the option to switch between them.

LINEAGE OS 18.1

Don’t despair though, because it’s Black Seraph to the rescue. He already has a working build of Lineage 18.1 running on the PowKiddy X18S. Black Seraph has a long history supporting both the GPD XD and XD+, and has now added the X18S to his list. You can get hold of his work via Patreon, with a an £8 subscription guaranteeing access to his builds.

The PowKiddy X18S is now available from the official store on AliExpress. With a list price of $172.99 it’s by no means a impulse purchase for a lot of us, but with Black Seraph on board it should have a long life ahead of it.

POWKIDDY X18S @ ALIEXPRESS

14 thoughts on “The New Powkiddy X18S Promises GameCube In Your Pocket”

  1. Got my unit and the original firmware is total garbage like the older X18.
    Out of the box experience is disgustingly bad almost to the point of never ordering another Powkiddy device ever. Sure Black Seraph will probably do great things with this but it shouldn’t be this bad from the start.

    Reply
  2. Waiting a long time to replace my GPD XD and this is the only alternative, ordered a X18S and hopefully with none of the problems of the original.

    Reply
  3. I love the DS clamshell form factor. It looks like I can stick it in a bag or pocket without having to worry about the screen. I also love the fact it has two joysticks and four shoulder buttons.So it looks like it should have enough buttons for every console that it is capable of running. Its specs look similar to a moto G one phone so it might play a few Saturn games too,

    Reply
  4. I love the colour scheme for this device and think it packs a fair punch hardware-wise. However, I have concerns about the Android build they will use (as mentioned in the article, the stock X18 build was a mess) and I’m not sure if the build quality will match the Odin/Odin Lite (which is probably the nearest competitor at the moment price-wise). Still, I think it will find a place in the market, and it will quickly build a community to make this device worth the asking price. One thing that always irks me when a device is advertised as being able to play GC games is they never seem to show any footage of busy areas (eg they always show the first island in Wind Waker, but never any dungeons with lots of enemies etc).

    Reply
  5. I had the x18 and with the cfw it was better than stock for sure….

    but I would get phantom inputs when pressing certain buttons together at the same time.

    For example, in Fzero If i pressed
    gas+shift weight+nitro it would trigger the pause button being pressed. Halting gameplay.

    Hopefully they fix this on x18s

    Reply
    • Agreed. Since GPD has kind of screwed the pooch with their new Android handheld design, will be watching to see if the quality of this one is good enough for a buy!

      Reply
      • Yeah, the more I think about it the more I’m liking this device. Loving the colour scheme! Very SNES-like! I’m not so worried abut the quality. I’ve seen the OG X18 and the build quality was good. But as was mentioned above, the Android build is the concern. I’m hoping they refine it and get it right!

        Reply

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.