Analogue have been around since about 2012, they’re a company that specialise in re-creating classic consoles from scratch with the use of FPGAs instead of emulation. Their claim is that their machines support 100% of the console’s library (via original cartridge) with no inaccuracies, lag or other glitches. The Analogue Pocket is their take on the GBA and it looks fantastic.
It’s been two years since Analogue announced their FPGA based GBA clone, the Analogue Pocket. The world has changed a lot in those two years, and a combination of unfortunate factors has meant that the first lot of pre-orders are still due to start shipping out. But it looks like Analogue have a handle on things. They’re now confident enough to re-open preorders a second time for those still eager.
Sporting a similar design to the RG351V and RG300, the Analogue Pocket promises full input compatibility for GBA with the addition of 2 shoulder buttons on the back side of the unit.
If you’re wondering what the purpose of four face buttons is, the addition of a secondary FPGA for use by developers goes some way to explain it. The additional FPGA will allow programmers to recreate the hardware from another device, further broadening the scope of this machine.
You may also wonder how they plan to scale images correctly on this 3.5″ display. The Game Boy has a resolution of 160×144 and the GBA has a resolution of 240×160. Well, they’ve taken the “kill a fly with a shotgun” approach and bundled an insanely high 1600×1440 resolution display. That means that Game Boy will scale exactly 10x and although the GBA won’t integer scale into this resolution, the super high pixel density should mean that it’ll look fantastic never the less. Alternatively they may choose to scale GBA 6x such that it occupies a 1440×960 portion of the display.
ANALOGUE POCKET PRE-ORDERS
The first Pocket orders are due to start shipping soon, and if you missed that first set of pre-orders then prime your f5 key for the 14th of this month. Analogue have stated that orders from this 2nd round will ship anywhere between Q1 2022 and 2023! It looks as though you’ll have to wait to find out if you were fast enough for the Q1 2022 delivery, Analogue have stated fulfilment groups will be confirmed a few days later.
The price of the Pocket has also increased from $200 to $219. Supply chain issues and component shortages are to blame for this increase, but given the sheer amount of people clamouring for one of these I doubt it’ll have any effect on pre-order numbers on the 14th.
Check out their announcement for more info.
the most overrated handheld ive ever seen, the problem with this device is loose catridge and high price, also i dont like heavy weight handhelds, handhelds supposed to be light, if you want a perfect gameboy choose rgb10 max for gamboy color retroarch with shaders, and rg351p for gameboy also gameboy shaders
Looks neat… If you still have the original cartridges, which I don’t. And the price… I mean, ok it’s FGPA and all, but in the end, you’ll just play GB, GB Color and GBA, right? I guess this is definitely not for me.
You need an everdrive to make it worthwhile really, unless you’ve already got a huge library of cartridges. Having said that, it will likely get opened up to accept ROMs by community devs.
Which adds up to the already high price, sadly. It’s not that it looks bad or anything – the build and the screen look gorgeous and I am very well aware that FGPA is better than emulation. I must admit that I would have considered it if I had any physical cartridges, though: finding an affordable authentic GB/GBC/GBA in good state is nearly impossible nowadays.
If this was $100ish, I would go for it without hesitation…
Your loss then. There are other devices like this that fit within your stated price. They are not on the same level of quality craftsmanship that the Pocket is, but if $100 is your price point, there’s plenty to be had.
Indeed. Something like Revo K101+ would probably suit me better.
If I want to stick to GBA with FPGA hardware, that is.
Man not gonna lie, if this was mass produced, and I mean to the point where it’s always available for years, this could be a reaaaally appealing thing compared to Anbernic’s stuff. I’d have to test the buttons and everything, but I’m assuming by what everyone else is saying that this not just high quality but also well designed. Especially now that we would get PS1 FPGA cores, this would be a REALLY competitive device in the market. Like, I can’t even play FF6 or Yoshi’s Island on an RG351V for example, and I don’t even want GBA on it either because it will be just slightly blurry, which this Analogue device can solve with its high resolution.
The only device this can really compete with is the RG552, and that has had a mess of a launch, and judging by what people are saying about that, the buttons are pretty much the same as the RG351V at least, people claim those are high quality too though… Maybe they are, but they’re the wrong spec and design and feel too clicky, hard and with too much travel distance AND weird smooth texture.
… but in the end I still prefer a Linux handheld only because RetroArch is amazing and my favorite menu is the customizable XMB. Nothing can top that. (ESPECIALLY not now that it’s had lots of little behavior fixes :D)
Also, one more thing. FPGA’s biggest deal is the 0 latency. But actually, I find that playing on an RG351V and comparing it to a real console connected to a CRT has nearly no difference. Probably 1 frame of lag. So yeah… this aspect about the FPGA consoles is actually not quite that relevant anymore. (I can beat Mike Tyson / Mr Dream from an RG351V every time I try on my first go)
Oh yeah, one fun but also sad little detail about the RG552.
Do you see how the Analogue Pocket has a function / home button between Start Select?
The RG552 has a home button on the bottom next to Reset š which can make you accidentally reset.
Perfection, Iām preordering as soon as itās live. Analogue is in a different league quality-wise, you canāt compare their consoles to any of the cheap garbage just because they can play the same things. Custom FPGAās are incredible, the price is a steal in my eyes for the hardware and software support.
costs 200$, plays gbaā¦ what the hell are people thinking?
You don’t get it: this is for people who still have physical games. Bear in mind that finding an original GB/GBC/GBA in good state and at an affordable price is getting harder and harder these days.
Everdrive will work, guaranteed, as the FPGA perfectly mimics original hardware. And as with the Super NT, youāll almost certainly be able play game backups. That card slot is not there for decoration. And more cores will probably be developed for itā¦. SNES, NES and Genesis would be nice, but that probably wonāt come right away.
Nice looking system. Wish the display were a tad bigger.
Since this is fpga based emulation and uses real cartridges, how could it work for SNES or other ānon portableā consoles?
All sharp edges. Doesn’t look comfortable. It lives and dies on its dpad and buttons as far as I’m concerned.
An rg 300 in this shell with a stronger processor would be pretty sweet.
Im all for the 350H.
But man is this GameBoy tempting.
At least, this seems to be the most perfect GameBoy because every official GameBoy has enough drawbacks that makes this console seem worth it. I can’t play any of my official GameBoy cartridges and be as fully happy on any of my GameBoys as it seems I will be with this. That’s IF the emulation doesn’t suffer, which why would it? Considering the reputation Analogue’s engineers have. And that’s also IF we get custom palettes, which I doubt we wouldn’t.
Oh, while Im at it, I am hoping for button configs!! I prefer using B+Y instead of A+B.
If it cant do that, I will best stay with software emulation.
4 face buttons would make GBA fighting games easier to play (assuming L and R could be mapped to them).
On the website they claim that all buttons can be mapped.
Holy shit.
That kills my plans for mounting a gba inside a dmg.
Good Grief this looks like quality! $200 isn’t bad.
Yeah it does look beautiful, and I agree $200 isn’t too bad as long as it lives up to their promises and the build quality is decent. I kinda assumed this thing would be $400+ when I first read about it.
Any more news on this thing? Iāve been looking for ages at the rg350 and pocketgo v2 for which will be best at GBA while having decent build quality. An FGPA device like this with a killer display seems like my best bet. Two hundo is a lot, but for high build quality and perfectly native play it seems fair.
It’s coming out in 2020 and their previous machines were released around Spring, that’s all we know at the moment.
Appreciate the reply! Ordered playgo from wolsen in the meantime.