Experimental Pi are a manufacturer of DIY Raspberry Pi powered handhelds and arcades. They were responsible for the PiBoy DMG back in 2020, and now they’re back with the PiBoy XRS DIY handheld.
read postThe PiBoy XRS Is A DIY Raspberry Pi Powered Handheld Kit Shipping Soon
The highly anticipated release of RetroPie for the RPi4 was the excuse I needed to grab a RPi4, as well as a nice case to house it in. After hunting around I eventually settled on the Argon One RPi4 case. It’s a very reasonably priced aluminium alloy case with both active and passive cooling, and some other clever tricks up its sleeve.
The Raspberry Pi4 was released back in June 2019, but it hasn’t yet found its way in to any mass produced handhelds. There are two main reasons for this. The lack of a more compact Compute Module variant of the RPi4 means that any handheld would have to accommodate the comparatively bulky full sized board. Secondly, there is no official build of RetroPie for the Raspberry Pi4 yet. That hasn’t stopped these guys though, and the PiBoy DMG may be the first RPi4 handheld to be mass produced.
The Compute Module 3 (or CM3) is a shrunk down version of the Raspberry Pi3 designed for use in industrial and commercial appliances. Its small form factor is the perfect candidate for a handheld. Although there are many homemade and commercial handhelds available that contain the full size RPi3 board, they tend to be very chunky and can have a somewhat “made in the garage” feel to them. We’re definitely not spoiled for choice when it comes to Compute Module handhelds, although I have covered two on this blog previously in the form of the FreePlay CM3 and Creoqode’s Lyra.
The Raspberry Pi Compute Modules have never gotten much love from manufacturers of obscure handhelds. In many ways they’re the perfect candidate for driving these things – the software is already there, the developer community is large and active and best yet, it’s almost guaranteed that a substantial hardware improvement will be released once every few years.
Pix Portable aka Gameberry Retropie The Pix Portable aka Gameberry Retropie (take your pick) is available on Aliexpress and comes in four price tiers depending on what exactly you want. For most people the choice will be the kit, which requires a little home soldering and some assembly. It comprises of a perspex shell and …
read postA Couple Of New DIY Style Raspberry Pi Handhelds From China
Despite not having been updated since 2015, Google Now is still my Launcher of choice because of the articles it recommends for me in the swipe left screen. Today’s mildly interesting read came in the form of a Kickstarter campaign for what are essentially a pair of custom circuit boards that fit inside of a …
read postBuild Your Own RPi Gameboy Advance With Freeplaytech’s Kits
Nope I’m not dead yet, I just got a bit bored with the stagnating pool of mediocre Android powered handhelds from China. Maybe I should be digging deeper to find the interesting stuff, but honestly I haven’t really had the inclination to do so recently. It’s a mixture of guilt for neglecting this place, and …