Low-cost portable Chinese consoles with the ability to play the classics of yesteryear have become very popular in recent times and being able to play the games of yesteryear from anywhere is something that is very attractive, especially if we talk about games that they have disappeared in time and have not had editions in more modern systems.
Emulators are one of the taboo pleasures in the PC world, the fact of being able to enjoy platform games that are no longer on the market is one of the greatest advantages of an open platform such as the PC. Obviously with the arrival of PostPC devices such as smartphones and tablets, a new type of hardware was born that has allowed the game emulators of yesteryear to be brought to this type of hardware.
This is where the portable Chinese consoles were born, which use the form factor of a classic console with integrated controls and come equipped with an operating system designed to be used directly as a portable console.
Retro GP430
The first of the Chinese portable consoles in our comparison is the Retro GP430, which stands out for being a console based on the Raspberry Pi CM-3 motherboard. It has the highest resolution screen of all thanks to its 4.3 inches with 800 x 480 pixels of resolution,
The size of its screen and the fact that it is based on a Raspberry Pi 3 may seem like two good business cards, but things start to go down when we see the quality of its finishes, especially the quality of its analog sticks are its most part. negative, in combination of the situation in which the crosshead is.
On the other hand, do not be fooled by the use of a Raspberry Pi 3, at this point we wonder why they have not used the Pi 4 that has greater processing capacity for emulation and is that the console can run some games of Nintendo64, but like most laptops in the comparison, it does not manage to emulate the classic Nintendo console well and if we talk about more powerful systems such as PSP and Dreamcast then we find that the console completely drowns.
Ambernic RG351P
The second of the Chinese portable consoles in our comparison is the most powerful of the Ambernic consoles on the market, which is equipped with a Rockchip RK3326 SoC, which it shares with the RK2020, all also spiced up with a screen with a resolution of 480 × 320 pixels, a specification that is also shared by the RK2020.
Compared to the RK2020, the advantage it has is that its controls are of higher quality than those of the RK2020 and that is that if there is something that Ambernic consoles have above the competition, it is greater care when implementing the controls.
Unlike the RG280M, the housing of the device is made of plastic, so despite the higher power of the processor we have a slightly worse finish than the RG280M that has the mental housing. Its weak point? It is the most expensive of the models that we have presented in this comparison.
Ambernic RG280M
The third of the Chinese portable consoles in our comparison is the small one of the Ambenic, the RG280M with its mental housing and which brings the Ingenic JZ4770 as SoC. It does not have the processing capacity of its older sister or the RK2020, based on the RK3326, but for us it is the best laptop in this comparison.
Its screen screen is 2.8 inches with a resolution of 320 x 240 pixels in 4: 3 format, which may seem to us to be a very low resolution for these times, but it is the resolution at which most games ran. of yesteryear so the resolution is not an impediment and is much more portable than the others. You can also play consoles of the power of the first SONY PlayStation without problems and do not think that the rest of the consoles in the comparison can go further.
The RG280M has two USB-C ports, one of them is used to charge the battery and the other gives the notebook OTG functionality. It also has two microSD slots, the first one stores the operating system and the emulators, while the second SD serves to store the ROMS, which means that if we update the operating system or add more emulators we will not lose ROMS.
As for the layout, unlike the RG351P, it lacks the second analog stick, but it does not result in a problem since most of the platforms it can emulate are those that do not require an analog stick on the right to be able to play with them.
RK2020
The fourth of the portable Chinese consoles in the comparison is the RK2020, which shares the interior with the RG351P but with a design in the controls like the RG280M by lacking the right analog stick.
It has a 3.5-inch screen with a resolution of 480 x 320 pixels, and is equipped with a Rockchip RK3326 SoC, which is the same as that of the RG351P, compared to which it loses due to the fact that the consoles of Ambernic have a much better thought-out button layout and it’s much more comfortable.
By the way, although the console is promoted that its processor can run games from consoles much more advanced than the first PlayStation such as Nintendo64, Dreamcast and even PSP. It only achieves this with certain games and do not expect to be able to run the most complex games of those consoles without problems on the console.
Retroid Pocket 2
The Retroid Pocket 2 is the most powerful of the consoles in this comparison, the reason is that it can emulate the entire Nintendo64 without problems, something that the rest of the consoles in the comparison cannot do perfectly.
It is equipped with a MediaTek MT6580 SoC and has a 640 × 480 pixel screen with a size of 3.5 inches, so this is the laptop with the best specifications of the comparison. The counterpart? The feel of its controls when using the console is far from perfect and unless you want a Chinese laptop to play N64 games it is not comfortable in continuous use, especially the horrendous right analog stick.
As for the operating system, it comes standard with Android and a series of emulators under that operating system and it is possible to configure the console to directly load Retroarch, but this complication takes points away from the Retroid Pocket 2, since the rest of Comparative consoles already come with the operating system designed to be used as a portable retro console from scratch.