A game console is an electronic device that outputs a video signal or image to display a video game
Handheld consoles became popular during 4th generation of game consoles (early 90’s), with 8-bit devices like Nintendo Gameboy and Sega Game Gear.
There are modern retro handheld consoles that appeared during the 2010’s and 2020’s that wanted to keep the taste of these retro 8-bit video games.
This post features some retro handheld consoles in the 2020’s.
List of 2020-2025 Retro Handheld Consoles
2020’s retro handheld consoles:
- GameShell
- DragonBox Pyra
- Anbernic family
- Miyoo family
- Ayaneo family
- Game Kiddy family
- Retroid Pocket 2+
- Analogue Pocket
- Ayn Odin
- Evercade
- Super Pocket
- Arduboy
- Playdate
- Thumby
- microByte
- PicoPad
- uConsole
GameShell
GameShell was released in summer 2019. It uses a ClockworkPi chip. It is manufactured by Clockwork.
It is open hardware and opensource.
DragonBox Pyra
DragonBox Pyra, often called just Pyra, is developed by OpenPandora GmbH, a German manufacturer. It is in pre-order since 2016, and it was shipped to developers in 2020. Its price range from 330 to 400 €.
It is pending a release date as of 2025.
It seems there is no much presence of Pyra on social networks. The information about production progress can be found on YouTube channel and scattered in the official Pyra forum.
Its OS is Debian Linux.
It is the successor of Pandora, that was released in 2010 but it is now out of production.
OpenPandora YouTube Channel (shared with DragonBox Pyra)
Anbernic family
RG552 is developed by Chinese company Anbernic. It was released in 2022.
Its launch price was $226.99.
RG552 is the successor of RG351.
There are many other Anbernic products being released constantly.
Miyoo family
Miyoo Mini v2 is a handheld console running Linux that offered a 640×480 resolution screen with aspect ratio 4:3, in the same way as Gameboy Advanced.
Miyoo Mini Plus was released in 2023, and succeeded Miyoo Mini v2. It is a bit bigger than Miyoo Mini, including a larger screen.
Ayaneo family
Ayaneo Flip DS is inspired in Nintendo DS, with a double screen.
Ayaneo Flip KB is simillar to Flip DS but it has a keyboard instead a second screen.
Ayaneo Pocket DMG is inspired in Game Boy and similar consoles, and was first announced in 2024.
Game Kiddy family
Game Kiddy is a company building retro handheld consoles.
It released GKD Pro in 2021-2022 via Kickstarter crowdfunding, the GKD Mini in 2023 and has an active crowdfunding campaign in 2024 for the GDK Plus.
Analogue Pocket
Analogue Pocket is a FPGA-based handheld console to play Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advanced, Game Gear, Neo Geo Pocket, Neo Geo Pocket Color and Atari Lynx video games from both microSD and cartridges.
Unlike most modern handheld consoles, it is compatible with original cartridges from Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advanced. It has also adapters that allow it to play with Game Gear, Neo Geo Pocket, Neo Geo Pocket Color and Atari Lynx.
It uses FPGA instead of emulation.
It was released in 2021. Its launch price was 219.99 USD.
It is developed by American company Analogue.
Ayn Odin
Ayn Odin was released as a crowdfunding campaign. It was developed by Chinese company Ayn.
It was released in 2022.
Retroid Pocket 2+
https://www.goretroid.com/products/retroid-pocket-2-plus-handheld-retro-gaming-system
Retroid Pocket 2+ (RP2+) was released in 2020.
It is developed by Chinese GoRetroid.
Its OS is Android.
It was released in 2022 and its launch price was 99 $.
Evercade
Evercade is a handheld console manufactured by company Hyper Mega Tech.
It was released on May 2020.
Super Pocket
Super Pocket is a handheld console manufactured by company Hyper Mega Tech.
It was released on November 2023, succeeding Evercade.
The initial release price was 59 USD.
Arduboy
Arduboy is a handheld console built over the open source Arduino chip first announced in 2014. You can read this post about Arduboy.
Arduboy FX is a version that was announced in August 2020 and released in 2021, and comes with 200 FOSS games pre-installed.
Arduboy FX Special Edition is a version released in November 2023 that has over 300 FOSS games pre-installed.
Playdate
Playdate was released in 2022. Its launch price was 179 USD.
It is developed by Panic, based in Oregon, USA.
Among its singularities, there is that one of its controller is a crank (that it is really a gimmick, as many games can be played without it) and a game release system that reveals a new game weekly, with the first season of games included in the price of the console.
Thumby
Thumby was released in 2021.
microByte
microByte is an open-source retro handheld video game console. It was released in 2021, and funded in a crowdfunding campaign.
It is based on a ESP32 processor.
It was developed by Spanish developer Juan Flores.
PicoPad
PicoPad is an open-source retro video game console related using a Pico Pi, released in 2023.
It is developed by Czech company Pájeníčko s.r.o.
Lychee Pocket 4A
Lychee Pocket 4A is a RISC-V handheld console by Chinese company Sipeed.
You can read more about this console on this external post.
uConsole
uConsole is an open hardware and open source handheld console. It features a keyboard.
It was developed by Clockwork.
It is 64-bit.
It is open hardware and open source.
It was first released by 2024.
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