5 Reasons Retro Gaming Handhelds Are Better Than a Phone App
I love game emulators on my smartphone, and it's great that Apple is finally allowing emulators like Delta on iPhone and iPad. However, if you want to play emulated games on the go, you might want to make room in your pocket for a dedicated emulator handheld. Here's why.
Physical Controls and Form Factor
Touch screens can be great for emulated games. I love playing RPGs like Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy on my smartphone when I'm waiting in a government building or otherwise, somehow, forgot to bring any of my handheld devices with me, but as soon as you need to play an action game, things fall apart.
Now, modern smartphones happily work with most modern game controllers, and there are accessories like the Backbone or Kishi that will turn your phone into a pseudo-handheld console, but it's all a bit of a hassle. My Anbernic RG353VS and other consoles like it, however, offer a single unified design with everything you need. The controls, the screen, the speakers, everything is ready to go within a second of turning the device on.
Despite the screen being much smaller than my phone's, I think the smaller screens might actually look better. There's no scaling required, and the smaller size makes everything look crisp.
Longer Battery Life
Despite their large batteries, if you use a modern phone for retro emulation, you'll find that the percentage meter runs down rather quickly. The games might be rather basic, but emulation of even relatively old video game systems still uses a fair amount of CPU power. That's not including the power draw of the screen being on for long stretches of time!
A modern emulation handheld can often provide you with all-day gaming thanks to smaller screens, low-power CPUs, a large battery relative to the rest of the device, and no additional jobs like internet communications or Bluetooth to eat up those precious Watts.
No Battery Anxiety
On a related note—there's no battery anxiety with a dedicated handheld. The worst that
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