Review: The Playdate is fun but its quirks may wind you up

videogameschronicle.com:

Apologies in advance, but allow us to get this word out of the way before this review begins: hipster.

Yes, it may be a little lazy to just throw that out there, but let’s face it, it’s likely what some people reading this may be thinking so we might as well just open with it.

After all, the Playdate is a small handheld with a black-and-white screen, delivers software in a strangely gimmicky way, is controlled with a quirky crank on the side of the unit, and was even made by a company from Portland, widely agreed to be the hipster capital of the world.

The only way the thing could be more hipster is if it also printed Polaroid photos that each had Zooey Deschanel superimposed onto them.

So, yes, if we had to describe the Playdate with only one word, that’s the first one that springs to mind. However, if we had more words to describe it – which, given that we have this lovely website here, we fortunately do – we’d also throw in inventive, charming and unusual… if a little flawed too.

Playdate is a small handheld. It’s roughly the same size as the top half of a Game Boy Advance SP, although it’s thinner and has a smaller screen.

This screen will likely be the best or worst feature of the Playdate, depending on your own personal tastes. Its black-and-white display uses Sharp’s Memory LCD technology, which essentially acts like an e-book reader but with a much quicker refresh rate.

This means battery life is significantly longer because, as with e-readers, the display remembers whether each pixel is on or off and keeps it in that state until it needs to be refreshed, rather than constantly refreshing it.

The screen only has a 400×240 resolution but the small 2.7” display means it looks pleasantly sharp. With optimal lighting (more