Review: The Spectrum is a brilliant way to relive or discover an icon of British gaming history

videogameschronicle.com:

Speak to any British video game devotee of a certain vintage (usually mid-40s or older) about their gaming childhood and chances are home computers will come up at some point.

Long before the knuckle-dragging fanboy nonsense we have today, we had the real war, the one that really mattered, between the Sinclair ZX Spectrum and the Commodore 64.

Sure, there was the Amstrad CPC too, but that was more like one of the henchmen Bruce Lee would batter on the way to the real fight. For most players, it was the Speccy versus the C64, and blood was shed on many a playground over the conflict. Well, stern words, at least.

Vintage specialist Retro Games has already satiated one half of the divide with The C64 Mini and The C64, modern reproductions of Commodore’s seminal home computer (the latter was full-sized with a working keyboard and therefore infinitely better).

Now it’s time for Spectrum fans to get the same treatment, and the emphasis is very much on ‘treat’. Simply named The Spectrum, this modernised recreation of an iconic computer is a near-perfect way to relive childhood Speccy memories if you had them, or expand your retro knowledge if you didn’t.

The Spectrum grabs you by the lapels and bellows “NOSTALGIA” into your whimpering face the moment you take it out of the box. Other than the replacement of the word Sinclair with the word Retro, the device is a surprisingly faithful, authentic recreation of the ZX Spectrum 48K, the most immediately recognisable version of the Spectrum.

At least, that’s how it feels in your head. In reality it’s not exactly the same shape (the original was squashed a bit wider) but it’s so close that anyone who grew up with one will swear blind it’s the same thing without having them side-by-side for comparison.

One of the most crucial reasons for this is the one element that everyone remembers about the Spectrum, and the first thing they’ll invariably bring up when they mention it – the rubber keys. Rather than the hard plastic keys found on