I just play Steam Deck and write about gaming + Linux a lot

  • 71 Posts
  • 192 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: February 26th, 2025

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  • Its a review. My honest review. I’m not paid to write on my friend’s site, nor do we run a single ad on there. Anbernic don’t have any say in what I write, and if I gave up my reputation as a writer for a device this cheap, I’d be an idiot.

    I love the device, but if I loathed it I’d still share it here. I post all of my articles here.

    Check my post history, if you still think I’m some deep cover ad agent then you can have my account, I can’t even be bothered with these insinuation today.

    One little edit:

    I spent a solid 18 months covering Steam Deck news. I did so with a weekly news post (elsewhere, then actually here on Lemmy after I’d given it up for a long time), I’d cover what was happening, befriended devs to share their news and what was coming up, and built up a nice little community around that.

    From there I started to interview these developers, because no one did so before I did. That sounds a bit tickets-on-myself-y, but it is just true. I wanted the developers of projects like Heroic, Lutris, EmuDeck, Decky Loader, Junk Store and RetroDECK to be able to share their side of things, since most of the time people tend to forget who is behind the project or program they know, use and love. Some of my articles and interviews were posted on big sites, some on smaller sites, a couple on Gaming on Linux and SDHQ and so on.

    From there I made friends with Gardiner Bryant, who is now one of my closest friends. I share on his site exclusively now, because I LOVE gaming. I’m not paid for my articles (nor do I want to be), I just write because I love to. After picking up retro handhelds for awhile, some of those companies got in touch with me, asking if I’d like to review their devices. I said yes, but that I’d do so in accordance with our ethics standards we have on the site

    If you think I’d risk all of that (literally years of writing content just on social media, then on sites, now with my friend Gardiner) for one little handheld? You’d be wrong. I just hate how this kind of shit gets thrown out as an offhand comment, it is so dirty and insulting.

    No, this isn’t an ad.


  • It definitely isn’t Corning who are covering the top of this one. It just ‘feels’ the same as my phone screens, but I’m not actually sure what the surface is! Someone else asked me to check, so I’ve asked my friend at Anbernic (will update here if I remember!). All I can say for sure now is that it has the exact same feel as all my phones do.

    I’m like you though, in that I’ll be very interested in how this looks after say 6 months of use. It does come with a screen protector, and the soft case it has will protect it in transit.




  • I do love the Analogue Pocket’s philosophy and design, but:

    Analogue Pocket which seems to do everything this does, and a little bit more

    The Rotate runs Android. Which is a bonus to some, and a caveat to others. But it is infinitely more powerful as a retro handheld than the AP! The 'Pocket can’t run systems from the 32-bit era or later, while this can emulate a whole lot (with varying degrees of success)

    I just think wanted to address “…everything this does, and a little bit more…” for anyone coming across this in the future!



  • As for PS2 emulation, there are SO many devices which run it. These days the systems which are pushing the envelope on the retro handhelds are things like:

    • PC gaming (Steam, GOG, Epic and so on) which is 100% super doable and impressive on Android.
    • PS3 which is just really starting out, not fantastic but the games which do play, do so great.
    • Switch! Super, super, super impressive on handhelds. Eden is the one emulator doing the hard work these days in my eyes. There’s also Ryubing (made by one of the original Ryujinx devs), but Eden is my pick.
    • Wii U (a rather immature emulator, just getting started on Android).

    It is a deep, deep world out there, with varying costs. But if you’re looking for PS2 games, upscaled and on the go in a tiny handheld? There is so many to choose from now!