The Analogue Pocket is a device that has been available for a couple of years now. Despite this, it still has the vibe as being a new console for so many, as it’s not a console you can just pick up in any gaming store, or purchase on Amazon online.
For me, getting an Analogue Pocket as we kick off 2024 was the culmination of a lot of curiosity about the device combined with the right price on a second-hand system.
For regular viewers of the Geek Battle Gaming YouTube channel, you’ll know I often do hardware reviews and deep dives, and that I love to tangle with as many devices that focus on modern retro gaming as I can get my hands on…The Analogue Pocket ticks both boxes.
In this video, we’ll explore if the Pocket is great to have in 2024 and beyond, the accessories that are available for it like the Dock and the Game Gear adaptor, what controller you can use with it, emulation, performance of original carts and much more.
Whether you are like I was and am curious about getting an Analogue Pocket, or perhaps already have one, I hope my exploration of the console gives you insight into what you can get out of the little portable wonder, and will get you excited to do some high quality gaming on the go.
To start things off, let’s go over what the Analogue Pocket is as we also try to work out if it’s for you.
The system is a pocket games console that looks very much like the original Nintendo Game Boy. Design wise it’s a similar size to the OG Game Boy, but has a look that is slightly more like the Game Boy Pocket. The system isn’t as thick as the Game Boy, and the top half of the system where the screen is, is significantly thinner.
The screen is much larger than the original Game Boy and is for many one of the main focuses of the system. It’s 3.5 inch screen with a 1600 by 1440 pixels resolution. This is ten times that of the original Game Boy and oh boy, does this produce a good image. The true glory of this screen comes in seeing your original cartridges magically appear so much clearer than they ever did back in the day on original hardware. Th images are clean and clear and don’t have the ghosting issue which was a thing on the OG shades of green Game Boy.
The system also allows you to use a number of filters and display options to customise the experience in all kinds of wonderful ways. This allows you to choose if the screen has the look of the original Game Boy, the Game Boy Color, or the Advance. You can then choose to have filters that change the display to grayscale, mint, blue, green or purple. For original Game Boy games you can easily choose to make things look like they would on a Super Game Boy with some of the graphics getting a couple of colours added.
The screen is like the original Game Boy’s rather than the later released Game Boy Advance, so it does mean that GBA games will display with a black bar at the top and bottom of the screen as that was a more widescreen display.
The sound of the console is also crystal clear, and when turned up it actually is really loud. It’s good you have the option to turn things up that loud but can’t imagine many people have the Pocket on full volume very often. There is a built-in music maker, so although this isn’t something I have explored on the console yet, maybe the high volume level is to benefit this feature.
When you switch on the system it’s kinda underwhelming. You get the Analogue logo and then the logo for FPGA, but more on what that is and why you should care soon. Then you get the main menu, which is a black screen with white text. Now, with me having this at the start of 2024 things may be different than it would have been when it first launched, and I’m sure it will be at least slightly different in the future when there are more updates for the system. But as it is now, you get the options to play cartridge, check your library, openFPGA, memories, tools and settings. Let’s break down what each of these are.
Play cartridge is exactly what it says on the tin as they’d say on the old Ronseal adverts. Library shows a list of all the cartridges you’ve played on your Analogue Pocket. When you put a cart in and choose play cartridge you are first presented with some info on the game inserted, and you have the option to add a game to your library. This isn’t as exciting as you may imagine. No, it doesn’t let you rip the rom and then play it later. That would be an incredible feature, and it wouldn’t surprise me if someone didn’t devise a way for that to be done in the future on another console if this isn’t possible on the Analogue Pocket.
It’s nice that this feature lets you know when you added a game with the date and time, but I’d like to see it keep a record of how long you’ve played each cartridge game too.
OpenFPGA is where a lot of Analogue Pocket users will spend most if not all of their time with the system. In a feature that wasn’t present when the console first launched, it has since been added that users can develop cores for various home and handheld consoles.
As it is, the console I have has a large memory card with cores that will run various arcade games, the Amiga, Atari 2600, 7800, ColecoVision, Intellivision, Master System, Mega Drive, NES, Super Nintendo, PC Engine, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Game Gear, Supervision, Wonderswan, Neo Geo and more. This functionality makes the console an excellent portable console to have any and all your classic games on, but there are a couple of things to be aware of.
You currently can’t use save states on the roms loaded with the cores on all systems. As it is you can on Game Boy, Color, Advance and Game Gear and these are the same consoles you can use save states with by using cartridges. You can save by pressing the analogue button and up at the same time and it’ll either tell you the game was saved or tell you saved are not supported.
Save states come up from your memories. You can have up to 128 save states saved at any time.
You do have options to change filters, remap controls and other things like change to using square pixels which improves how some consoles are displayed when using the emulator cores.
Coming back to the FPGA thing, that stands for Field-programmable gate array, and basically what it means is that it’s a type of circuit that can be reprogrammed after it’s released. This means that tech boffins are able to tell the hardware that it’s various other consoles or devices and so FPGA devices can run much closer to other consoles that if you run old games on emulation.
And so, here’s the thing. Does this FPGA technology matter and make any real difference compared to if you just had one of those emulation handhelds that you’ll see all over Amazon and eBay? Things like the Anbernic consoles or the Miyoo Mini Plus? Or how about the Evercade? Well truthfully, no, not especially. If you have an emulation device and you’re playing Super Mario Land on it, the performance you get out of the Analogue pocket whether using your original cart or a rom is going to be pretty much the same as playing Super Mario Land on one of the cheap emulation devices. A NES game on the Evercade isn’t going to play any different broadly speaking than if you play it on the Pocket.
The difference is somewhat down to a couple of things. If you buy an Evercade cart, it will have a select number of games on it and these are officially licensed and so are supporting the rights holders to the older games that you want to play. Using original carts on the Analogue Pocket is going to be old second hand carts for the most part, so whilst officially licensed because they’re original carts, it won’t give anything new to the developers or license holders in 2024, but shouldn’t have to, as the original carts will have been paid for back in the day. In terms of emulation, the Analogue Pocket will perhaps give you a way to experience games of carts you have that no longer work, or a chance to play games where you’re unlikely to ever get a way to officially play them again. If I want to play the Game Boy WCW wrestling game, that is a safe bet of something that will never find its way onto Evercade or the Nintendo eshop.
As spoken about in my recent review of the Retron 5, 87% of all games that have ever been made are no longer available for purchase either as carts, discs or even downloads. The Pocket is a great device in terms of games preservation as it gives a way to play cartridges of certain systems, and a portable way to play games for many systems in a way that improves on how the games were ever originally playable.
The cost of the Analogue Pocket is high, and the accessories make it even more expensive. As a comparison, the Analogue Pocket costs more than you would pay for a Nintendo Switch, and because of the niche nature of the product, you can only get it directly from Analogue, or get it second hand, and with the cost of shipping, especially if you order it from outside the US, you can expect to pay a lot more and potentially have a wait time before you have it in your hands.
So, you have to question, if this the best option for you? That will depend what you want, and what your budget is. If you want to play original Game Boy carts this is a fantastic way to play them in great quality, but truthfully doesn’t give a performance of the games which I think noticeably makes it so much better than playing the games on emulation devices. Tetris will still be Tetris after all. You may want your original Pokémon cartridge with the original save, but otherwise I’d say for me at least, other devices will still give you the same games. Only certain games are available on the Evercade or Nintendo Switch, and I get that, but then that’s where the Steam Deck can give you all the games you could ever play on the Analogue Pocket and thousands more.
When you factor in the cartridge adaptors for Game Gear, Neo Geo Pocket, Atari Linx, and Turbo GrafX, and the Analogue Pocket Dock, the cost of this is in the range of the Steam Deck, which although is a different beast with a different form factor, it can play all the games the Pocket can plus PC games, and emulate tons of things beyond what the Pocket can. The Pocket can’t give you Sega Saturn, Dreamcast or PS2 games or beyond, but the Steam Deck most certainly can.
If you want to play original carts the Pocket will give you that, but in terms of emulation, as good as the Pocket is, it’s not so much better at what it can emulate to say it’s better than having a Steam Deck.
I have tried a few oddity carts on the console including my Game Boy Advance video cart of the movie Shrek. It does come up warning it’s not Game Boy Player compatible, but then loaded fine on the Analogue Pocket which was fun to see. With Netflix in my pocket on my iPhone I don’t imagine I’ll need this as the best method to watch Shrek, but was good to see it worked.
I also tried a pirated copy of Pokémon Gold which I got at a car boot sale in about the year 2000 and this was a surprise to see it work. I may make a separate video on this one day, but it was a badly translated version of Pocket Monsters Gold where all the Pokémon had different names compared to their UK names, so for me, for years I only knew the Gold/Silver generation of Pokémon by the wrong names. Also midway through the game you meet a Pokémon trainer who tells you to F off. This was my biggest clue that it was pirated and back in the day I had no way to capture this gameplay footage, but thanks to the Analogue Pocket I look forward to finally showing the world what I told them Pokémon had said to me when I was 14.
I also tried my Game Boy Camera and this works great on the Analogue Pocket and again using the pocket along with the Dock means I’m finally able to screenshot and get high quality images of photos I took twenty years ago.
But we’ve touched on the adaptors and the dock, so now let’s talk about those.
The dock is a great device to purchase with the Pocket, but boy is it expensive. I spent around £30 to get a dock for my Steam Deck which lets me connect it to an HDMI, and add usb controllers, keyboard, memory cards etc, but if you want the same for the Analogue Pocket you can expect to pay around £150. You see, the dock has its own FPGA tech built in and isn’t just ports to connect to HDMI and USB like the Steam Deck is. The Nintendo Switch dock may be similar in having some functionality in that boosts performance, but think the Analogue Pocket takes this even further. So, unfortunately, no, you can’t just get a USB type C Steam Deck dock and then play Analogue Pocket on your TV, and there are also aren’t any third party options.
For me, as someone who wanted to use the Pocket to capture gameplay footage, the dock became a necessary evil, which is how I viewed it with the cost considered. With the dock you can use a variety of controllers and for me I use my Switch Pro controller with it primarily, but have also connected my PS4 and PS5 gamepads as well as my Xbox One controller. You can also connect Wiimotes, Switch Joycons and a bunch of the 8BitDo controllers that are available. The dock is weighty, but truthfully when I’ve connected a controller to it via USB I do feel a bit nervous that I’ll tug and tip the Analogue Pocket out of the dock. It just sits in it and looks nice on display this way, but doesn’t feel as snug and secure as a Switch in a Switch Dock.
I have a Game Gear adaptor so I can use my original Game Gear carts on the Pocket and this works fine. Unlock when you put a Game Boy game into the console, the Game Gear games combined with the adaptor will jut out of the top of the console which is a shame.
I found most of the games worked great, although I did find I had to reinsert a couple of games a few times. I also experienced this with Game Boy games, but when it comes to using adaptors and old games there are more issues with knowing if the problem is with the adaptor, the console or the game cartridges. I had the exact same thing happen in my review of the Retron 5 with the Game Gear adaptor. I guess we’re all just reaching the stage where some carts may start to fail if they’re twenty-five or thirty years old. This is another reason why it’s so important that new hardware like those made by Analogue are created to give new ways to play original carts. A similar solution also is needed for the games themselves beyond just emulation.
I don’t yet have the adaptors for the Atari Lynx, Turbo GrafX and Neo Geo Pocket, but plan to pick them up in due course. Currently, they’re listed on the Analogue website as a set of three which I don’t mind, but as I’ve never had an original PC Engine/Turbo GrafX I actually don’t have any Hue card games for that console to use on the adaptor even if I did have it. Neo Geo Pocket and Lynx I do, so this will also be a way for me to get into getting some PC Engine games without having to get original hardware, or even getting Analogue’s new Analogue Duo which plays original PC Engine Hue Cards and CDs.
The console is as pocketable as the original Game Boy is, and with it’s thinner form factor, is actually more pocketable, but whilst you’d usually pocket an old Game Boy console with a cart in, you probably won’t do so if you have a Game Gear adaptor and game in. Truthfully, as most of the Game Boy and Game Boy Color carts will stick out without being held in by plastic as much as on old systems you probably are better off carrying the Pocket in a case.
I’m ok with the buttons on the Pocket, and get that they are all left blank as various systems will have different button names and you can remap things, but I would have preferred if they had been labelled or colour coded. I think I’d have also preferred larger Start and select buttons and a slightly separately placed Analogue button for ease of reach. Call me old fashioned, but I’d have also preferred a volume dial rather than buttons, and an actual switch for the power rather than the button which is very close to the volume buttons. I wish there was also a cover over the SD card slot as I do feel like I’m going to accidentally press on the micro SD card and shoot it across the room at some point.
The console is and has been available in various colours. I would have liked the glow in the dark one most of all, but alas as I got mine second hand, I am stuck with a white Pocket that has a circuit board looking sticker design on it. I’m in two minds as to if I like this look or not, but am not sure if I can remove it without it leaving horrible stickiness, so will leave things as they are for now.
I’ve never quite understood why some people will buy multiple colour variants of the same console, but each to their own. It is just with the Analogue Pocket that I know that is a particularly expense collection to build up. Mine came with a screen protector already on and if you don’t have one I’d suggest you get one as the screen is the highlight of the console for many people and is worth protecting. Likewise, I’d suggest getting a carry case as I wouldn’t risk this just in a bag or a pocket for fear of damage.
So, we now reach the important question. Is the Analogue Pocket worth getting in 2024 and beyond, or is it just a bundle of hype?
Make no mistake…it definitely is a lot of hype. It’s main selling point to me is a new and improved way to experience my original Game Boy and Game Gear cartridges, but whilst I’m happy to have this, I do question how much I was planning to revisit a lot of these games these days anyway. I’m not sure it was enough to justify the cost of the Analogue Pocket.
For most people I’m certain there are emulation based handhelds which are much cheaper and available on Amazon and eBay that will scratch whatever itch you have to play Game Boy games, and there are a selection of these games available on the Nintendo Switch Online service, as well as that had been available on the 3DS. Unfortunately unless you already have what you want on the 3DS they aren’t available there anymore with the close of the Nintendo 3DS and Wii U eShops.
If you’re in the market for the nostalgia, and want to play carts, then get a Pocket if you can afford it and are interested in collecting. If you want the form factor and great screen, this is also a great choice even if you are going to take advantage primarily of the cores and roms on the system. For others who just want to play some handheld and retro home console games on the go, there are other options I’d suggest you look to first. The Anbernic range of handhelds either come in vertical Game Boy form or in horizontal GBA/PSP layouts and they may or may not have thumb sticks. If they do, it usually means you’ll have more consoles that can be emulated on them, so if you want N64, Dreamcast, and PlayStation 1, then look to these rather than the Analogue Pocket.
If you want to just spend your money once and not have multiple devices then you should consider the Steam Deck or some of the other handheld PCs. The Steam Deck can give me all the games I can play on the Analogue Pocket and infinitely more, but I get that isn’t always the point. Some will want the smaller system, the vertical orientation and there is something to be said about having too much choice. If you have a Steam Deck or Switch you are probably more likely to play newer games, but having a device like the Analogue Pocket does help take you back in time to an era where you only had as many games as you had the carts to play, and you appreciated the graphics and controls and game design of a simpler time.
If you can afford it and can get one, I’d say the Analogue Pocket is an excellent device, but it’s certainly a premium device and one I’d only say to get if you’re sure you are interested to go back and spend time with the classic eras of gaming.
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