Hot off the press comes another handheld from the makers of the PocketGo series, the PocketGo SN30. If the SN30 name seems familiar, it’s because there’s a line of controllers from 8BitDo with the same name. Word is that the designer of those controllers was also involved in the design of this handheld.
I’ve known about this handheld for a while now, but until today I hadn’t seen the final renders and videos of it in action. The specs of the PocketGo SN30 are a little different to other recent handhelds too. Let’s have a look at what we know so far.
POCKETGO SN30 SPECS
Whilst the final specs are still unconfirmed, it is probable that the SN30 will be powered by an AllWinner A33 (aka R16). In fact the prototype units are running on this CPU already, and is the same chip found in the NES Classic. The A33 is an efficient ARM Cortex-A7 chip from 2014 with four 1.2Ghz cores and a Mali400 MP2 GPU. Whilst this chip is leaps and bounds faster than the JZ4770 found in the RG350 and its kin, I believe it doesn’t perform quite as well as the RK3326 in handhelds such as the RG351P. The device is currently configured with 512MB of RAM.
We don’t have confirmation on the LCD yet, but from the renders it looks to be 3″ or 3.5″. Resolution is yet unknown.
The PocketGo SN30 handheld runs an OS we haven’t seen before, or so I’ve been told. Apparently it’s a proprietary OS designed to be as simple to use as possible for the end user. I am sceptical that the OS is brand new, I’m sure it’ll turn out to be a fancy front end on something we’re already aware of. I’ll try to confirm and update with more info later.
For anyone not keen on EmuELEC or OpenDingux, this handheld might be for you. You can apparently easily load ROMs to the device either by sticking the SD card in to your PC, or by connecting the device with a USB cable. No special software is required to access the contents of the SD card, it is read natively by Windows. I guess this either means there’s an NTFS partition on the card, or the OS has been built with this in mind. There is also what looks to be a single settings menu with apparently unifies all settings throughout the device.
POCKETGO SN30 CONTROLS
Stacked shoulder buttons are something that people have been asking for a long while. Just like the SN30 controller on which it is based, you can see that the L2/R2 buttons sit neatly underneath L1/R1.
This is a really nice design, although it does seem that the secondary buttons are a little wobbly on the prototype video. Hopefully this will be remedied before mass production.
The front of the device contains a SNES like D-Pad, ABXY and Start/Select buttons. The single analog stick on the left might raise some eyebrows, as the current trend seems to be for two. Up on top there’s a USB-C charge and data port, a digital volume rocker and a Power button. The bottom of the unit houses the microSD card, a headphone socket and what looks like three LEDs.
EMULATORS ON THE POCKETGO SN30
Confirmed systems/emulators on the stock system include:
- NES
- SNES
- GBA
- GB
- GBC
- PS1
- PSP
- Master System
- Mega Drive (Genesis)
- Dreamcast
- Neo Geo
- MAME
The video also shows N64, although this wasn’t mentioned. Whether it’s in testing, or they simply forgot to mention it I’m not sure.
BUT IS IT MADE BY MIYOO?
Yes. The Miyoo factory doesn’t have the best track record, but supposedly things have been done differently this time. The proof will be in the pudding as they say, but I am open minded. I will hopefully be getting my hands on a PocketGo SN30 handheld in the next few weeks and will share my honest opinions then.
ALTERNATIVE OPERATING SYSTEMS?
You might be aware that there are a lot of AllWinner A33 devices (not handhelds) already available with Android running on them. The manufacturer is considering the possibility of adding more RAM and giving the option to run Android too, though it may be limited to an older version. The current configuration is 512MB RAM, but it may be possible to bump it to 2GB at an extra cost. With that in mind, would you be interested in running Android on this handheld? It would likely mean a bump in price to accommodate more RAM.
The results of this poll will probably have no effect whatsoever on what the factory will actually do. It’s just for fun. We also don’t know what the RRP will be, but you can expect it to be inline with other similar offerings.
The PocketGO SN30 handheld will probably be available to order at retromimi.com in the coming weeks. I’ll update this post with more info as it emerges.
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