Tonight I sat down with my TSP that arrived earlier today and played around with it for the the first time to get a sense for how/if I liked...
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The original was posted on /r/sbcgaming by /u/Njordh on 2024-09-26 06:28:55+00:00.

Tonight I sat down with my TSP that arrived earlier today and played around with it for the the first time to get a sense for how/if I liked it.

Keep in mind that;

- this is my very first retro handheld ever - heck it’s practically my FIRST handheld,

- I bought it w/ pre-installed CrossMix and 128GB of games/emulators.

- I have very little to no experience with Nintendo, GameBoy, etc systems - I just wanted to try out the Trimui as I like the idea of a handheld, dedicated machine and I’m tired of modern games and constant IAPs.

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THE START

First, I did some initial housekeeping items that all went well;

  • I backed up the SD card onto my computer (didn’t have a spare microSD handy),

  • Calibrated the joysticks

  • Selected a Theme that didn’t have the loud clicks when moving around,

  • Connected to WiFi (checked for OTA updates but I was all good apparently).

    • The build quality feels solid. No issues with unresponsive or loose buttons.

(I do worry a little bit about how long the manual joysticks will last for though as they seem like the things that could break first).

Then, I proceeded to try out the UX and what this device is really for - playing some games.

Let’s break down my experience into Good, Bad and ‘Ugly’.

I also added two sections for;

  • ‘It’s not you - It’s me’ where I listed my open questions and things that I ‘blame’ myself more for than the device itself’,
  • ‘Things I still need to try’.

THE GOOD

I rather like the UX. Tabbed structure on top and pretty easy and intuitive to scroll through emulators and games. No lag or hickups.

Found a lot of emulators of systems that I recognized and want to dive deeper into.

Search worked well and adding games to ‘Favorites’ was easy and will be really helpful.

Audio was not bad at all. Easy to adjust the volume up and down.

The charge/battery seems pretty good. After playing around for quite a bit the charge is still at 80%

Nice formfactor - comfortable to hold.

* Great screen. Good size and bright.

GAMES, of course I tried out some games and here’s what I experienced from the first few I tried;

* Doom 3: After setting everything to low the game runs really, really well. I’m quite impressed. Added it to my favorite folder right away. Saving takes a while though.

* Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain: Oh man, was this game always this pixelated? Lol. You can remap the keys but I don’t think I’ll return to it.

* Baldur’s Gate - Dark Alliance: Loved this experience. The keys used were intuitive and everything felt more natural. Is it possible that the Trimui excels at GBA games?

* Crisis Core - FF VII: Great graphics and plays well. But again, it feels like there is no consistency in how keys are mapped across emulators which is sort of frustrating.

THE BAD

Well, maybe it’s more ‘could be better’ than BAD, but here goes;

  • I found that trying to change the volume w/ Select+L/R in some games didn’t work and instead caused all sort of things to happen (depending on the game).

    • The device does seem to get a bit warm after some use.
    • It seems that for some games I’d like to use Max Ratio and for some Pixel Perfect but switching back and forth is a bit of a pain if you hop between games.

  • When I search for games I often end up with what appears to be duplicates shown to the right but there is no way to get more information about the search result items (what region, system etc). Wish there was a ‘show details’ option.

  • Keys are not consistently defined/mapped across games/emulators. I’m probably asking for too much but it does feel tiresome to spend 5-10 mins at the beginning of every game to figure out what key does what.

THE UGLY

  • I really only have one issue so far and that is that the right LED light is constantly flickering. I had to turn off the LEDs in the end.

A bit of a bummer. Have contacted the seller.

“IT’S NOT YOU - IT’S ME”

I can’t but to feel that the frustration in how keys are not mapped consistently across emulators (sometimes B means ‘action’/fire in one game…but in the next it’s another key - is maybe, just maybe me and not the game system.

“THINGS I STILL NEED TO TRY”

  • Charge the device. How long does it take.
  • Install a game on it. There are 2-3 games not on it that I am dying to see if I can add and if they will play. Need to learn how to do that though.

INITIAL RATING/IMPRESSION AFTER 5 HOURS WITH THE TSP (from a guy with little to no handheld experience):

I’m pretty impressed by the build quality, screen and performance.

I’d give the device a solid 7/10 based on these few hours of use but again, super subjective of course.

I can see my future use going one of two ways - in a week I’m bored and disappointed/frustrated and the TSP ends up in a drawer and never gets used again, OR - I put in the needed time to learn controls and download the 2-3 games I know I’d love and it becomes a travel/entertainment device used at least weekly.

We will see.