1 00:00:01,004 --> 00:00:02,627 - It's "Retro Time". 2 00:00:04,150 --> 00:00:11,430 And I dropped it. (man laughs) This here is an AGS one-on-one Game Boy Advance SP. 3 00:00:11,430 --> 00:00:15,250 Now why am I showing you a Game Boy Advance? The reason I'm showing it to you 4 00:00:15,250 --> 00:00:19,410 is because it has a similar form factor to what we are going to be looking at. 5 00:00:19,410 --> 00:00:23,330 What we're looking at is also running the same cartridges. 6 00:00:23,330 --> 00:00:27,446 That was still on, I think. No, it wasn't. 7 00:00:27,446 --> 00:00:31,890 Great. (man laughs) This is the Analog Pocket. 8 00:00:31,890 --> 00:00:34,980 They're similar in concept to the MiSTer we just looked at 9 00:00:34,980 --> 00:00:38,610 and like everything else they've made, it's using an FPGA. 10 00:00:38,610 --> 00:00:43,820 And that's why this is so interesting to me because they're not efficient chips. 11 00:00:43,820 --> 00:00:46,960 Not at all. They're very good at what they do. They're versatile. 12 00:00:46,960 --> 00:00:50,220 There's not a whole lot on here except for a nice glowing green sticker on the bact 13 00:00:50,220 --> 00:00:54,620 that says Analog Pocket Console black USB-C cable, which I guess is just the package contents. 14 00:00:54,620 --> 00:00:58,730 So, let's get it out of here and see what it looks like. I've been waiting so long for this. 15 00:00:58,730 --> 00:01:02,250 They announced this console years ago, 16 00:01:02,250 --> 00:01:07,250 before short-circuit existed and it looks fantastic. 17 00:01:08,070 --> 00:01:14,170 That matte finish along with the glossy screen, you can kinda see that there's a bezel around the screen 18 00:01:14,170 --> 00:01:18,130 and it's a little bit chunkier. This is the GBA SP and it's just closed here 19 00:01:18,130 --> 00:01:21,763 and it's about the same thickness. Actually almost exactly. 20 00:01:21,763 --> 00:01:25,260 The GBA is a little bit thicker. It's not unwieldy or anything. 21 00:01:25,260 --> 00:01:29,250 In fact, it feels really nice in the hand. Oh, I've got a banana for scale. 22 00:01:29,250 --> 00:01:34,481 Of course. Ah, now we can tell that... 23 00:01:34,481 --> 00:01:37,760 - [Man] Nothing. - Now the buttons, on the original GBA SP 24 00:01:37,760 --> 00:01:39,543 they're kinda cliquey. You can... 25 00:01:40,780 --> 00:01:44,140 Yeah, this one's kinda well used. I don't think the buttons are new, but they're clicky. 26 00:01:44,140 --> 00:01:47,970 They click in. These buttons are more like, what you'd get on a Super Nintendo controller. 27 00:01:47,970 --> 00:01:52,400 They've got rubber membranes. So, they've got smoother actuation 28 00:01:52,400 --> 00:01:55,570 as opposed to these just click, click, 29 00:01:55,570 --> 00:01:59,500 which I personally prefer. The only thing that has touch switches that I can see 30 00:01:59,500 --> 00:02:02,750 are the shoulder buttons and probably the start and select an analog buttons. 31 00:02:02,750 --> 00:02:06,360 Yes, those are touch switches as well. It doesn't look through the battery bay opens up at all. 32 00:02:06,360 --> 00:02:10,540 So this is a fixed lithium-ion battery. It looks like we've got a power button here 33 00:02:10,540 --> 00:02:14,960 plus add/minus volume. Speaker on that side and another speaker on this side. 34 00:02:14,960 --> 00:02:19,370 So we've got stereo speakers. USB type C, headphone Jack 35 00:02:19,370 --> 00:02:22,430 and a link cable port. 36 00:02:22,430 --> 00:02:26,470 The same link cable port. We'll be testing that later. 37 00:02:26,470 --> 00:02:29,930 And by default it takes Game Boy style cartridges. 38 00:02:29,930 --> 00:02:35,280 So Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Color and it has cores for all of those. 39 00:02:35,280 --> 00:02:40,560 It also has cores for the second Game Gear, the Neo Geo Pocket and the Atari Lynx 40 00:02:40,560 --> 00:02:44,390 which is actually very rare. I've seen a Lynx once in person. 41 00:02:44,390 --> 00:02:49,900 In this case, this is a Game Boy Advanced cartridge. It's an Everdrive GBA. It's got one of these nice little micro SD cards in it 42 00:02:49,900 --> 00:02:54,200 with games. These actually can put extra strain on these older pieces of hardware. 43 00:02:54,200 --> 00:02:57,570 So it's actually kind of a good thing that I've got it plugged into something 44 00:02:57,570 --> 00:03:01,180 that's a little bit more robust. It is a little strange 45 00:03:01,180 --> 00:03:04,620 to see the Game Boy Advanced Character just kind of hanging out back here 46 00:03:04,620 --> 00:03:09,620 with a big gap there, but when your finger touches it, 47 00:03:09,830 --> 00:03:12,900 when you're holding the shoulder buttons, 48 00:03:12,900 --> 00:03:16,120 it's a little weird. I could see that being a little bit annoying. 49 00:03:16,120 --> 00:03:20,940 If you have the dock, you probably don't have that problem. And also I think it has Bluetooth support built in, 50 00:03:20,940 --> 00:03:25,730 so you could in theory, pair an 8BitDo controller or something. 51 00:03:25,730 --> 00:03:31,950 Although, there's no stand or anything, So that would just be bad. 52 00:03:31,950 --> 00:03:37,360 The screen is actually supposed to be really good. It's exactly 10 times the resolution 53 00:03:37,360 --> 00:03:41,360 of the original Game Boy. Which means that not only is it high resolution, 54 00:03:41,360 --> 00:03:45,910 but it's a straight one-to-one scale. It's not going to be interpreted in any way. 55 00:03:45,910 --> 00:03:49,860 It's just gonna be. So, that's a thing that I'm looking forward to seeing. 56 00:03:49,860 --> 00:03:53,100 But first, I need to talk to you about our sponsor, Vessi. 57 00:03:53,100 --> 00:03:58,990 Vessi Footwear is known for being lightweight, easy to pack, comfortable and most importantly, waterproof. 58 00:03:58,990 --> 00:04:03,540 And in order to keep you moving, Vessi designed their new everyday move shoes. 59 00:04:03,540 --> 00:04:07,840 With enhanced breathability and added support, this style is perfect for the adventurous 60 00:04:07,840 --> 00:04:12,560 or for those looking for something sportier. Featuring a pull tab to take them off and put them back on 61 00:04:12,560 --> 00:04:16,910 these vegan suede lace cages, extra mid-sole cushioning 62 00:04:16,910 --> 00:04:20,680 and the same waterproof diamond tech technology, you'll wanna wear them everywhere. 63 00:04:20,680 --> 00:04:27,510 Keep your feet dry and save $25 with our offer code shortcircuit at Vessi.com/ShortCircuit. 64 00:04:27,510 --> 00:04:31,430 All right, actually I was going to turn it on, but first there's some extra stuff in the box 65 00:04:31,430 --> 00:04:35,250 that I realized I hadn't talked about. So there's the USB type C cable 66 00:04:35,250 --> 00:04:39,430 wrapped in this rather Apple-like cardboard wrapping that I approve of. 67 00:04:39,430 --> 00:04:44,200 A USB type C to C cable is also included. Although I don't see a charger in here 68 00:04:44,200 --> 00:04:48,480 which may or may not be a problem for you. I mean, I'm ambivalent towards it. 69 00:04:48,480 --> 00:04:52,180 I can't get this out, whatever it is. (man laughs) Ah, here we go. 70 00:04:52,180 --> 00:04:56,711 Okay. - [Man] Are these stickers? Ooh. - FPGA. Let's just put that right there. 71 00:04:56,711 --> 00:05:00,523 - [Man] Got them. - Yeah, got them. (man laughs) Let's see. 72 00:05:00,523 --> 00:05:05,260 Analog Pocket quick-start guide for more information. Clean your game cartridges thoroughly before you use. 73 00:05:05,260 --> 00:05:09,090 A lot of old cartridges are real dirty. It's probably got some corrosion on it 74 00:05:09,090 --> 00:05:12,590 and that can kinda spread to other contexts that it touches 75 00:05:12,590 --> 00:05:16,080 so you should probably clean your cartridges before you try. - [Man] Like blowing it. 76 00:05:16,080 --> 00:05:19,760 - Spit on it. Let's power it on and see what happens. 77 00:05:19,760 --> 00:05:22,880 This is not an OLED screen by the way. This is a IPS LCD. 78 00:05:22,880 --> 00:05:26,640 It looks like it's got a tutorial. You know what? Let's do it. 79 00:05:26,640 --> 00:05:29,800 Let's let's do this together. Press this button to continue, press this button to go back. 80 00:05:29,800 --> 00:05:33,620 Well, okay, let's go back. They lied. 81 00:05:33,620 --> 00:05:38,080 Press Analog for menu, but it didn't do anything. This is a bad tutorial, you guys. 82 00:05:38,080 --> 00:05:41,853 Hold Analog and press left or right to cycle original display modes. Okay. 83 00:05:41,853 --> 00:05:45,710 So LCD filters as well as different color palettes. 84 00:05:45,710 --> 00:05:50,010 Oh my God, it's got an end user license agreement and it's not properly centered. 85 00:05:50,010 --> 00:05:53,840 Come on. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah blah. 86 00:05:53,840 --> 00:05:57,407 Oh my God it's huge. - [Man] That's what she said. 87 00:05:57,407 --> 00:06:00,620 - Oh, (beep) they've got a class action waiver in here. (man laughs) 88 00:06:00,620 --> 00:06:03,730 So it's got a bunch of systems. Game Gear is listed here 89 00:06:03,730 --> 00:06:07,700 even though Lynx should also be listed here and Neo Geo Pocket. I'm not sure. 90 00:06:07,700 --> 00:06:10,700 There's a couple of different things that are built into this. So there's Nanoloop. 91 00:06:10,700 --> 00:06:14,690 That's a digital audio workstation for basically GBA music. 92 00:06:14,690 --> 00:06:19,950 So you can hook up to your computer and basically use it for sequencing. 93 00:06:19,950 --> 00:06:25,820 That's pretty cool. Settings. So we can change all of the different things 94 00:06:25,820 --> 00:06:30,530 for all the different hardware. Which is actually quite good because the Game Boy and Game Boy Advance 95 00:06:30,530 --> 00:06:33,840 had very different screens. And even the Game Boy color had a pretty different screen 96 00:06:33,840 --> 00:06:37,510 to either of those as well. And you can set the control so you can mirror 97 00:06:37,510 --> 00:06:41,580 B and A to Y and X. So B and A is right here. I think Y and X are right here. 98 00:06:41,580 --> 00:06:45,313 Wait, no that doesn't make any sense. Okay. 99 00:06:45,313 --> 00:06:49,540 I was hoping that the Game Boy Advance section would allow you to map the shoulder buttons 100 00:06:49,540 --> 00:06:52,780 to these face buttons that are here, but that's apparently not a thing. 101 00:06:52,780 --> 00:06:57,400 There are some games that I prefer that with like "Castlevania: Circle of the Moon" comes to mind 102 00:06:57,400 --> 00:07:01,570 where it's actually, I think better with four face buttons. 103 00:07:01,570 --> 00:07:06,400 If I had an SD card with any kind of user made content, 104 00:07:06,400 --> 00:07:13,140 I could probably go into the library here. But the library will not support things like Game Boy ROMs. 105 00:07:13,140 --> 00:07:18,140 They're very explicitly not using this for piracy. 106 00:07:18,640 --> 00:07:21,700 I literally have one of the games we're gonna be playing right here. 107 00:07:21,700 --> 00:07:25,780 And the reason I have that is because I'm gonna use 108 00:07:25,780 --> 00:07:29,150 a link cable to see if I can get multiplayer going on this. 109 00:07:29,150 --> 00:07:32,840 Yeah, that's a pretty bright screen. It's a little squished. 110 00:07:32,840 --> 00:07:37,600 I think the Game Boy Advance did have a different aspect ratio to the standard Game Boy. 111 00:07:37,600 --> 00:07:42,230 Okay. So analog GBA, that's just pixel scaling, nearest neighbor. 112 00:07:42,230 --> 00:07:45,960 Yeah, that's nearest neighbor. It's sharp. Hit right once, you got a original GBA LCD. 113 00:07:45,960 --> 00:07:51,370 It's got an LCD filter on there that it makes it look pretty decent. 114 00:07:51,370 --> 00:07:54,480 It's not amazing. I don't think it's perfectly accurate. 115 00:07:54,480 --> 00:08:00,150 I don't know, it might be. No, it is. The next over is originally Game Boy Advance SP one-on-one. 116 00:08:00,150 --> 00:08:03,284 Oh, I just happened to have one of these right here. 117 00:08:03,284 --> 00:08:07,960 That's all the modes. Oh, that's a little disappointing. 118 00:08:07,960 --> 00:08:12,090 But I guess for the Game Boy advance you're not gonna want that many different modes anyway. 119 00:08:13,350 --> 00:08:16,658 Oh, that's loud. (game music) 120 00:08:21,920 --> 00:08:25,950 I was hearing clipping. I'm not sure if it's the volume. 121 00:08:25,950 --> 00:08:29,180 Instruments aren't amazing sounding in "Sonic Advance". 122 00:08:29,180 --> 00:08:33,040 Let's go to the sound test here. (game music) 123 00:08:33,040 --> 00:08:36,223 Let's try "Sonic Advance" on the original Game Boy Advance. 124 00:08:37,120 --> 00:08:41,013 Obviously you don't get the BIOS boot up sound on the Analog Pocket. 125 00:08:42,980 --> 00:08:46,413 Oh, okay. (game music) 126 00:08:48,020 --> 00:08:52,560 Yeah. No, that sounded about the same. Anyway, let's get back into "Sonic Advance" 127 00:08:52,560 --> 00:08:57,080 to see how that plays. The volume is much higher. 128 00:08:57,080 --> 00:09:00,700 Holy crap. (game music) 129 00:09:00,700 --> 00:09:04,200 That's about as loud as the other one was. The colors are darker, 130 00:09:04,200 --> 00:09:09,520 perhaps more accurate in the Analog Pocket. Fun fact about the GBA, it didn't have a backlight 131 00:09:09,520 --> 00:09:13,560 so a lot of games actually over brightened their colors. 132 00:09:13,560 --> 00:09:17,300 So a lot of GBA games, even though they could look really good, 133 00:09:17,300 --> 00:09:22,670 look like trash on emulators or whatever, because they were compensating for this 134 00:09:22,670 --> 00:09:27,370 to try and brute force through that dark LCD. 135 00:09:27,370 --> 00:09:30,220 Okay. There is very little if any delay 136 00:09:31,460 --> 00:09:35,410 and the buttons feel pretty good. Okay, the screen is real bright. 137 00:09:35,410 --> 00:09:38,890 It is a little weird how it's not quite the right aspect ratio, 138 00:09:38,890 --> 00:09:42,710 but I get that they're going for the original Game Boy aspect ratio first, 139 00:09:42,710 --> 00:09:49,470 rather than Game Boy Advance. I think statistically more people would favor the original Game Boy aspect ratio. 140 00:09:49,470 --> 00:09:54,003 Let me throw a "Tetris Worlds" into... I guess either one of these, it doesn't matter. 141 00:09:56,810 --> 00:10:01,380 That's as bright as this one gets by the way. Yeah, so the colors are very different. 142 00:10:01,380 --> 00:10:04,420 It looks like there's more saturation 143 00:10:04,420 --> 00:10:08,650 on the original Game Boy and also the color temperature is very different as well. 144 00:10:08,650 --> 00:10:12,780 Obviously, if you're looking for the original experience, it's not quite that. 145 00:10:12,780 --> 00:10:17,720 No, it looks closer to what you would see if you fired up an emulator. 146 00:10:17,720 --> 00:10:21,850 Wait, hang on. Oh, I'm stupid. I was in original Game Boy mode. 147 00:10:21,850 --> 00:10:25,500 Yeah, there's still more green in this screen 148 00:10:25,500 --> 00:10:30,480 and none of the colors really line up properly. There might be some degradation, I don't really know. 149 00:10:30,480 --> 00:10:35,230 But I do think that the way this screen looks is... 150 00:10:36,147 --> 00:10:39,280 You can actually see the (indistinct) and stuff. So there's the thing you can't see on 151 00:10:39,280 --> 00:10:43,700 the original Game Boy screening. You kinda make it out. But all right, let me turn this down 152 00:10:43,700 --> 00:10:48,750 so we don't have both of them going at once. Now the colors are again very different. 153 00:10:48,750 --> 00:10:54,700 Now, this is more purple than this is. This is a red or a shade of purple. 154 00:10:54,700 --> 00:10:57,810 Obviously the controls feel a lot better 155 00:10:57,810 --> 00:11:01,130 on the analog pocket. At least to me. 156 00:11:01,130 --> 00:11:04,980 Now I'm very curious. This game does support multiplayer via link cable, 157 00:11:04,980 --> 00:11:09,890 I'm pretty sure. Don't quite know how this multi cable works. 158 00:11:09,890 --> 00:11:13,094 Why couldn't they use this music for the gameplay? 159 00:11:13,094 --> 00:11:17,230 (game music) This isn't gonna work with an original GBA. 160 00:11:19,658 --> 00:11:22,752 - [Mark] It's 'cause it's not Zelda. - Ah. - [Jono] God damn it. 161 00:11:22,752 --> 00:11:26,100 - That's the problem. Well that's disappointing. For whatever reason, 162 00:11:26,100 --> 00:11:29,890 it might be that the version of the game that I have on the everdrive here, 163 00:11:29,890 --> 00:11:36,260 is different than the version of the game we have here. And supposedly this does work in Game Boy to pocket mode 164 00:11:36,260 --> 00:11:40,170 as well as pocket to pocket. However, when I was poking around, I did notice something else. 165 00:11:40,170 --> 00:11:43,830 There's this high quality audio option here. You also have things like frame blending, 166 00:11:43,830 --> 00:11:47,560 which kinda simulates that blurry kinda motion 167 00:11:47,560 --> 00:11:52,530 on the old LCDs. Well as sharpness filters, which I'm not sure what that does exactly. 168 00:11:52,530 --> 00:11:56,333 It just says plus three, but I don't really see it doing anything. I'm not sure. 169 00:11:56,333 --> 00:12:00,130 Also size and position doesn't seem to be possible to adjust. 170 00:12:00,130 --> 00:12:03,680 Maybe there's still some stuff that needs to be updated. 171 00:12:03,680 --> 00:12:07,853 Anyway, let's try "Sonic Advance". See if that audio cleaned up any. 172 00:12:07,853 --> 00:12:10,270 (game music) 173 00:12:15,290 --> 00:12:19,310 Okay. Well I just added myself as an emulator user. That sounded a lot better. 174 00:12:19,310 --> 00:12:22,440 I wanna take it apart. - [Jono] Throw all the bits in and see which one fits. 175 00:12:22,440 --> 00:12:26,663 - See which bit fits. It's a little small, but it works. 176 00:12:28,400 --> 00:12:32,550 Big screws. So I felt this kinda... 177 00:12:32,550 --> 00:12:35,970 Okay. - [Jono] There you go. 178 00:12:35,970 --> 00:12:39,940 - So that's the battery. 15.91 watt hours. 179 00:12:39,940 --> 00:12:43,130 It seems pretty repairable. The battery's in this this little caddy here. 180 00:12:43,130 --> 00:12:46,700 There's a connector for it. And then this plate. 181 00:12:46,700 --> 00:12:50,560 I think there's extra screws or are these just clips? 182 00:12:50,560 --> 00:12:55,740 I'm not sure if we want to wrench on it too much more though. But it's nice to know that the battery's replaceable 183 00:12:55,740 --> 00:12:59,970 and it seems to be pretty repairable. There we go. 184 00:12:59,970 --> 00:13:03,063 So, the Analog Pocket. 185 00:13:04,020 --> 00:13:10,000 What are my thoughts? The battery life that I've observed so far is pretty decent. 186 00:13:10,000 --> 00:13:15,960 This is a 600 maH power battery by default and it runs for just as long as this 4300 maH battery. 187 00:13:15,960 --> 00:13:20,000 It's a power hungry piece of hardware, but they made it work. 188 00:13:20,000 --> 00:13:23,264 The original GBA... What was the original GBA's... 189 00:13:23,264 --> 00:13:27,080 All right, sorry. GBA SP's battery life. - [Man] Seven to 10. 190 00:13:27,080 --> 00:13:30,290 - So seven to 10. So it's just comparable. Pretty good form factor. 191 00:13:30,290 --> 00:13:32,363 I like the buttons. I like the screen. 192 00:13:34,860 --> 00:13:38,450 The operating system, everything is kind of skewed over a little bit, 193 00:13:38,450 --> 00:13:42,200 which is a little bit weird. And I would like to see more controls 194 00:13:42,200 --> 00:13:47,600 because I'd like to be able to map the L and R buttons to the face buttons for some games on the GBA. 195 00:13:47,600 --> 00:13:51,770 It just makes more sense that way, even though the original hardware you would have to use those buttons. 196 00:13:51,770 --> 00:13:56,240 The original hardware just used that because it didn't really have a choice. 197 00:13:56,240 --> 00:13:59,300 But now we do. - [Man] It says all buttons are mappable though. 198 00:13:59,300 --> 00:14:04,580 - Yeah, but it doesn't let me do that. It just let's me mirror buttons. 199 00:14:04,580 --> 00:14:08,630 Maybe that's something that's coming later. They do add more features later on down the road 200 00:14:08,630 --> 00:14:12,370 when they release these consoles, so. But I like the screen. 201 00:14:12,370 --> 00:14:15,500 I like the screen quality. It's a different screen. 202 00:14:15,500 --> 00:14:19,410 There are some times compatibility issues with these FPGA emulators 203 00:14:19,410 --> 00:14:22,930 but usually analog is pretty good about fixing them. 204 00:14:22,930 --> 00:14:27,160 They do have a bit of a reputation in the community for boasting a hundred percent accuracy 205 00:14:27,160 --> 00:14:31,702 and all that kinda stuff, but it's not. But what they've created here is a really solid piece of hardware. 206 00:14:31,702 --> 00:14:36,980 I really dig it. And I think for $200 you could do a lot worse. 207 00:14:36,980 --> 00:14:42,100 You could get an Amber Knack, you could get a Retro, you can get any number of emulation handhelds, 208 00:14:42,100 --> 00:14:45,430 but the experience wouldn't be quite as good. This boots up in two seconds. 209 00:14:45,430 --> 00:14:50,140 It's the advantage of having the FPGA. Again, I'm not gonna say it's perfect, but I like it. 210 00:14:50,140 --> 00:14:53,160 And I would like to have more of them 211 00:14:53,160 --> 00:14:57,690 to kinda try out more of this link cable stuff. And I would like to have the dock 212 00:14:57,690 --> 00:15:02,610 to try and see what that's like, because right now the only way to couch game a GBA 213 00:15:02,610 --> 00:15:08,650 is either if you have the Game Boy player, which is expensive to find with a disk. 214 00:15:08,650 --> 00:15:14,250 The players themselves aren't all that expensive, but they're worthless without the disc and emulators. 215 00:15:14,250 --> 00:15:17,676 That's basically it. - [Man] The dock is a hundred bucks. (coughs) 216 00:15:17,676 --> 00:15:20,910 - A hundred bucks for the dock, okay. - [Man] And $30 for each adopter. 217 00:15:20,910 --> 00:15:24,737 - 30 bucks for each adapter, that's not bad. As for the dock... 218 00:15:24,737 --> 00:15:31,710 But at the same time, the dock's got an HTMI connection to it. If you don't want to faff around with old hardware, scalers, 219 00:15:31,710 --> 00:15:36,610 all that kinda stuff, yeah. They're not gonna say that it's the best value thing out there, 220 00:15:36,610 --> 00:15:40,840 but it's quality and it's convenient. 221 00:15:40,840 --> 00:15:45,120 And I don't really have any major complaints. 222 00:15:45,120 --> 00:15:48,333 Hopefully they make more for stock and hopefully they send us another one 'cause we're gonna need one. 223 00:15:48,333 --> 00:15:52,360 'Cause I'm heading home now. Go watch the MiSTer multi-system 224 00:15:52,360 --> 00:15:55,970 if you want more on this kind of FPGA goodness. 225 00:15:55,970 --> 00:16:00,753 Again, FPGAs are not a silver bullet, but when they work, they work real well.