Retro-bit Retrogen Sega Genesis Handheld Unboxing Linus Tech Tips
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2010-05-08
·
1,077 words · ~5 min read
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So today we're unboxing kind of a unique product it is the Retro bit Retro genen
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Retro product retro unboxing today so as
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you may or may not be able to tell by the name of the product this is a retro
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product which is not to say it is an old product it is a new product but it is
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designed for you to play old Sega Genesis games so this is a handheld
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console and let's go over a couple brief features before we open up the box here
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first of all you've got AV out so that means you can run your old games on your
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new TV should you desire it but one thing to be aware of is that you can't
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use an additional controller so you're going to be looking at single player games only it is cartridge compatible
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and something that I should mention is that these guys are talking about
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releasing a developer cartridge that would allow you to use an SD slot to run
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like Homebrew games or develop your own stuff very cool feature next you got a
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lithium ion battery and it is USB enabled now this but wait there's more
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262 color graphics and 2.8 in color LCD
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screen now I've actually I'm being a little bit ironic here but the uh fous
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sorry not ironic but the 2.8 in color LCD screen for my understanding is
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actually quite excellent so we will find that out I may have to do a gameplay
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video later if the battery is not charged but let's get this thing open so
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first of all we have a piece of foam okay and there you go there's uh there's
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not a whole lot of uh leading up to it there that's it that is the Retro gen so
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it comes with this snowboarder sticker so let's peel that off and have a look
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at the screen itself so I'm actually going to get up and get a better
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position here so I can sort of show how you hold it but you've got a d-pad over
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on the left uh feels okay it's a little bit spongy feeling and it seems like you
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won't be able to sort of know which direction you're pressing but actually
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it's uh it's quite it feels quite nice on your thumb you got a reset button up
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here start button over on the right hand side of the unit and then you've got a b
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c XY Z for your buttons for your left
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thumb and those actually feel pretty good as well it's easy to hit uh I'd say
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all of them actually are quite well positioned for your thumb so up on the
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top of the unit you've got H I guess one of these is the AV out and one of them
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is going to be the headphone jack this is probably the headphone jack because
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here is your volume control that was pretty straightforward you've got a
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little Notch here where you can attach a wrist strap and then you've got a USB
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port on the bottom now oh down here is
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your onoff switch so you can see that's labeled right there it is off right now
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and oh that's kind of hard to press but should be okay and I don't know what
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this one does but I'm going to just flick it just for fun okay on the back
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you can see this past the QC test
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excellent that's very good and then right there that's where the magic
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happens so that's where you insert the Sega Genesis cartridge so now let's get
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a little bit further into the box here and find out what else we have so
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there's a little paper protective thing and then there's a oh okay oh there
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there's a manual the quick start guide kind of thing so this tells you what all
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of the different buttons are so we can find out what that one on the bottom is
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cuz I'm curious now oh it switches it between pal and ntsc so depending
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whether the game is designed for one format or the other you can actually
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switch it that's pretty cool okay so then how do you turn off the game player
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how do you okay so it's one-sided it's pretty straightforward there's not a
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whole lot of substance there but it should help you if you're having trouble
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getting started with your retrogen here we have a USB a to mini B cable so
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that's for charging the unit and then here's your AV out so it's uh oh that's
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a mono audio out so you've got your video and mono audio it does not support
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stereo out via this method So in theory
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we should be able to turn this thing on if it has a charge there's our power
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indicator and it's on so it comes with a few preloaded games duel magic curling
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2010 maze 2010 awesome why don't we turn
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it off and I will grab a games so in my
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tickle trunk here I have a few classic Sega Genesis games including World
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Series Baseball Michael Jackson's Moonwalker and Tow Jam and Earl in panic
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on funkatron naturally we are going to go with Michael Jackson okay and let's
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get that in there and see I just want to see how the screen looks and demonstrate
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that so we've loaded the cartridge in you can see it sticks up a little bit
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off the back you can see the label there so let's turn this baby on and ah there
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we go so it's booting up and let's have
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a look at how that screen looks the power is on on the bottom do I have to
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press Start we have sound but no video at this
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time okay well we might have to do a separate video to show the uh screen
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play back but thank you for checking out my video blog on the unboxing of the
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Retro genen