Analogue Pocket review: The world’s best Game Boy Advance

It feels like it was yesterday when the Analogue Pocket’s 2019 unveiling took place. Yet, even though that is true, it feels almost unreal to have one in your hands. Yes, some of that is phantom pains from the Pocket’s own delays on top of the delays of this year’s other handhelds, the Steam Deck and the Playdate, on top of a global pandemic, a historic chip shortage, and any number of supply chain fiascos. But Analogue’s most ambitious project is here, it’s real, and it largely meets (and in some ways even exceeds) my expectations. It’s also not quite done, but we’ll get into that.

Analogue Pocket is an FPGA (fieldprogrammable gate array), handheld retro gaming clone. That means the guts of the Pocket are designed to be reconfigured to clone whatever hardware they’re programmed to, with an obsessive emphasis on accuracy. The Pocket is capable of emulating a variety handheld consoles, including the whole Game Boy / Color / Advance line, as well as less-common consoles such the Sega Game Gear and Atari Lynx. While the Game Boy games will all work with the Pocket’s cartridge slot, the other three require cartridge adapters similar to how Analogue’s Mega SG handled other cartridge formats.

Like all of Analogue’s products, the Pocket is a looker. These materials are premium and feel more luxurious than the portable consoles. Analogue’s black review unit was a magnet for fingerprints, so make sure to consider whether you intend to use your Pocket handheld or connected with the dock accessory ($99). All of the button inputs do a great job of matching the feel of the original, including the L and R shoulder buttons, which actually feel better than the ones on the clamshell Game Boy Advance SP … but that’s a qualified success.

Polygon

Polygon

Analogue made a very intentional design choice for the Pocket to be a portrait-oriented console, whereas most people with adult-sized hands would find the Game Boy Advance’s wide, landscape layout more comfortable. Landscape is the layout you’d find on all of Nintendo’s handhelds since the SP, on all of Sony’s handhelds, and on the majority of the clone consoles that the Pocket is in competition with. The Pocket’s vertical silhouette is striking, especially when docked, but count me in the camp that this is a rare form over function oversight in the otherwise solid Analogue oeuvre.

While the vertical layout isn’t ideal for my oversized mitts, it’s hard to find anything negative to say about the Pocket’s screen. It’s amazing. It’s a 3.5” LCD, with a whopping 1600×1440 resolution. For the pixel density enthusiasts in the house, that’s 615 pixels per inch, more than 30% higher than Apple’s latest iPhone display. But it’s not just the volume of pixels (there are so many!), the Pocket’s display is an exact 10x integer multiplier of the original Game Boy’s 160×144 display, meaning games will fill the entire screen, with no blurry pixels and no shimmering or other compromises. The Pocket’s screen filters are amazing and recreate the same patina as the original screens. However, the quality is so high that even those who have never seen them before will consider it a major improvement. This screen is amazing.

Although the Pocket is not a comfortable device to hold, I found it to be more convenient to use handheld than docked. This despite the fact that I prefer a large TV and a sofa to the Pocket. The Dock, although not included in the Pocket’s package, is an essential accessory. It is a handsome, small accessory that props up the Pocket like a sculpture. The Dock also adds power, HDMI output and two USB ports to the Pocket. After a somewhat awkward firmware update — which I’m told will later be handled directly from the Pocket — the Dock was properly pairing my 8BitDo M30 Bluetooth controllers. Everything works from there Nearly It should be, but there are two exceptions.

Analogue suggested that the Pocket be removed completely from its Dock, in order to swap cartridges. I decided to see what happens if I … didn’t do that, and somewhat to my surprise, it worked fine, though I didn’t love the wobble on the USB-C port that the Pocket was attached to. Sure enough, Analogue’s Chris Taber confirmed as much, saying that while it’s functionally possible to swap carts while still seated in the Dock, “you’ll want to avoid putting strain on Dock and Dock’s USB-C port by swapping cartridges.” The Pocket standing in the Dock is undeniably a cool look, but it’s disappointing that the Dock itself comes with such a steep price, especially notable since the Pocket does not allow you to rip your carts to the console’s SD card.

Polygon

Polygon

The other frustration: the Dock does not currently work with Analogue’s DAC accessory, which converts the HDMI output on its consoles to an analog output, suitable for use with a CRT display. For the purists in the house — certainly, a key constituency of Analogue’s high-end products — the absence of analog output may be a deal-breaker until support is added in a future firmware update. On the other hand, Pocket is designed for portable consoles which never used CRTs in the first place, so I’ll let the cathode ray crew figure this one out.

Speaking of controllers, for now only a handful of Bluetooth controllers are supported in the Pocket’s underlying software, Analogue OS. You can use 8BitDo’s Pro 2 Bluetooth controller, M30 Bluetooth controller, or 8BitDo Arcade Stick, which supports Bluetooth, 2.4 GHz wireless, or USB; as far as major console controllers go, you can choose between the Nintendo Switch Pro controller or the PS4 DualShock 4 controller. Analogue states that there will be additional controllers in the Analogue OS 1.1.1 software update in January. The Xbox One controller is a noteworthy omission.

While Pocket is a major evolution of Analogue’s model thus far — it has a built-in controller, it has a screen, it has a battery — the biggest change is arguably Analogue OS. The MiSTer project has taught the Pocket and all future Analogue consoles a lot. Previously Analogue consoles were limited by their user interfaces and in-game functionality. Pocket’s user interface is consistent and can be invoked from any game by pressing the Analogue button.

Image via Polygon: Analogue pocket

Image via Polygon: Analogue pocket

A paucity of controller options isn’t the only part of the Pocket that isn’t quite done yet. The Memories and Library functions are grayed out in the OS’s main screen. While the Pocket currently supports a single save state for games — press the Analogue button and Up to save and Analogue and Down to load — the Memories feature promises to let you save multiple states, and even take them off of the SD card to share with other Pocket users.

The Library feature promises a massive database of all carts, including variations of carts, so the console knows what you’ve inserted, bringing a decidedly modern experience to these classic consoles. The experience appears similar to how the Polymega handles games, but with one major difference: where the Polymega supports ripping your entire library onto the console so you don’t have to handle your (let’s be honest) increasingly expensive library of carts, the Pocket requires those carts.

This product is not without its major concerns. The original Analogue NT Mini had an official jailbreak courtesy of the company’s in-house FPGA wizard, Kevin Horton. The later consoles, the Super NT, Mega SG, and last year’s NT Mini Noir, all featured mysterious, “unofficial” jailbreaks released within a week or so of the console’s release. The jailbreaks allow you to run ROMs with no need for cartridges. The NT Mini jailbreaks added support for a lotAdditional consoles were added to the Nintendo / Famicom console, while Super NT jailbreak brought the CopySNES utility, which can rip your cartridges (and save data) to the console.

It’s not clear whether the Pocket will have a jailbreak, even if it does seem exceedingly likely. If it has the capability to play cores other than the NT Mini, how will that affect the Pocket? You can also rip cards, as the Super NT did. The Pocket also has some other new, curious and sometimes unexplored features.

Image via Polygon: Analogue pocket

Image via Polygon: Analogue pocket

In the known camp, there’s Nanoloop, a popular music package for Game Boy and Game Boy Advance, that comes included with the Pocket. There’s GB Studio support, a visual game building tool, whose latest release offers an option to export projects to Pocket-compatible files; just one has been shared with us so far, but it seems likely that developers will make more available following the console’s release. And perhaps most significantly, there’s an entire second FPGA here intended for use by developers. Are other console cores compatible with the Pocket? The FGPA will be powerful enough for some MiSTer cores to be run on it. These FGPAs will be able to support ROMs. It’s too early to say.

Seeing everything that Analogue crammed into the Pocket, I’m honestly surprised it hasn’t been delayed further. While previous Analogue consoles fused elegant industrial design with cutting-edge FPGA emulation, the end results were simple compared to the complexity of what it’s doing with Pocket. And to be clear, I have appreciated that simplicity — there’s something weird about updating the operating system in your Game Boy. But Pocket is such a hugely ambitious project, that its asking price of $220 — the new, slightly increased price for all new orders thanks to industry-wide component price increases — is a spectacular value if you’re at all interested in retro gaming. And if you’re not, Pocket is a really compelling opportunity to change that.

Analogue Pocket is $220, and pre-orders are now open. Analogue supplied our review console as well as all accessories. You can find additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy Here.