I’ve been reviewing AYANEO handhelds for the last 3-4 years, but I don’t think I’ve been as obsessed with one as I have with the KONKR Pocket Advance. KONKR is AYANEO’s budget sub brand and this is the first handheld that feels like a winner for everything from its ~$100 price point, to its incredibly nostalgic form factor and everything in between.
As you may have guessed, it mimics the form factor of the Game Boy Advance almost perfectly except for the fact that it has extra shoulder buttons, with the L1/R1 buttons being larger and more comfortable than they were on the original GBA, and smaller L2/R2 button in addition to extra shortcut buttons as well.
It feels great in the hands. The GBA was the first handheld I ever had as my own, so there’s that nostalgia there, but it also was a handheld that was incredibly comfortable to use in comparison to the original Game Boy and the Pocket Advance even more so.
The display on the Pocket Advance is a larger 3.5-inch 3:2 LCD display with a 960 x 640 resolution. This makes it a perfect 4x scale of the original GBA’s resolution which makes Game Boy Advance games look absolutely fantastic. I lined up my original Game Boy Advance, and forgot how unplayable it was even with natural light shining on it, but for an LCD display the Pocket Advance looks incredibly vibrant and bright and if you’re somebody that wants that authentic GBA look, you can add shaders to get it.
Because of the fact that it takes on the unique 3:2 form factor, you’re obviously able to play games from anything up to GameCube/PS2, but you won’t be taking huge advantage of the screen real estate on offer, with 4:3 games having black bars on either side, and weirdly enough, the console that is closest is the PSP, with this screen still being significantly smaller, but from an aspect ratio you’re getting close.
As far as how the controls feel, I’ve seen some commentary online that they feel quite mushy and I’d agree but not in a bad way. There’s a certain nostalgia there with how it feels in the hands and I never felt like I was mishitting or not able to move accurately. You’ve got stereo down firing speakers which are really great. They get loud, although sound slightly muffled at the top end, but they are loud enough in the mid section that you shouldn’t ever need to turn them up that high.
The Pocket Advance runs Android, so you can install anything from the app store, and it also has its own AYANEO frontend built in, which is super easy to load your own games into, but there’s so many fantastic frontends to use including the wonderful Socket which displays all of your games with their original cartridges/discs, or if you’re wanting ease of use Cannoli is a great way to display your games simply in a list with remote connection to your computer available to download them.
The handheld has the MediaTek Helio G90T in it which is the same processor as the AYANEO Pocket Air Mini (available from JB Hi-Fi). It’s a pretty capable little processor, and you’ll get all the way up to playing GameCube/PS2 games with it, although not every game on those systems will play well, but I was able to play Hit And Run at 2x scale and it was running at a near full 60FPS for most of the time.
All of the consoles up to that will play flawlessly at the appropriate upscaling at full frames without pushing the system too hard. Obviously as mentioned you do only have a d-pad, but even when playing PSP games or GameCube games, you’ll be able to use the d-pad easily for most of these without it being an issue.
There’s active cooling built into the handheld, so when you do need to push it for those Android games or GameCube/PS2, you can keep the handheld nice and cool, and even when playing GBA games and such if you do want to keep the fan on low it’ll just mean that you won’t notice any heat. The battery life is fantastic with a 4,000mAh battery inside, which will get you about 10 hours of gaming depending on what games you’re playing and you really can’t ask for much more that that.
All-in-all, if you’re looking for an Android handheld that captures the nostalgia of one of the best handhelds to ever exist that doesn’t break the bank it’s really hard to go past the KONKR Pocket Advance. There’s something so simple about it that it just works.