Many of you are still waiting for your Analogue Pockets to land in your hands, and I can tell you it’s well worth the wait.
After our Analogue Pocket review, it has been my daily driver for playing my best Gameboy games, and for someone who has more modded Gameboys than hot dinners, that says a lot. It really is an incredible handheld, and I was incredibly happy with it… until I saw b_b_retro‘s post on Instagram that shows off an Analogue Pocket Mini concept.
Bryan, why did you have to do that to us?
If you’re not familiar with Bryan’s work, you should be. He is an incredible photographer and is our lead photographer for our upcoming A Handheld History book that is launching in August 2022 (you should pre-order one and help us reach £50,000 of funding).
He is well known in the retro space for creating awesome images, but now he’s created two impressive mockups that have really got me thinking, hence why I am about to vent to you.
Analogue need to make a Pocket Mini or Pocket Advance, here’s why.
I could sit here and type many reasons why I love the Analogue Pocket, it truly is one of the best retro handhelds on the market for Gameboy enthusiasts, but it has three minor flaws, that’s pricing, availability and size/weight.
First of all let’s discuss the pricing issue. For some of you that have spare cash floating about in a time of crisis, you may think there’s no pricing issue, it’s priced perfectly, but I am here to disagree.
Analogue as a business has priced this device perfectly because they are limited to how many they can produce, especially when there’s constant chip shortages and delayed shipping logistics across the globe.
The Analogue Pocket and the dock comes in at over $300, that’s the same price as a Nintendo Switch, with the adapters, case and cables, you’re looking at well over $400.
A Analogue Pocket Mini priced significantly lower, at let’s say $149 would do wonders for the business and would attract many more handhelds gamers. Not only that, it would entice more customers to then “splash out” on accessories such as the adapters and dock which would hopefully work with an Analogue Pocket Mini.
Perhaps production issues on the accessories aren’t a thing due to the lack of chips being used, by I could be, and most likely am wrong here.
Availability Issues
Secondly lets talk about another issue Analogue are having, and that’s availability. At the start of the year we saw Analogue Pocket’s on eBay being sold close to $1,000 due to demand, now that’s decreased to around $350, which is still $130 more than retail.
This is because Analogue are limited to how many they can build due to supply issues, so they are shipping them out in fulfilment groups ranging from Mid 2022 – Early 2023. This is causing customers to wait impatiently and being tempted to pull the trigger on eBay instead or even worse stopping customers from buying one all together, especially when there’s other tempting handhelds on the market.
I know, creating a new product won’t help with the production issues and they’ll probably need to wait for when stock and supply issues come back to some kind of normality, but while they are on this bottleneck they could use the time to produce a Mini or a Advance edition to go with the Pocket line.
They could use the same screens with slimmer bezels, the same buttons, and even the same shoulder buttons, meaning a lot of the hard work is already done.
Size & Weight – It’s a big boy!
If you have an Analogue Pocket or held one, you’ll know exactly what we mean, it’s not exactly slim, and it’s not exactly light.
Don’t get me wrong, I think the Analogue Pocket is close to perfect in this sense, only because i’m a big lad and have hands the size of Godzilla’s toe, so weight and size fits well for me, but i know from experience, this is one of the heaviest “mid sized” handhelds I have reviewed.
The tech inside is jam packed within the shell, and when you’re using an adapter it’s even bigger and even more clunky.
I would even go as far as saying that it’s almost not pocket-friendly. Yes, it can fit in a normal pocket, but you’ll get a lot of people looking at your pocket thinking you’re excited to see them, that’s for sure.
if you’re carrying Analogue Pocket accessories and cartridges too you will absolutely need a travel case. So, I think a Mini version or an Advance version that’s far more compact and pocket-friendly would go down well with their new and current audience.
Take a look at the current success of the Miyoo Mini, the Playdate and the Funkey S, all of these small devices are booming right now because a lot of a handheld enthusiasts want something that is compact and lightweight to travel with.
We’re all use to the Nintendo Switch and the Steam Deck by now, these are far from “portable”, so chucking a new handheld in the pocket-friendly market, I think would do wonders for Analogue especially if the price matches the size.
But hey, that’s just me ranting b_b_retro did an incredible job on these renders, and it sparked a conversation in my head that I just had to share with you. What’s your thought’s on an Analogue Pocket Mini, i’d love to hear them on Twitter @retro_dodo.
