Orange FM Review: A Clever But Fiddly Cartridge Kit That Turns Your Game Boy Into An FM Radio

Can you remember the days of walking around with a Walkman that had a built-in FM radio or even a small FM radio with an antenna sticking out of your jacket pocket? My Italian grandad used to go down to the market and buy loads of odd gadgets and trinkets and end up loading them off onto me when my grandma told him he’d bought too much rubbish, and one of the things I coveted the most was a rectangular red and blue FM radio. I used to take it with me to the park when my friends and I were playing football, and I even listened to Italy playing football while I was at school one time when I couldn’t get near the TV – good times.

Now that we have smartphones in our pockets and speakers that we can shout at to put the latest playlist on or to tune into our favourite DAB radio station, the idea of the portable FM radio has sadly been resigned to the history books along with the Minidisc player and the CD walkman. But no one has told the makers of the Orange FM that, a cartridge that turns your Game Boy into a portable beat machine just like the good old days, making your go-to gaming handheld a jack of all trades.

With the capabilities to play through your handheld’s speakers or to hook up headphones, you can throw your DMG into your pocket when getting on the bus or stick your Analogue Pocket on the desk with Gavid Guetta blasting out while kicking back on the sofa… providing you have all of the necessary parts, that is.

I’ve been testing out the Orange FM over the past couple of days and putting it through its paces for this review, and while I love the overall idea, I have some major pros and cons for you to take into account if you’re thinking of adding this cartridge to your collection. I’ll stop being cryptic; let’s get into the review!

Thanks to InsideGadgets for lending us this fully built Orange FM cartridge for review. The cartridge I’ve used for review is a pre-made unit built by InsideGadgets and required no soldering or drilling on my part. Retro Dodo are never paid for our reviews and all of our thoughts are our own.

• Price: $31.00 – $63.00 USD
• What’s In The Box – Assembled/DIY PCB, Orange FM Logo, Optional 3D Printing Cutting Guide
• Features: World Band 64-108Mhz FM Radio, Store and Recall 12 Presets, RDS Radio Text Support, Internal and External Antenna Support
• Available From: InsideGadgets

Hands-on With The Orange FM Cartridge

I threw myself into this review and revelled in the chance to test out a new cartridge on my handheld collection. Orangeglo claims that the FM radio cartridge will work on multiple handhelds including the Game Boy Player and the Super Game Boy. Some handhelds like the Chromatic only work with the on-cart headphone amp, but that all depends on whether you have an aerial or not… though I’ll get onto that in a second.

My first impression of holding the cartridge is that this thing is a great gimmick. What have I said before when doing my reviews (say it with me); sometimes things don’t need any other purpose other than being fun, and this certainly fits that bill. It’s the kind of cartridge that I would have got my friends to check out when they came over for tea as a child and evokes the same feeling as the Jumbo Game Boy from Cohobo Creations and the CubeSense Controller from Killscreen. Unlike those products, however, the Orange FM cart doesn’t arrive in your hands as a complete unit and requires a lot of tinkering to bring it to life.

As you can see from the image above, I tried the Orange FM in my original DMG, modded Game Boy Color, Analogue Pocket, and ModRetro Chromatic. Each handheld got the cartridge running and allowed me to tune in to find different channels, increase volume, check out settings, and more. The one thing they didn’t do was play music out of the speakers, and that’s because the kit doesn’t come with an aerial for you to plug in. That left me using my headphones which produced the desired results and I tested out Capital FM on every handheld to see if I could tell any difference in sound quality or frequency strength – if you’re going to do a controller experiment you have to be scientific about it, right?

What Do You Get In The Kit?

The main complaint I have about this product is that it doesn’t come as a complete unit; the end product will look like the cartridge above, but it doesn’t ship like that to consumers. Instead, you can purchase a DIY PCB for $31 or an assembled PCB for $61, with the option of buying a 3D print guide for the cartridge for $2.

Let’s take a look at what each kit gives you the DIY Kit. I’ve already mentioned that both kits come with an Orange FM circuit board, but this one only has a pre-soldered and pre-flashed MCU with the Orange FM firmware. You’ll need to follow the DIY assembly guide to get the remaining parts including a flash chip, a GBxCart, and a cartridge shell. You’ll also need to be comfortable soldering, making this an advanced project that only experienced modders should really take on.

The assembled PCB doesn’t require you to do any soldering but will require you to provide your own cartridge shell and the patience to trim a hole in order to fit the headphone jack. If you have a 3D printer then you can print your own cartridge, but that’s not something that everyone has.

I can 100% see the appeal for people who like building kits themselves and learning about the components that make their games and consoles tick, but for me, the beauty of this product is being able to get it out of the box and stick it straight into my Game Boy just like I have for this review. It’s that instant access to the past that I’ve enjoyed the most about this cartridge, and I think if there was an option to buy a fully-built cartridge along with an antenna it would be much more appealing to the handheld community as a whole rather than just modding enthusiasts, or at least a kit where everything you needed including the shell was included in one box. I really would have expected an antenna in the kit to avoid additional product sourcing and outlay after purchasing the kit, but I can appreciate (begrudgingly) that isn’t an option and not the intended experience Orangeglo are going for with this product.

Ok, I’ve said my piece – let’s move on.

How Easy Is It To Use?

The cartridge itself works well once inserted into your Game Boy or chosen handheld/Game Boy cart player, with simple-to-follow instructions for seeking the next radio station and manual tuning. InsideGadgets told me that a headphone wire works just as well as an antenna for finding a signal, and I was surprised with how many channels I was able to find when manually tuning. I grew up with FM radios and still have one built into my car, so I’m used to playing tuning roulette when finding a station.

I was very impressed with the display options too; AmberGlo was the setting I used mostly on my Pocket to keep the overall orange vibe, but I enjoyed having the DMG setting on the Game Boy Color and testing out everything from a blue display to the simple black and white visuals of the Game Boy Pocket. The menus were all easy to navigate, and having the controls on the menu for users to jog their memory about what each button does was a nice touch

Sound Quality

I think because we’re constantly surrounded by Alexa devices and DAB radios we expect the sound quality of an FM radio to be sub-standard. I collect vinyl records so I’m used to a little crackle and fuzz every now and again, but I was incredibly surprised by how clear and strong the sound was through my headphones. Capital FM was playing David Guetta (hence me referencing him at the top of this article) when I first plugged the cartridge in and it was every bit as clear as Spotify. I actually sat back in my chair and smiled; it was the same kind of feeling I’d get when I bought a new toy or got a new packet of GoGo Crazy Bones back in the 90s – those were the days!

For full transparency, there was a little bit of fuzz every now and again when changing volume, but for me that just added to the experience, reminding me I’m using technology that isn’t used as frequently these days and brought me back to the realisation that here I am, playing music through a Game Boy cart. Ok, it’s not quite the same experience that Remute provides with his albums, but it was a close second!

Final Thoughts

I can’t hide the fact that I’m disappointed there isn’t a fully finished version of this product for people to just grab from a shelf. Considering you can pick up more advanced Game Boy Color carts like Pokémon Pinball or Kirby Tilt & Tumble for less than the price of the Orange FM DIY circuit board kit and especially considering I can pick up a MadCatz radio from eBay for around $30, it would be nice to be able to just order this cartridge with an antenna pre-built to use straight out of the box. I feel like it would appeal to a much bigger audience if that were the case.

If you’re used to building and modding and have a 3D printer, you might think differently, but that’s just my opinion and the opinion of friends who I have chatted with about this cartridge, and I find the fact that there isn’t even a kit with a Game Boy shell in the box for you to put everything together very odd and a massive missed opportunity.

As a built unit, I can’t fault it. It’s exciting, different, and does exactly what it sets out to. The connection is solid, the signal strength is strong, and the sound quality is great. It looks phenomenal with the orange Analogue Pocket and is a definite showpiece that I would 100% show off at any given opportunity, especially if you have an antenna sticking off your Game Boy – that’s the kind of stuff we lived for as kids! Is it enough for me to part with my own cash to get one? Currently no, not until a kit comes out with EVERYTHING that I need in one box or that fully built unit. If that happens I’ll be the first in the queue!