A new miniature handheld is making its way to our office in the next week or so, called the FPGB Mini, a portable retro handheld designed to look like a shrunk GAME BOY DMG that can play GB and GBC cartridges alongside the ability to play your ROM files.
It's being created by Funny Playing, an online retailer here in the UK that focuses on modifications for retro game consoles, and they have previously made other retro handhelds such as the Retro Pixel that stuffs an RK3326 CPU inside of a GAME BOY Pocket shell, but this new product is something entirely different.
Funny Playing has sent us more details before our sample arrives, more specifically a look at the specifications, showing off that it has a 2.98
" IPS display with a pretty high resolution that could offer 4x upscaling of GBC games.
FPGB Mini Specifications
- Screen: 2.98" IPS TFT, 800 × 720, RGB565, 16.7M colours
- Battery: 1800mAh Li-Po, removable
- Charging: USB Type-C, PD and other protocols supported; 5V/1A actual charging; approximately 2–3 hours for a full charge
- Battery Life: Approximately 4–6 hours
- Dimensions: 113 × 64 × 22 mm
- Weight: 135g (with battery)
- TF Card: MicroSD up to 32GB, FAT32
- Cartridge Slot: Original 32-pin GB/GBC slot
- Speaker: 0.5W
- Early Bird Pricing: $69.99
Credit: FunnyPlaying
Funny Playing has also informed us that this has link cable compatibility, but it must be their own USB-C proprietary link cable that can be purchased separately once this goes live (still unknown), alongside the fact that it may not work with FlashCarts or clone carts: "some may run, but not all are guaranteed to work". Cartridges will also save games like normal, too, whereas your ROMs will save to the SD card.
Update: 17th September: FunnyPlaying responded to our emails and has informed us that this will retail for $69.99 for early birds, and pre-sale will go live tomorrow, apparently. So, it's coming quicker than we anticipated. Only 20 units have been made so far to give to testers, so it's likely pre-sales will go up in batches, but as usual we'll keep you updated when it goes live.
Oh, and now a sample has arrived on my desk. This thing is real; it plays cartridges and emulates them too. So I've put together a short video for you via our socials to give you a better understanding of this device.
Be sure to subscribe to our free weekly newsletter to keep up to date with this device; we'll have a review go live soon.
