I really got into these retro handhelds recently and I love them, but I would like to suggest some more options as Odroid has stock issues a lot of the time (do go for them if they're in stock, though, the shipping times are much better than other retro handhelds.)
For cheap, I'd suggest the Pocket Go, [1] but for my favourite I love the RG350P, [2] which is a little more expensive but has a community with a lot of homebrew behind it and it can run pretty much anything from PS1 downwards. There is also the RK2020 [3] with a little more oomph than the RG350P, the RK2020 is a pretty brazen Odroid-Go Advance clone, so if Odroid has the Go Advance in stock, get that instead, but they rarely do.
If you find these just a touch too expensive, they can be found on Banggood for small to hefty discounts. I got my RG350 (not RG350P, the RG350P is a minor improvement over the RG350 but at around the same price) for $60 on Banggood. Also, expect 1-2 month shipping on these consoles, but in my opinion it's so worth it.
I've been somewhat thinking of getting one of these handheld Game Boy-esque systems, so it's nice to see some options and opinions, thank you. Does the RG350P provide any other software besides emulation (Pico-8 support for example), or is that about it?
There are basically three broad sets of handhelds: OpenDingux devices, ARM Linux devices, and Android ones. The RG350P is an OpenDingux device.
There's a lot of OpenDingux devices- they have MIPS CPUs, so they don't run the same variety of software as the ARM-based ones. There's still a bunch of homebrew for OpenDingux, but it's not exactly organized, compared to Android and Linux devices. It involves hunting down poorly-documented executables, etc. Here's one list of software available:
However, it is apparently possible to get the official Raspberry Pi version of pico-8 running on the Odroid Go Advance, which is an ARM CPU running Linux, just like the RPi.
Additionally to that, I dug up a version of TIC-80 ( https://tic80.com/ ), an open-source PICO-like environment, compiled for the OpenDingux which will run on the RG350:
Do you assemble these yourself? I don't really care that much about the console, more about the fun and reward of building it yourself. I see it more as a fun project.
You do assemble the Odroid Go & Go Advance, but it's a matter of dropping the buttons into place, plugging the screen & battery into the single PCB, dropping that into the shell, and screwing it together. It's not very involved, but enjoyable.
For cheap, I'd suggest the Pocket Go, [1] but for my favourite I love the RG350P, [2] which is a little more expensive but has a community with a lot of homebrew behind it and it can run pretty much anything from PS1 downwards. There is also the RK2020 [3] with a little more oomph than the RG350P, the RK2020 is a pretty brazen Odroid-Go Advance clone, so if Odroid has the Go Advance in stock, get that instead, but they rarely do.
If you find these just a touch too expensive, they can be found on Banggood for small to hefty discounts. I got my RG350 (not RG350P, the RG350P is a minor improvement over the RG350 but at around the same price) for $60 on Banggood. Also, expect 1-2 month shipping on these consoles, but in my opinion it's so worth it.
[1] https://retromimi.com/collections/handhelds/products/pocketg... [2] https://retromimi.com/collections/handhelds/products/rg350p [3] https://retromimi.com/collections/handhelds/products/rk2020