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| The boxes look nice but the illustrations are hilariously misleading |
RS-1 
$9.75 + shipping on AliExpress
- NES-on-a-chip
- 152 games (No repeats here, but some games are variants of each other)
- Powered by 3 AAA batteries
- 2.5" backlit screen
- RCA output for connecting to a TV (cable included)
The RS-1 is the smallest of the consoles tested, but the build quality feels pretty good compared to the rest. Sort of like a 90's TV remote which, while obviously far from something like the build quality of the PSP or 3DS, does feel like it could survive being dropped on a hard floor more than once. At the heart of the console is a NES-on-a-chip (Nintendo Entertainment System hardware clone) which enables the console to play NES games. The console comes with 152 games stored on a build-in flash chip and they cannot be changed. On the face of the console we have the usual Nintendo controls with a d-pad, A and B buttons, a start button, plus the inclusion of a reset button to return to the main menu when a game is open and a T button that acts as an A button with turbo. Volume is controlled with a handy little volume wheel. The positions of the A and B buttons are reversed, but that is relatively easy to get used to. The d-pad protrudes a lot and has a long travel which makes it a bit hard to use, especially if you have to do some quick moves. Moving on to the screen, I have to say that I was positively surprised considering the price of the device. Colours are vibrant and the back light is good, but it has a very narrow viewing angle which can be a little distracting, as the screen washes out completely when you tilt it the slightest. The sound from the build-in speaker is not Hi-Fi, but it is completely sufficient for NES beeps and blops.
Turning on the device brings you straight to a menu where you can select a game to play from a long list. There are some good classic games on this device, like Super Mario, Galaga, Arkanoid, Donkey Kong (named Dongkey for some reason), Tetris, Bomberman, 1942, PacMan, etc and they all run at perfect speed and with perfect sound. The majority of the games list consists of very early NES games that are more novelty than actually fun to play, but the classics never grow old. There is also a few bootleg games like Angry Birds 3 and Plants VS Zombies which both are hilariously bad, but they did make me chuckle when I first saw them. Angry Birds 3 has a terrible melody looping the whole way through, and the slingshot can only be tilted in 4 different angles and shot at one velocity - kind of ruins the whole idea behind the game. In Plants VS Zombies I never successfully killed a single zombie and about 10 minutes in, the game stared glitching and ended up crashing.
Turning on the device brings you straight to a menu where you can select a game to play from a long list. There are some good classic games on this device, like Super Mario, Galaga, Arkanoid, Donkey Kong (named Dongkey for some reason), Tetris, Bomberman, 1942, PacMan, etc and they all run at perfect speed and with perfect sound. The majority of the games list consists of very early NES games that are more novelty than actually fun to play, but the classics never grow old. There is also a few bootleg games like Angry Birds 3 and Plants VS Zombies which both are hilariously bad, but they did make me chuckle when I first saw them. Angry Birds 3 has a terrible melody looping the whole way through, and the slingshot can only be tilted in 4 different angles and shot at one velocity - kind of ruins the whole idea behind the game. In Plants VS Zombies I never successfully killed a single zombie and about 10 minutes in, the game stared glitching and ended up crashing.
Positive:
| Negative:
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PVE 3 Slim GEAR station
$8.99 + shipping on AliExpress
- NES-on-a-chip
- 150 games (Sellers claim - my guess is perhaps half of that)
- Powered by a rechargeable battery (included + mini-USB charger)
- 2.5" backlit screen (identical to the RS-1 screen)
- RCA output for connecting to a TV (cable included)
The PVE 3 looks like a PSP with what at first could seem like a GameBoy Advance cartridge slot, but as you can see on the top photo, the cartridges are not the same size. This console is also based on a NES-on-a-chip and it has the same screen and set of buttons as the RS-1, with the addition of turbo buttons for the A and B buttons. The buttons on this console do feel a bit better compared to the others without being fantastic or anything. The sound from the build-in speaker is OK.
When you turn on the device without a cartridge inserted, you are taken to a menu where you can choose between 6 categories of games, after which you are taken to a list of games in the chosen category. The categories do not make a whole lot of sense when you see which games are in them, and several games are featured in multiple categories. The box and the cartridge label claims that thousands of games are available, and the seller says that there is 150 games, but my best guess would be about half of that. The included cartridge does not actually contain any games at all, and its only functionality is to signal to the console to show a different selection of games. The cartridge menu has the Ninja Turtles in the background, but strangely there is no TMNT game on the list. After you have started the console with the cartridge inserted, you can remove it again and keep playing. I toyed around with a piece of wire in the cartridge slot and actually managed to trigger a "hidden" section with 11 games, probably to be unlockable using a different cartridge (only one cartridge included in the box).
The console contains a lot of the same games as the RS-1, with the welcomed addition of Super Mario Bros 3! Again they all run at perfect speed and with perfect sound. There is also a few imitation games like Angrybird2 which is a ROM-hack of an old NES game completely unrelated to the game play of the Angry Birds you know.
When you turn on the device without a cartridge inserted, you are taken to a menu where you can choose between 6 categories of games, after which you are taken to a list of games in the chosen category. The categories do not make a whole lot of sense when you see which games are in them, and several games are featured in multiple categories. The box and the cartridge label claims that thousands of games are available, and the seller says that there is 150 games, but my best guess would be about half of that. The included cartridge does not actually contain any games at all, and its only functionality is to signal to the console to show a different selection of games. The cartridge menu has the Ninja Turtles in the background, but strangely there is no TMNT game on the list. After you have started the console with the cartridge inserted, you can remove it again and keep playing. I toyed around with a piece of wire in the cartridge slot and actually managed to trigger a "hidden" section with 11 games, probably to be unlockable using a different cartridge (only one cartridge included in the box).
The console contains a lot of the same games as the RS-1, with the welcomed addition of Super Mario Bros 3! Again they all run at perfect speed and with perfect sound. There is also a few imitation games like Angrybird2 which is a ROM-hack of an old NES game completely unrelated to the game play of the Angry Birds you know.
Positive:
| Negative:
|
"Blue giant"
$10.86 + shipping on AliExpress
Features:
- Unknown chip
- 190 games (Sellers claim)
- Powered by either 3 AAA batteries or rechargeable battery (included + mini-USB charger)
- 3" backlit screen
I call this the "Blue giant" because its huge and its blue. I have no idea if it has an official name, as it has no text written on it and it came delivered in a grey plastic bag. Besides being sort of ugly, it is also the worst console of the ones I have tested. Adjusting the volume is done via a button that toggles between 3 different volume levels, and a huge reset button is placed right below the A button which means you accidentally press it all the time. The screen is pretty big, but the resolution is too high so there is a lot line flickering going on when you play. The selection of games is similar to the two previous consoles, with the addition of a weird ant game that I have not figured out how to play. The sound is terrible and all the games run too fast. It looks, feels and plays cheap. Luckily the included rechargeable battery is a standard Nokia clone battery, so I can use it in some other equipment.
Positive:
| Negative:
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PVP GAME / Data Frog
$9.99 + shipping on AliExpress
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| Yes, it came with a fingerprint magnet screen protector on, including bubbles at the edge |
- NES-on-a-chip
- 168 games (Sellers claim - some are repeats)
- Powered by a rechargeable battery (included + charger)
- 3" backlit screen
- RCA output for connecting to a TV (cable included)
The games section is quite interesting on this one. We get both Super Mario Bros 2 and 3 plus bootleg Angry Birds 1, 2 AND 3 on this console - along with some nasty ROM hacks where Mario's sprite has been edited into Tiny Toons Adventures. I like the weird bootlegs, but I would have preferred the original games instead of some of the ROM hacks.
I did not play a lot on this one because of the broken screen.
Positive:
| Negative:
|
PXP 3 Slim Station
$10.88 + shipping on AliExpress
- Sega MegaDrive-on-a-chip
- 150 games (Sellers claim - I think there actually might be a few more!)
- Powered by a rechargeable battery (included + mini-USB charger)
- 2.5" backlit screen
- RCA output for connecting to a TV (very short cable included)
The games section is where this device really sets itself apart from the competition. Sonic 1, Golden Axe 1 & 2, Ecco, Sonic and Knuckles, Streets of Rage 3, Cannon fodder, Shinobi 1 & 3, Desert Strike, Altered beast, TMNT, Ghostbusters, Batman, Mortal Kombat, and many more. The consoles mentioned earlier also have their share of classics, but the PXP 3 just has so many more of the good games that you recognize and less fillers. Had I owned this device 25 years ago then I would have been the coolest child in school. They all look great and play well, and feels like an absolute steal for the price. There is also some weird bootlegs and oddities like for instance Bible Adventures and yet another Angry Birds game (still bad, but much better than the NES Angry Birds games).
One really weird thing is that apparently not all PXP 3 Slim Stations are completely the same. By mistake I managed to order two from different sellers, and even though they were both build in 2017 and the software shows the same version numbers, they do not have the same exact hardware and games. One has a screen with much better colours and the other has slightly better viewing angles but a non standard pixel layout. The one with the best colours includes Samurai Showdown and can boot into a debug mode if you power it up while holding down 4 buttons, where as the other has no debug mode (shows a black screen if you try) but has Sonic 2 and 3 and Earth Worm Jim 2! Its hard to decide which one is the better so I think I will keep both.
Positive:
| Negative:
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General observations
The games run silky smooth and the controls feel responsive *(except for the "blue giant"), even though the buttons are not always exactly great. I am not a gamer who is very fuzzy about d-pads, but I know that some people are almost religious about them. If you are one of those people, then I can almost guarantee you that you will not like a single one of the consoles in this test. After years of playing games using different consoles and controllers, the RS-1 was the first time I noticed a d-pad that I found a bit difficult to use. While the others were at least better, even I can tell you that none of them were like on a GameBoy, 3DS, Dual Shock, etc, although they are still perfectly playable. |
| Supplied micro-jack to RCA (mono) |
The consoles which support TV out can all use the same micro-jack to mono-RCA cable. The only difference between the supplied cables is their length, with the PXP 3 cable being so short that you need a TV with front RCA input to use it. The RCA output looks pretty bad on a modern OLED and LCD monitor, as you would expect if you have ever tried hooking up one of your old consoles without RGB or S-VHS. If you have a tube TV however, all the consoles look perfect, which is the only use case I see for the feature. All the consoles output mono sound which is adequate for the NES games, but a slight minus for the MegaDrive games that supported stereo.
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| On a CRT monitor the TV-out looks perfect |
With the exception of one of the PXP 3s, all the consoles use LCDs with what I believe is an RGB-GBR sub-pixel layout. It looks fine and the difference is very small, but I do prefer a standard RGB pixel layout.
The consoles which have rechargeable batteries all game with identical looking chargers that felt so cheap that I threw them out without trying them. I do not want to risk starting a fire if someone in the house inadvertently used one of them, as cheap chinese chargers do not exactly have a good reputation. The PXP 3 has a battery indicator that I can see switches off after doing a full recharge, but I have no idea whether or not the other consoles have overcharging mechanisms, or if I risk a battery exploding if I leave them charging for too long. I also have no idea if the batteries are so cheap that they could explode merely from regular use. It is important to say that I did not experience any problems, but I like to be careful.
I have not been able to find out who the manufacturer is for any of the consoles, neither on the packaging or inside any of the devices. The cheap price, bootleg games and rom hacks makes me think that it is very likely that none of the more famous games are licensed copies. I did not do a lot of research before I bought the consoles, so I actually expected the games to be merely Mario look-a-like games and not full copies (although there are a few look-a-likes too). The Sega games are available digitally on nearly any recent gaming platform available, and Nintendo offers a lot of the Mario and Donkey Kong games on their Virtual Console service, so I doubt all of the games can be considered abandon-ware.
One thing I have learned the hard way during this test is that ordering anything more advanced than a phone bumper from AliExpress is a certain source of frustration. Some sellers were good at English and extremely helpful, while others were downright offensive in their language or shipped wrong products on purpose for a quick cash-in, instead of asking at least asking if that is OK or not. Giving a buyer something else than what he paid for is fraud in the West, but common practice in China. The seller from whom I received the broken PVP Game would not even refund half of the money I paid, even though a full refund or paid return postage is the only fair solution. AliExpress staff has been of no help at all and always ruled in favour of the seller, so that was money out the window to some jerk who is making money on selling garbage. The product reviews considered, he definitely knew that there are huge quality issues with large portions of his stock, and because I opened a dispute I cannot even post my own review to warn other potential buyers.
Consider looking for the consoles on Ebay if you want any of them, as Ebay staff will at least help you if you are unlucky and a seller sends you something wrong or something broke. Honesty and quality standards is apparently a rare luxury when doing business in China. AliExpress purchase protection is a lie.
Sellers:
- E Innovative Store - Order went perfect. Fluent in English and extremely helpful
- Tophot 3C Store - Order went perfect
- Stay Here Store - Order went perfect
- Game 01 Store - Shipped wrong product in one out of two orders, but were polite and forthcoming in solving the problem
- Shop3144044 Store - Understands nothing in English and sells broken items (now closed)
- Profonest International Trading Corporation Limited - Shipped wrong product and responded shockingly offensive and rude !
Conclusion
I have to admit that I am impressed by what 10-ish USD can buy you, even though there is some variation in what you get. With the exception of the "blue giant" which is plain bad, all of the consoles have their strengths and weaknesses against each other.The consoles tested (possibly with the exception of the "blue giant") are all based on reverse engineered cloned hardware, instead of today's more common software emulation approach. Software emulation of classic gaming systems is remarkably accurate compared to some years ago, and both Sony and Nintendo are doing it, but the fact that someone reversed engineered a whole console down to something that fits into a single chip so small and cheap that you can put it into your pocket for $10 is still impressive to me. The biggest downside to this is that many emulators feature save states, that enable you to save your progress in older games without save game support. The hardware clones tested here do not have this feature, and work exactly like the merciless old consoles: perma-death and back to start if you power off. It definitely has its charm, and it feels unjustifiably better to know that the game you are playing is running on what is perhaps the closest to the real deal without being the original console.
Should you buy one? If you have a PSP, Vita, or a 3DS, then probably no. Those systems already have great emulators as well as physical buttons, so there is not a lot to gain by having to bring one more device with you. If you already play the classic games on a real console, a PC or a mobile phone, then the cheap cost, portability and physical buttons leaves no reason why you should not buy one.
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