Ayaneo Pocket Micro review: gorgeous, but not without issues

The Ayaneo Pocket Micro is the modern Sony Walkman of gaming handhelds — that is to say, its boxy, high-end design is strangely appealing, and because of its high price and narrow focus, it’s only going to please a certain type of person. To stand out from the crowd of Android gaming handhelds, of which there are countless models that all emulate the same games, Ayaneo reimagined the Game Boy Micro as an enthusiast device. It costs $191 to pre-order via Indiegogo for a limited time before it becomes pricier, but I’m not convinced it’s worth the current price, either.

As someone who always wanted to get my hands on Nintendo’s sophisticated, candy bar-sized handheld, I was excited to try the Pocket Micro. It felt like a second chance to reconnect with the long-discontinued handheld — one with dual analog sticks, two sets of shoulder buttons, and, oh yeah, Android OS. That might sound enticing to some, but in reality, the Ayaneo Pocket Micro feels overstuffed with inputs, some of which aren’t comfortable to use. And, as is the case with all Android handhelds, getting games running isn’t exactly straightforward.

Ayaneo’s Pocket Micro is built with just enough power to emulate PlayStation 2 titles and most anything that came before it; Jet Grind Radio, Metroid Prime, Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy, and some other games I tried all run acceptably, but not without some stuttering visuals. It’s not the most powerful handheld you can buy for $200 (check out Chris Plante’s review of the comfy Retroid Pocket 5 that’s a much better value at $219), and its display is a diminutive window into emulated games that I’d rather play on a bigger screen. I can’t discount that I’ve been conditioned by the Steam Deck to prefer large-screen handhelds. That doesn’t change that it’s very tough to read text on the Pocket Micro’s 3.5-inch display, despite it being bigger than the Game Boy Micro’s and offering four times its screen resolution.

As it turns out, being able to read text on the screen is important beyond gaming: Unlike with your average plug-and-play console preloaded with a user-friendly marketplace, the consumer is expected to do much more of the heavy lifting on Android handhelds like the Pocket Micro. Most of these hardware companies don’t provide pirated copies of games, so you’ll need to do the dirty deed yourself, either by pecking through the handheld’s Chrome browser or importing them from a PC.

And, in order to play them, you’ll need emulators (usually in the form of apps you’ll need to install). It can get messy and arduous even before you launch your first game, as you’ll need to spend a good amount of time dredging through Android’s file system, configuring a control scheme, tweaking the graphics, and possibly troubleshooting, too, if it’s not working as intended. Ayaneo simplifies the process a tad by implementing its own interface, called AyaSpace, which lets you add emulated consoles to a dashboard once you pair them with the correct folder in the device’s file directory. You’ll still be using different apps to launch games from different consoles (emulating GameCube? Dolphin. Dreamcast? Redream, and so on), but it provides some order amid the chaos. Even so, it’s still mostly chaos.

I don’t say any of that to slight the Pocket Micro in particular. Even on the Steam Deck, where the super-clean EmuDeck exists to make game emulation a fairly user-friendly experience, you’ll still be crawling through folders to make sure files are in the right places in order to work properly.

The Pocket Micro is undoubtedly an attractive gaming gadget, with delightfully clicky buttons and analog sticks, and a near-seamless sheet of glass covering its front side. But the charm of its looks mostly wore off when I started using it. Retro games are the best titles to play here, as using the D-pad is much more comfortable than the analog sticks, and because its 3:2 aspect ratio screen (960×640 pixels) mimics that of the Game Boy Advance, but with four times the resolution. The sticks are positioned close to the bottom of the device, though, all but forcing me to awkwardly grip the Pocket Micro with my fingertips like a point-and-shoot camera rather than wedging its edges into my palms like I would with my old GBA.

While I love that Ayaneo went for it with a Game Boy Micro homage, some aspects of its design feel shoehorned in. For instance, the shoulder buttons on its top rail require a learning curve to use, and the rectangular buttons inlaid beneath the analog sticks are tough to distinguish and easy to misfire. Also, the sound quality is atrocious through its bottom-firing speakers, and there’s no headphone jack available for wired listening.

And so, if you’re looking for the device that will satisfy your desire to reconnect with the Game Boy Micro, I’m not convinced the Pocket Micro is worth it at nearly $200. As for other options, the less powerful Anberic RG300X is one of the most faithful re-creations I’ve seen, though it lacks analog sticks. While less of a match with the Micro, the Miyoo Mini A30 and the TrimUI Model S are other options that people seem to like, each costing around $30 via AliExpress. Despite its software and ergonomics issues, though, none of these alternatives come close to the sleek build quality of Ayaneo’s device.