The screen is so impressive, in fact, that it accurately recreates the seemingly "interlaced" look of bad pixel scaling in GBA ports of NES and Famicom games. White backgrounds make the difference quite apparent, but it's arguably nicer and more substantive when playing colorful, action-filled fare in your hands. The same menu with the LCD filter disabled. Let me clarify that I've otherwise never taken this stance when scaling pixellated games up on modern screens the Analogue Pocket's pixel-dense screen is that impressive. But having tested GBA games for hours in both modes, I feel comfortable recommending the default full-width resolution in portable mode. Integer scaling purists have the option to manually reduce the resolution to a perfect multiplier of 1,440×960-and leave black bars on all sides-should they wish. Despite its lack of precise integer scaling, the Pocket's 6.67x upscale for GBA software seems to have no apparent impact on the clarity and pixel placement of any Game Boy Advance game I tested. On an average HDTV, that kind of uneven multiplication can lead to messy upscaling artifacts, with unevenly shaped pixels or a "shimmering" effect when the screen moves either horizontally or vertically. The Analogue Pocket defaults to upscaling GBA games to 1,600×1,067, which is a 6.67x multiplier. (Click this picture to zoom in further and see the filter's effect.) Should you try to upscale that on a 1080p panel as an effort to avoid uneven pixel reproduction, you can max out at a 6x jump (1,440×960), which leaves some black space on all sides. Original GB and GB Color games multiply perfectly onto the Pocket's panel-1,600×1,440 is an exact "ten-tupling" on each side-while Game Boy Advance is a bit trickier with its base resolution of 240×160. Its unique 10:9 ratio matches the original Game Boy's 160 (width)×144 (length) resolution, multiplying each side by a factor of 10.Īll of those pixels on both axes give Analogue further wiggle room to multiply original pixels by significant factors. That tends to be the metric that matters, as most retro systems were designed for thinner ratios than today's 16:9 TVs, so modern emulators usually throw pixels away on the left and right sides. (Virtual Boy, basically.)Ĭonnect pretty much any popular emulation device to a standard HDTV, and you'll ultimately slam against the limitation of its 1,080-pixel height. What's the point of so much resolution, especially on a device meant for dated, highly pixellated software? As I've come to learn via the Pocket's crash course on the matter, when it comes to classic gaming, pixel density can mean everything. For perspective, Apple doesn't make an iPhone that exceeds 500 PPI, while Samsung has yet to exceed 600 PPI with its own smartphones. This glass-topped, backlit display measures only 3.5 inches yet sports a whopping 1,600×1,440 resolution-which, according to my calculator, adds up to an insane 615 pixels per inch (PPI). It might even be better than the screen I raved about on the Switch OLED revision earlier this year. In addition to two unique FPGA processors (more on those later), the Pocket also sports arguably the handsomest built-in screen I've ever seen in a portable gaming device. ![]() The sole "beta" option in Pocket thus far is enabling or disabling save states, which is explained later in this review.īack to the system's weight: yes, it's heavy, but it's also dense.
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