Miyoo Mini Plus review: Pint-sized retro gaming at its best
The Miyoo Mini Plus is a Gameboy-inspired retro handheld, focusing on lower-end emulation gaming. It’s slowly becoming a top favorite of mine.
I love handhelds. My love of handheld gaming has persisted throughout my entire life. The DS, the Gameboy. I even made lifelong friends when Pokemon X & Y in 2013, giving me the courage to approach and talk to people in my class for the first time.
Twee wistfulness for something that made me feel incredibly old aside, the Miyoo Mini Plus fills me with that. It’s a nostalgia shot with no mixer.
It’s not just things like performance that matter here. To put it bluntly, the Miyoo Mini Plus just fits a vibe that a lot of handhelds in its space have begun to forget.
From its limitations to its size, the Miyoo Mini Plus is just a very exciting piece of hardware.
Key specs
- Operating system: Linux
- Processor: ARM Cortex-A7 dual-core 1.2G
- Display: 3.5-inch IPS screen
- Storage: microSD Card up to 128GB
- Connectivity: Wi-Fi, USB-C, microSD
- Battery: 3.7V 3000mAh / 5V Charging interface supports 1.5A
- Dimensions: 108mmX78.5mmX22.3mm
- Weight: 162g
Design
Miyoo’s design is simple and to the point. It doesn’t faff around with RGB or anything of the sort. The elegance is in how much it doesn’t do.
It’s incredibly comfortable to hold as well. The tiny size might not immediately seem like it’d be good for long periods, but in my experience, it’s perfect. That size also helps with portability. In one pocket, a phone with access to the whole world at the touch of a screen. In the other pocket, access to the past after a few clicks. It’s a delight.
I also love the colors the console comes in. There’s a generic white, but Miyoo offers it in a gorgeous retro beige. The harsh contrast with the transparent colorways and basic offerings brings the whole thing together.
Features
A fairly barebones system, the Miyoo Mini Plus features six face buttons, split into your typical ABXY and Start/Select. On the back are four triggers all in a row. This might seem uncomfortable, but it never becomes a problem.
A vast majority of the games you’ll be playing on the Miyoo will rarely ever touch the middle triggers, but having them on hand has proven exceptionally useful for accessing Retroarch’s settings.
Each button and the D-Pad never feels mushy or loose. It’s never going to beat the original systems, but it’s close enough. It’s also super comfortable in the hands. My hands are quite small, making it ideal for gripping the console. However, if you’ve bigger mitts, it might take a little adjustment.
Screen
The console is just taller than the vertical standing Gameboy Micro but packs a 3.5 IPS screen. At this size, the screen is incredible. Older titles look vibrant – once you turn off any irritating filters set by Retroarch – and it immediately transports you back to a simpler time.
With no massive screen real estate, games never look stretched or sit square in the middle of the screen surrounded by black bars. It’s a genuine joy to re-explore forgotten titles. Where the Miyoo Mini Plus still falters is with vertical shooters found in arcades. This is just a common issue, but sometimes the super small screen can make busy bullet hell shooters a tad more difficult to track.
Battery
One killer feature is the removable battery. While you’d have to source your own replacements – Miyoo doesn’t stock them – it’s a quick swap over just like it used to be. That battery life, by the way, is fairly substantial anyway. An irritation is that Miyoo never fixed the charging situation. If you use a USB-C to USB-C cable in a modern charger, it just won’t accept it. You have to use a USB-A to C cable, with a lower-tier power supply coming in.
Wi-Fi & OnionOS
There’s also Wi-Fi on the device now. However, this leans more into the modding capabilities of the Miyoo Mini Plus.
The onboard, stock operating system is perfectly adequate for hopping into a game and runs mostly flawlessly. However, you can put on an alternative OS called Onion OS, which unlocks some new features. These include things like connecting to a home server or PC to transfer your games onto the device without using the SD card.
It’s not necessary, but building the device on Linux seems to have unlocked far more for the device than originally intended.
Gaming performance
The Miyoo Mini Plus can technically play up to DS games. I found them clunky, and the hardware still isn’t there. However, I found that it comfortably plays most non-DualShock PS1 games, with games like Tekken 3 and Metal Gear Solid performing well.
Where the Miyoo Mini Plus shines is in the extensive 2D back catalog of games from systems anyone would recognize, to more obscure consoles like the Japanese-only Wonderswan.
For consoles like the Gameboy and any other 4:3 aspect ratio system, the Miyoo Mini Plus is perfect. Classic titles like Super Mario Land and Pokemon Crystal not only look phenomenal on the 4:3 IPS screen but play well too. The controls aren’t perfect, but there’s a distinct lack of mushy D-Pad and a nice hard snap to the face buttons. Meanwhile, the triggers are easily mapped to other functions.
There’s rarely any performance hiccups as long as you keep your expectations in order. You’ll never be able to bust out something ridiculous on the Miyoo Mini Plus, but it will solidly play just about any game released within the eras already baked into the device.
Outside of emulation, my unit came with some pre-installed ports of games. There’s a fan attempt to get Super Mario 64 running on the system, but without any analog sticks, it’s mostly just a weird experiment. Games like the original Diablo have also been ported, thanks to the Miyoo using a fork of Linux, rather than Android. This runs nearly perfectly but is one instance where the screen and controls hamper the overall experience.
Still, it’s lovely to see homebrew work featured on the Miyoo Mini Plus and where fans are taking it seems like a wonderfully experimental land.
Verdict – 5/5
The Miyoo Mini Plus excels as a tiny retro emulation device. While it doesn’t feature any analog sticks, this never gets in the way of what’s available to you to play. With a massive backlog to dig into across multiple systems, there’s never too far to look for the next thing. Plus, having the Miyoo be so portable, it becomes a no-brainer to add this to your collection of gaming devices.
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