{"id":122841,"date":"2021-01-05T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-05T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/news\/2021\/01\/the_pocketgo_s30_is_basically_a_snes_pad_that_plays_retro_games"},"modified":"2021-01-05T17:00:00","modified_gmt":"2021-01-05T17:00:00","slug":"the-pocketgo-s30-is-basically-a-snes-pad-that-plays-retro-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2021\/01\/05\/the-pocketgo-s30-is-basically-a-snes-pad-that-plays-retro-games\/","title":{"rendered":"The PocketGo S30 Is Basically A SNES Pad That Plays Retro Games"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"PocketGo<\/a>\u00a9 Nintendo Life<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

There’s a thriving market for emulator-based handhelds these days, with factories in China pumping out new systems on what feels like a monthly basis. However, while most of these machines conform to the same basic design language, the designers of the PocketGo S30 have modelled it on the iconic SNES controller \u2013 taking a leaf out of 8BitDo’s book.<\/a><\/p>\n

We were lucky enough to get a sample of this device and can say right now that it’s one of the best we’ve seen from a construction point of view. The build quality is excellent<\/em> (so good, in fact, that some have speculated<\/a> that GWOWO<\/a>, the company which designs some of 8BitDo’s products, is responsible) and it’s really comfortable to use. The buttons are also excellent, while the D-Pad is precise and responsive. Considering how many of these low-cost Chinese handhelds cut corners when it comes to manufacturing, the $69.99 PocketGo S30 comes as a pleasant surprise. The 2600 mAh battery offers around 4 to 5 hours of stamina, and there’s USB-C port for charging \u2013 oh, and a 3.5mm headphone jack.<\/p>\n

When it comes to running games, however, normal service is resumed. Although it’s packing the highly capable AllWinner A33 chipset (the same one which powers the NES Classic, no less), the PocketGo S30 isn’t anywhere near as neatly optimised and runs a selection of homebrew emulators under a basic, unified OS.<\/p>\n

Performance is ever-so-slightly patchy, with audio issues occurring in several of the games we tested. Rather more annoying is the fact that, by default, many of the emulators stretch the image to fill the 3.5\u2033 480\u00d7320 IPS screen, which results in ugly, distorted visuals. While some of the emulators allow you to remove this awful full-screen scaling, the distortion remains regardless, which suggests the system’s OS isn’t properly optimising the emulators for the console’s display (the main UI looks fine, it should be noted).<\/p>\n