TrimUI Smart Pro: Another Sub-$100 Contender

There are so many good retro handhelds available for under $100, and another one just entered the chat. The TrimUI Smart Pro has excellent build quality and controls, and has a lot of potential for custom firmware in the future. In this video we’ll do a deep-dive review to see if it’s worth your consideration.

Buy one here: https://www.keepretro.com/products/trimui-smart-pro?aff=29

UPDATE: it turns out that the mysterious FN button on the bottom of the device is a PowerSave toggle (and not rumble like I previously thought). Unfortunately, all of my emulation testing in this video was done with the PowerSave turned on, so the demonstrated performance is WORSE than expected. At the time of making this video I compared the performance to the RK3326 chipset (so the Anbernic RG351 series), but with PowerSave turned off it is closer to RK3566 (Anbernic RG353 and PowKiddy RGB30) in terms of performance.

I redid my testing on the higher-end systems and here are the results:
– N64: mid-tier games like Super Mario 64 and F-Zero X are now playable. High-tier games like Cruis’n USA and Conker are still unplayably slow
– Dreamcast: mid-tier games like Sonic Adventure 2, Dead or Alive 2, and Crazy Taxi 2 are now playable but with the core’s auto-frameskip enabled, so it’s not a perfect or full-speed experience
– PSP: mid-tier games like Ridge Racer and Virtua Tennis still struggle to maintain full speed at a 1x resolution. Average frame rate is 55fps which means you’ll get slowdowns and audio crackling unless you apply emulation hacks. Lite games (2D and puzzle games) still play fine

Timestamps:
00:00 introduction
01:37 pricing and specs
02:52 first impressions
04:06 d-pad, buttons, and analog sticks
08:33 I/O, shoulders, and trigers
11:08 ergonomics and comfort
11:57 size and pocketability
14:37 software experience
19:29 game testing
25:43 microSD card & customization
28:51 summary (likes and dislikes)
31:35 conclusion

This was a review unit sent to me by the manufacturer. All opinions are my own, they did not see this review ahead of time, and no money was exchanged in any way.

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#TrimUI #retrohandheld #emulation #PSP #PSVita

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