The retro handheld market in 2026 is crowded, capable, and genuinely confusing. Miyoo, Anbernic, Retroid, Analogue, Evercade — they all play old games, but they do it in completely different ways. This is a straightforward breakdown of the best options and who each one is actually for.
BEST BUDGET: MIYOO MINI PLUS
Price: ~£40–£50
The Miyoo Mini Plus remains the benchmark for budget retro handhelds. It’s small, pocketable, has a beautiful 3.5″ IPS screen, excellent battery life, and handles everything up to PS1 without breaking a sweat. The community support is enormous — custom firmware, themes, and game scrapers are all well-developed.
The catch: it runs emulators, which means you source your own ROMs. That’s a grey area most people navigate quietly, but it’s worth knowing before you buy.
BEST MID-RANGE: ANBERNIC RG40XXV
Price: ~£60–£80
Anbernic makes a broad range of handhelds and the RG40XXV sits in the sweet spot. Vertical form factor, 4″ IPS screen, solid build quality, and enough power to handle PS1 and N64 comfortably. Anbernic’s devices run Linux-based firmware (typically ROCKNIX or ArkOS) and the setup experience is more polished than it used to be.
Again — emulator-based, ROM-dependent. Same grey area as Miyoo.
BEST POWER: RETROID POCKET 5
Price: ~£150–£180
If raw emulation power is the priority, the Retroid Pocket 5 is the current leader. Android 13, a 5.5″ OLED screen, and enough processing muscle to tackle PS2, GameCube, and Dreamcast. It’s as close to a proper handheld gaming PC as you’ll find at this price point.
The trade-off is setup complexity — Android means configuring emulators, scraping metadata, and managing your own library. It’s a tinkerer’s device, and a rewarding one if that’s your thing.
BEST PREMIUM: ANALOGUE POCKET
Price: ~£200–£220
The Analogue Pocket is a different beast entirely. It uses FPGA — field-programmable gate array — rather than emulation, meaning it recreates the original hardware at a silicon level rather than simulating it in software. The result is accuracy that emulators struggle to match, particularly for games that rely on precise timing.
It plays original Game Boy, GBC, GBA, and Game Gear cartridges natively. Additional cores cover other systems. The 3.5″ screen is one of the best ever put in a handheld. It’s expensive and perpetually hard to get hold of — but for purists, there’s nothing quite like it.
BEST FOR PHYSICAL, LICENSED GAMES: EVERCADE NEXUS
Price: £169.99 | $199.99 | €199.99
The Evercade Nexus is the only handheld on this list that plays exclusively licensed, physical cartridges — and that’s its entire point. Every game in the Evercade library has been officially licensed from the original rights holder. Each cartridge comes in a proper box with full-colour artwork, a spine label, and a printed manual — a physical product you can display on a shelf and actually own. There are no ROMs to source, no grey areas, no configuration.
The hardware is genuinely strong: 5.89″ IPS screen at 840×512, dual analogue sticks, WiFi 6, EverSync wireless local multiplayer, and a 5,000mAh battery. The new 32 and 64-bit Nexus-era cartridges — including the Banjo-Kazooie Double Pack — are designed specifically for it.
The library itself is curated rather than exhaustive — Blaze works directly with publishers like Atari, Namco, Data East and Rare to produce themed collections, so every cart feels considered rather than thrown together. There’s also a genuine community around the platform — active Discord servers, Facebook groups, and dedicated fan sites like this one.
If you care about owning a proper physical collection, supporting the publishers behind the games, and playing without setup hassle, the Nexus is in a category of its own. It doesn’t try to compete with Retroid on emulation breadth — it does something none of the others do at all.
More affordable entry points into the Evercade ecosystem: the EXP-R handheld (~£80–£100) and the HyperMegaTech! Super Pocket (from £49.99) both use the same cartridge format. For TV play, the Evercade VS-R brings the full library to your living room with up to four-player local multiplayer. Not sure which Evercade device is right for you? See the Nexus vs EXP-R comparison.
QUICK COMPARISON
| Device | Price | Approach | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Miyoo Mini Plus | ~£45 | Emulation | Budget, portability |
| Anbernic RG40XXV | ~£70 | Emulation | Mid-range, build quality |
| Retroid Pocket 5 | ~£165 | Android emulation | Maximum power, PS2/GC |
| Analogue Pocket | ~£210 | FPGA | Purists, original carts |
| Evercade Nexus | £169.99 | Licensed cartridges | Physical collection, no faff |
THE HONEST VERDICT
There’s no single “best” retro handheld — it depends entirely on what you value.
If budget is everything: Miyoo Mini Plus.
If you want power without breaking the bank: Anbernic RG40XXV.
If you want the most powerful emulation device: Retroid Pocket 5.
If accuracy matters more than anything: Analogue Pocket.
If you want physical, licensed games with zero setup: Evercade Nexus.
The Evercade sits apart from the others because it’s the only legitimate, licensed option. Every other device on this list exists to play ROMs. Evercade exists to sell you a proper physical product — and in 2026, with the Nexus launching and the cartridge library growing past 80 collections, it’s never been a stronger proposition.
New to Evercade? Read the beginner’s guide or see how Evercade compares to Anbernic, Retroid and Miyoo in more detail. Ready to buy? See where to get Evercade.