The ODroid Go is a kit containing all the parts required to make a Gameboy style retro gaming console using very low power parts. It runs GameBoy, Gameboy Color, NES, & Sega Game Gear on a 2.4 Inch 320×240 screen.
Mission: Build & play with the ODroid Go. Then figure out what other fun can be had with it.
Difficulty Level: Shouldn’t be that hard.
Result: Wasn’t that hard.
I just bought an ODroid Go. I had a terrible night at work and felt I should reward myself for working so hard. I’ve been looking at this for a couple days now and thought hell, let’s do it.
I placed my order on Friday June 22, 2018, after shipping and conversion to Canadian Loonies I was in for $63.97, or about 25 coffees. It shipped out Tuesday June 26 from Korea, and it arrived on July 3. Not bad.
The kit contains
- ODroid Go board (Custom ESP32-WROVER(16MiB Flash Memory) 80MHz – 240MHz(Adjustable), 4MB PSRAM
- 2.4inch 320×240 TFT LCD (SPI interface)
- Li-Polymer 3.7V/1200mAh, Up to 10 hours of continuous game playing time
- 0.5W/ 8Ω Mono Speaker
- 20Mhz SPI interface SD Card Slot
- Expansion Port: 10Pin port : I2C, GPIO, IRQ at 3.3Volt
- Buttons: Menu, Volume, Select, Start, A, B and Direction Pad
- Micro-USB Port: Battery charging(500mA) and USB-UART data communication
Source: HardKernel Website
The processor in this one is neat, it runs between 80MHz and 200MHz, so it’s no showstopper in terms of performance, but it claims up to ten hours of playtime, now that’s neat.
The build was super easy, took like 10 minutes and I’m super happy with it.
The speaker is not the highest quality but it’s loud. There’s three volume settings. Off, Low, and High. The screen even though it’s only 320×240, is only 2.4″ so there’s plenty of pixels for the space.
After a day of playing with it, I’m really enjoying the GameBoy and GameBoy Color performance.
This is a perfect little project if you’re in to retro games or if you have some cool kids / nephew’s / niece’s. If you’re looking for a serious portable emulation system, go for something like the FreePlay Zero or FreePlay CM3. They will be a little more difficult to build since you have to carve a few spots out of the GBA shell. The ODroid Go is the Portable Emulator equivalent of Lego. It goes together very easily and the build makes sense.
