Hyperkin RetroN 5: HD Gaming Console for GBA/Gbc/GB/Super NES/Super Famicom/Genesis/Mega Drive/Master System (Hyper Beach) - Super NES

I just wanted to preface my review of this product with my experience with getting back into retro gaming because it may help someone else out there make a decision on some items. I've had most all of the old NES/SNES/Genesis/Turbo-Grafx/Dreamcast/3DO/PS2/PSP/GBA/Xbox, etc systems. I got a bit tired of seeing them just collect dust, so I made my mind up to just sell them all.A year or so ago, I got a Steam Deck OLED and did some retro gaming through emulation, but it didn't quite feel the same. Just a couple of weeks ago, I saw a listing for an original NES with Mario/Duck Hunt and all the controllers, etc. I knew the 72 pin connector on the original units could be troublesome, so I made sure I looked for a unit with an upgraded solution of some type.I got the unit, plugged it in and Mario came up and I played to level 1-4 and I was satisfied. I had bought a Zelda game at the same time, so I plugged that one in. The dreaded flashing red light came on and it kept going back and forth between the title screen and blacking out. I thought it was the cartridge and asked the seller. He asked if I knew if the lockout chip was disabled and I had no idea what he was talking about. I did my research and this chip that was used to authorize the games in some way needed to be disabled or else it could cause issues in loading.I should mention that although the 72 pin connector was "upgraded" on this unit, I think it may have been a cheaper upgrade because it had the "death grip" a lot of people talk about. It was so tight that I had to use two hands to slowly wiggle my cartridge back out. After fiddling around with the insertion of the Zelda cartridge a bit because they said sometimes if you "barely" insert it before you push it down, yadda yadda yadda.. it works.. well it never did.Not only that, but in between the time I played Mario and the time I was trying to get Zelda to work, I must've slipped a pin out of place or something. Now, I should mention that I'm careful with everything I own.. so much so that when I re-sold all of my systems, they were all really clean and in full functioning order. Having said that, I was pretty careful with this NES unit because I didn't know if I could or would return it. I went and bought two more NES games from a retro game shop and none of those worked, either. I took apart all the cartridges and carefully cleaned with an eraser and a little bit of isopropyl alcohol. Nothing. Then I put the Mario one back in because that one always worked and lo and behold, it didn't. I just got the dreaded gray/blue screen.. sometimes with light artifacts, but mostly just plain.Thankfully, the seller decided to honor my return even though he stated no returns on his listing. The other seller who sold me the Zelda had been messaging me back and forth trying to help but to no avail. He told me that he works on a lot of units and offered me one that he would guarantee would work and if anything went wrong, he'd take it back, no questions asked. Super cool guy.In between all this time, I had been researching just getting a third party system just because I just wanted to play the games at this point and having an original this or that didn't matter to me anymore. I didn't want to dedicate more space to old units collecting dust. I had an old NES/SNES Hyperkin unit before and although it felt super light and cheap, it worked, so I looked Hyperkin up and saw this unit. I was intrigued that it could play all of the platforms I wanted and more. Surely it's gotta have lots of issues.. well, after watching countless reviews on YouTube, most of them didn't have too many issues with it.The biggest glaring one is the wireless controller. I don't know what possessed them to make this thing, but it's kind of ugly, first of all. If it worked well, I could get over how funkily shaped it was, but it was just so clicky. Don't even think about trying to quietly game if your significant other is trying to sleep because you'll be click-clacking all night long. One of the cheapest feeling controllers I've ever used and I've used some crap.It's quite unfortunate because if they had figured this out early on in beta testing or even after getting some feedback and fixing it, I'm sure this unit would have gotten much better reviews. But again, besides the wireless controller, the gameplay looked solid from the reviews.The HDMI capability and enhanced graphics were a draw for me, along with the ability to save the state of the game whether or not the game had the feature. You can add artificial scanlines (not really my thing), add graphic filters, cheats and even translation layers to imports. Those features alone sold me on it, along with the fact that I wouldn't have to worry about the 72 pin issue with the original NES. Now I did hear that early units had the death grip as well, but I was buying one several years in.. so not only was there a chance it wouldn't be as bad, but I didn't even have to upgrade the firmware on this one. Besides, the wired controller seemed to work just fine.For some weird reason, after looking at the unit in photos, I thought there was only one controller port for each platform that ran along the left side. I thought the right side had other plug in ports and I thought, "why the heck would they not have a two player option?" The few videos I watched didn't make that very clear, either until I ran across a Reddit post saying it had 6 controller ports.. so I quickly figured it out. Keep in mind I was struggling with trying to return a just bought item on eBay that initially didn't accept returns and at this point didn't know if the 4 games that I recently bought had issues or not. I had proof of one working before it stopped.Then I had to buy a toolkit to open it up because no one sells it locally because I'm sure even the retro game shops want you to pay for repairs and cleaning instead of doing it yourself.Ok, back to the review of this unit. Thank god for YouTube reviews because I got all I needed to get started on this thing, was able to easily navigate all the options and set it up the way I wanted. I tried all 4 of the NES games I had and they not only all worked great, but looked bright and clear as well. The NES pins weren't bad at all but I haven't had a chance to try any other carts yet.. I may update later once I do.I gave the wireless controller a chance. It paired quickly and seemed to work fine, but the clicking drove me nuts, so I quickly plugged in the wired controller. I like that they thought to put rubber dust covers on all of the controller ports as well. I briefly misplaced one of the rubber covers and wondered if they sold these separately, but I found it later.I inserted a FAT32 formatted SD card for game saves, cheats and translation layers. If I had one more tiny gripe besides the controller, maybe having the SD card have a push in to lock spring-loaded mechanism instead of just push in and hope it's in all the way thing.That's about it. Overall, I think this unit is great so far. I love all of the added features it has, the dust covers, all of the different formats it supports.. I really have no idea what they were thinking of when they made the wireless controller. Did they source it out to another third party manufacturer who makes cheap crap? Although this console isn't the heftiest of items, it was still better than the old third party SNES/NES unit I had. I just realized I also had another cheap unit that wasn't Hyperkin and that one was super cheap feeling.So yeah, I wish they would make another wireless controller with better materials and with a better d-pad. I would try it out. Even if they wanted to keep it the same funky shape to fit in the back of the console, that wasn't really that big of an issue.Oh, one more thing. The first time I ordered this item, it was early in the morning on 4/23. It said I would receive it before 7:30am on 4/24, which seemed really fast, but I didn't think about it too much. Well 4/24 came and went and it was never updated to "out for delivery." I called to ask if it was still due to be delivered and they didn't know and the tracker on Amazon said it briefly lost signal with the delivery driver. By the evening of 4/24, it was clear it wasn't coming, but it said I would get it on 4/25. Getting later into the day of 4/25, still not "out for delivery," although the little bar was getting closer. Keep in mind that most of this time, it was supposedly sitting in a facility in Aurora, Colorado. Aurora is literally down the street from me. The outskirts of it is about a block away.After 4/25 went by, they told me to wait until 4/26.. I gave up. I canceled the order and figured I'd go with the seller that sold me the Zelda cartridge because he said he'd disable the lockout chip and guarantee it worked and gave me a refund option. While I was waiting for the refund for my first NES unit, I saw that this item was on sale (albeit briefly) for $10-12 less. I had a $5 Amazon credit because I was having so many delays, they gave me one, so I figured wth and tried this one more time.Now I'm not sure if my issues with the delivery time had anything to do with it but it looks as though they fixed the delivery time from 1-2 estimated days to 4-5 days. Fine, I would wait.. I was fine with waiting if I knew when to expect it. Turns out, it was delayed AGAIN. Again, stuck in the facility in Aurora, Colorado. Something is going on with logistics at this facility or something because it was getting annoying. I called them and told them about the delay and that this was the 2nd time. They must've made notes on my account because it seems they were so empathetic that the rep said that if I don't get it by tomorrow, I could keep the unit and they would refund me the entire balance.I double checked to see if I heard her wrong, but she reiterated it and apologized for all of the issues. Fairly soon as I got off the phone with her, I saw the little bar move to "out for delivery," even though I still didn't get the notification yet. Finally the notification went off and a few hours later, it arrived.Weird, right? WTH, Amazon? I buy from you quite often and even though I've been seeing delays more and more, it usually only delays until later in that same day. This item delayed day after day and did it twice before they finally got it moving after I asked them to escalate it. Please figure it out, Amazon. I generally don't have issues with your deliveries (except with cat food, where it happened often enough for me to change to Chewy), but this item's delays were getting really weird. All in all, I highly recommend this to people that just want to play old games and don't want to bother with potentially finicky old, bad designs.One last note: When inserting the cartridges, push in one side (left or right) first and then the other and it works better than straight pushing and removing, which I've always done before.

This thing is awesome. It's super convenient to be able to play cartridges from so many different systems with one machine. I play on one of my PC monitors, and if there is lag it's barely noticeable. I considered getting a Retron 5 for a long time, and the Hyper Beach colors finally convinced me to get one.One thing that sort of sucks is that the included Scout controller arrived broken. The pins inside the connector were broken and rattling around loose inside the connector. I was planning on using my Switch Pro controller, anyway, so it's not that big of a deal. It'll sort of suck if someone comes over to play that doesn't have their own controller, though. I contacted support, and they said they were currently out of Hyper Beach Scout controllers. They offered to send me a different color, but I told them I'll wait till they get more Hyper Beach ones. The color scheme is awesome tbh. My Switch Pro controller with a wireless adapter works great.

great console, all in one. item came as described with no damages. good quality. great service and shipment.

I had good luck with a Retron 3, but this Retron 5 was dead on arrival. No signs of power when plugged in (U.S. adapter on power plug of course). Too bad they don't use USB for power because there's no way to see if a different adapter works. Sending back and trying again.Worth noting, I recently bought a SupaBoy Hyper Beach it it only worked for a couple minutes. Got a new one, works fine. Bought a SupaBoy Black & Gold from an authorized reseller, and it had been repackaged and had two dashed lines across the screen.Funnily enough, so far EVERY OTHER CONSOLE has arrived with something wrong. QC failure rate is 50%, but when they work, they're cool systems. Just not sure how old products are being resold as new, and they should really start doing more QC.

Came in faster then expected box was a little crumpled in some areas but did not affect product. Item works but after like 20 or 30 min of use time we have noticed a few issues. It freezes or glitches from time to time. One time it froze to where system had to be unplugged for outlet just to reset it. But when it plays it plays beautifully. Graphics, sound and color are awesome.

It does a great job, but has a few things that hold it back from a full 5 stars.The emulation cannot (currently) accommodate the one thing every needs: Sonic 3 + Knuckles. You lock on the cart, and sadly it only plays S&K.I was playing FF Adventure on GB and the game didn’t play load properly. Of course, I didn’t know this ‘til 3.5 hours in and the game crashed and the save file was erased.Also, the charge cable for the brick controller is on the rear of the console. What could have possibly happened, before manufacturing, that would have lead to this sort of blunder making through every stage of development. Boggles the mind.Other than that, I like how it quickly dumps a ROM complete with saves, has save states, can apply a few filters, connects to my HDTV, and connects to my old controllers. There’s some way it can load ‘cheats’ and you can even load a save state from an SD card (not a ROM).It’s a neat console and I hope the N64 and DS get added to the amalgamation later.