MIYOO Mini Plus Game Console

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We’re in an interesting world these days when it comes to emulation. On YouTube, along with generally pretending that video games are still toys for children thanks to restrictions on content and the sort of language one uses, you typically also have to pretend emulation doesn’t exist. The few times you can talk about emulation in public is usually couched as “preservation,” as if any games are in danger of being lost forever. Well, games that don’t deserve it, anyway. Is anyone really itching to play Darkspore again?

That said, there’s still devices out there that allow for high-quality portable “preservation” at a price that’s easy to get behind. Take the Miyoo Mini Plus, for instance. It’s the slightly larger sequel to the original Miyoo Mini, a lovely little device that sells for under $100 (if you can get one from the source, anyway) that can easily be tweaked into a true emulation monster. It’ll play (sorry, “preserve”) just about anything you want in fine form.

I’d love to talk in detail about the original release of the Miyoo Mini, but I never had one! You probably don’t have one either. A lot of people don’t have one, even if they’d have liked one, because a flood of attention from the retro handheld clique on YouTube and elsewhere led to stock quickly drying up. The ultra-lucky woke up early to snag one off AliExpress, the ultra-wealthy snagged one off one of the prior group and everyone else went without.

Unlike a lot of fads these days, though, if the Miyoo Mini Plus is any indication, it made sense to believe the hype. As with its little brother, the Mini Plus is a Game Boy-styled handheld emulator with just enough power to run classic consoles up to the PlayStation 1-era or abouts. It’s a compact little machine, easily pocketable for commutes and such, and while it lacks analog sticks and has an awkward side-by-side back trigger configuration, it’s very comfortable to use for short and longer sessions alike.

Design and Specs

The Miyoo Mini Plus is slightly less “mini” than its predecessor, yet still compact at 4.25″ x 3.09″ x 0.87″ with a battery light indicator and power-button on top and a 3.5mm audio and USB-C charge ports on the bottom. The D-pad and button layout is familiar, with four tiny triggers within finger reach on the back. A dedicated menu button on front helps make navigation a breeze, too.

Internally, it’s powered by a ARM Cortex A-7 dual core CPU, which isn’t going to be crushing the competition anytime soon but is certainly powerful enough for the sort of emulation this device is made for. You’ll play on a 3.5″ IPS screen at 640 x 480p resolution that’s lovely and bright, with a comfortable bulk of just 162 g (about 5.71 oz) and mostly-decent sound output completing the experience. Memory can be expanded via microSD, of course, and there’s even an option for connecting to Wi-Fi and updating it that way, but given the Miyoo Mini Plus’ origin that might be a questionable option.

Perhaps most importantly, the device’s battery life is impressive. We’re talking six to eight hours per charge easily, making this a go-to choice for retro gaming even if you’ve got something more powerful like a Steam Deck available.

Performance

Gamewise, you’ve got everything up to the PS1 running pretty reliably, as mentioned. The Mini Plus’ gorgeous screen and fun-sized dimensions make it an ideal device for emulating pixel-based games from the 16-bit era in particular. Of course given its similarity to the classic Game Boy you can’t go wrong there either. I don’t know if I’d use the Miyoo Mini Plus as my device of choice for 3D gaming, even in cases where it runs well – I’d use the beefier, analog-equipped and more readily available Retroid Pocket 3+ for that – but the Miyoo Mini Plus is a godsend for 2D games.

We could get into detail about the various games that work well on this device, but that’d just end up being a list of the heavy hitters from your childhood. Pick your favorite SNES, Genesis, or Game Boy Advance game and go to town. If you want something new, dig through the endless piles of fan translations and romhacks. It all works, it’s all great, everything looks fantastic, and you can get an SD card big enough to hold entire libraries’ worth of games for a song these days. Heck, your Miyoo Mini Plus might even come with one!

As for getting to your games, that’s another feather in the Miyoo Mini Plus’ cap. Specifically, it can be after a little tweaking. The frontend the device initially comes with is easy to use, quick to navigate and entirely reasonable for the average gamer. You, though, you bought a handheld emulation device from China, potentially going through a shady reseller to make that happen since this thing is selling like hotcakes. You want more. You want power. You want OnionOS.

OnionOS Powered

OnionOS is a custom frontend that takes the Miyoo Mini Plus (and its little brother that you don’t have) to the next level. It’s similar in functionality to the base frontend, but offers all manner of fancy customizations and tweaks for the power user while remaining completely accessible to the layperson. You can customize game cores for increased performance, futz about with the frontend’s appearance to make things look nice and shiny…it’s a sizable upgrade that only takes a couple minutes to install from start to finish.

The list of features is too long to get into here, but in particular, OnionOS’ Game Switcher feature is a winner. Essentially, this creates and maintains a sort of auto-save-state for any game you’re playing and allows you to tab between games with the menu button on the front of the device. You can effortlessly swap between games, losing no progress whatsoever and getting back to what you were doing with hardly a thought. It’s the kind of thing that’s hard to grasp the value of until you’ve got it in your hands, but when you do, you’ll wonder how you enjoyed gaming without it.

That’s all pretty similar to the Mini and Mini Plus’ closest competitor, the Anbernic RG35XX. Anyone not well-versed in the various flavors of handheld emulators popular right now could be excused for confusing the RG35XX with the Mini Plus, actually, as they’re very similar in size and style; the original Mini, by comparison, was notably smaller. There’s even an OnionOS-adjacent frontend called GarlicOS, though I found this much more difficult to install and didn’t offer the same spicy features available on the Miyoo Mini Plus.

Indeed, having had some hands-on time with both, the Mini Plus gets my vote for the better device. It feels more solid, the controls are more responsive – with the D-Pad in particular registering diagonals and avoiding false actuations much more effectively – and the joys of OnionOS are hard to deny. The RG35XX is a perfectly fine device, even acceptable if you’re unable to get your hands on one of the Miyoos, but it’s clearly in second place.

Conclusion: Pocket Happiness

That means that the Miyoo Mini Plus, in terms of devices it’s theoretically possible to obtain, is in first place for its weight class. Specifically, if you want a pocket-friendly device with loads of battery life, an impressive screen, reliable controls, easy-to-use navigation, and tons of compatibility with popular consoles this is the way you go. It may be a little difficult to find, but you shouldn’t feel too bad if, one way or the other, you pay around $100 for one of these things. You’re bound to have plenty of fun “preserving” all your old favorites.