Retro gaming console advice ?

Looks like a bog standard Android TV box with emulators and a couple of controllers that can be had for 3 quid each off of AliExpress. I'd avoid, especially after the recent Linus Tech Tips video where they had a look at a load of cheapo Android boxes and found that a lot of them were doing some pretty dodgy stuff under the hood.

If you own a laptop and are capable of following simple instructions (which I assume you are!) your best option would be to buy a Raspberry Pi and a couple of controllers, and load RetroPie OS. That's capable of running roms for all of these systems. Just check out /r/Roms on Reddit to get hold of the games, loads of links and guides there, it's a great community.

You can even get cases to make your Raspberry Pi look like a tiny Nes shop.pimoroni.com/pro…BwE

is this a decent system/price ?

no/no

Is there something better out there I don't know about ?

yes

e.g. "retropie" other opinions may vary. (edited)

Seems steep for what it is. What era of games are you looking to play? Pre n64 you can basically use any old pc you already have. ( I believe switch covers a lot of it these days and will easy to sell on)

What you're looking for is called a 'HP 8300 SFF'.
amazon.co.uk/HP-…8-2

It's an old office desktop PC tower from around 2012 that normally comes with Windows 10. Most of the time you're looking around £50-£90 for it depending on where you get it from.

Adding the right graphics card you can run any modern game you can think of at high settings including Cyberpunk (which I completed on High/Ultra on that very system) even though it's not advertised that way. Without any graphics card purchase on top at all you can run Minecraft, World of Warships etc so its no slouch even with what's in the box by default and thats modern gaming.

For retro just combine that system with the free USB stick tutorial video above and you have something thats a lot more powerful than you'll ever need. All you need to do is buy a controller after you're comfortable with.

Plug in the USB stick and it loads up as a retro gaming machine.
Remove the USB stick and it works as a regular PC.

Bargain really. (edited)

a Dreamcast is all you need

It depends on what you want to emulate up to.

I've a picade running a pi4 with a 1tb drive. Also got a pc with virtualmans retrobat which is amazing, and also a low spec pc with coinops. All have their pro's and cons though.

echoing above comments- if you can get hold of any old pc or laptop you can run emulators on that or install something like this as an operating system

What do you want to play? At at what resolution? Would you consider a handheld? Some of the Chinese handhelds are awesome. For example, I have a Anbernic RG353V, which has mini-HDMI out and able to have controllers connected to it. On top of this, it’s a great little handheld.

im looking for a portable ret emu player, ideally with all the games built in. looking upto and including the gamecube/dc gen if anyone has a recommendation please?

You can run Batocera on PC through USB so no need to install on to the OS. look at wiki.batocera.org/ins…era - the set up is pretty straight forward and then you can add the games you want.

I personally wouldn't pay the £180 for the system you sent a link for. I did recently purchase a super console x from Ali Express for about £50 - the older games work well (snes, megadrive etc) but it struggles/doesn't play some of the more demanding games but for the price, I wasn't expecting a lot - get a decent catalogue of games.