You can't call me anything but a fanatic when it comes to the SNES. It's what I grew up on in the early 90's and I've never really moved on. When I discovered the SUPABOY I couldn't but giggle a little and buy one. It was one of those purchases where I refreshed the 'shipping tracker' about every 45 seconds, like the boy on a road trip--are we there yet? In the end I went to my local USPS and picked up the package at 8:30 before they loaded it on to the truck; the guy at the counter grumbled and said it was a onetime thing, totally worth it.
The Hyperkin itself was well packaged and arrived in perfect condition. I had seen a video where a reviewer's unit came with some loose plastic rattle in the cartridge slot; this was not the case with my unit. The hyperkin itself is large, it's been a while since I've handled a Gamegear but I'd say it's the same size, if not a little thicker. But it's comfortable and the weight is right. I was somewhat worried about the weight myself. I don't like things to be too light, as that is an indication of poor material selection but with the size of the SUPABOY I could certainly imagine it being too heavy. It's perfect, heavy enough to give the impression of some quality and light enough to be comfortably played.
It works very well. I had seen no mention of how the TV/Controller Out jacks actually work on any review so it was a concern to me as I consider this an important feature. Well here is the skinny: it's all about the A/V Out jack. When there is nothing connected to the A/V Out, the controller ports on the console won't work and all you can do is use the built in D-Pad and buttons. However, if you plug in the A/V Cable, then you can use a separate controller on the device. I found that the unit doesn't care if it's actually plugged into a TV, so it is possible to play the SUPABOY using it's built in screen with a separate controller, or two. This was a big deal to me, as I wanted to take it to work and play co-op games with my buddies using the built in screen, glad it worked out.
The screen itself is very nice. Now I want to elaborate on this. It's no OLED or HD screen, however with SNES games this isn't necessarily a problem. 16-bit games were designed with a low resolution display in mind. When the display gets too sharp some of the sprites look silly. They were created to be blended a little. The HYPERKIN's screen displays SNES games exactly how they would have looked on a TV contemporary with the SNES so games look good--they look like how I remember from my childhood.
The controls are stiff. I get the impression they will soften with use but I'm not sure yet. I don't dislike the stiffness of the D-Pad on the SUPABOY, but I do think I play precision games (Earthworm Jim, Jungle Book, Killer Instinct, etc) better with an actual SNES controller. I wouldn't consider this a fault, the D-Pad seems very rugged in its stiffness and I do think it will get better with use.
Now the high-pitch noise everyone is talking about. Yeah, it's there. I hear it, especially when I put the device right up to my ear. From a normal playing distance it's not very noticeable. In my living room when I'm holding the console on my lap I don't really hear the whine. I think this is going to come down mostly to how sensitive the user's ears are. If you are very sensitive, I'd bet that the whine is going to bother you; for me, I don't really notice it. And it does go away when something is plugged into Audio Out.
Well, that about wraps 'er up. If you have any questions post on the comments and I'll do my best. Honestly, I just love the SNES and want to encourage the sales of any device like the SUPABOY to keep these products coming.
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Reviews with images
Amazing product, with one moderate flaw. More like 3.5 stars, if I could give it that.
First off, I'll say, I'd likely give the Supaboy more like, a 3.5 rating, if it were possible. It doesn't deserve 4 stars, in my opinion, but it deserves more than 3.The Supaboy is fantastic. Every game I have tried works phenomenally. The unit is very comfortable to hold. It beats the hell out of the RetroDuo portable, in that respect (The L and R shoulder buttons, to be specific). The speakers, at least on the revised units sound more than adequate and get plenty loud. Really, you can't expect cinema quality from speakers so tiny, but they do the job just fine. The screen is definitely decent. I wish it was a little brighter or that there was an option to increase the brightness a bit, but it still looks good. On occasion, you may notice a little noise on the screen in the form of very tiny wavy lines, obviously this is due to cheap internals, but you don't always see it on every game and even when it is present, you really have to squint and get damn close to the screen to notice. It's not something that's going to bother you or that you'll even see most of the time, but it is there, on occasion.I had no problem with the game clicking right into the unit and holding tight. There's a little switch on the back that slides against the cartridge to hold it in, but it's not even necessary to use. From what I've read, the RetroDuo portable lets the cartridges wiggle around quite a bit once they've been inserted and it can cause quite a bit of games to stop working while you're in the middle of playing. The Supaboy does not have this problem. The cartridges click in nice and tight. And all of my games have worked so far. I've tested about a dozen.The one and only major problem with the Supaboy is the d-pad. It works well and feels pretty solid. The problem I have is when it comes to pushing certain directions a little hard. For example, if I press left on the d-pad and I push too hard, all of a sudden my character will shoot off to the right, as if I'm pressing right. The same thing happens if I push right, too hard... my character will shoot off to the left. This also happens quite a bit when you want to push a diagonal direction. I was climbing a fence in Super Mario World and was trying to go down and to the left and when I tried to push that way with down+left it sent me up and to the right. This doesn't even make sense. How is the d-pad designed in such a way that pushing down and to the left would send me up and to the right? Also, when pushing left or right, if you even slightly push the lower portion of the left or right button, it will cause your character to duck or go downward. I had read some reviews where people said their games controlled pretty well, so I thought maybe I got a bum unit, so I ordered a replacement. Well, my second Supaboy had the exact same problem. So clearly, this must be a flaw to a degree with all or most of them. If they fixed this in a future revision of the Supaboy, this would be a 10 star unit!Battery life seems pretty good. I've played for 2-3 hours straight with no loss of power, but I can't say how long it lasts as I stopped played after those couple hours. The unit does come with a user replaceable cell phone battery, though. I haven't searched the net, but I'm sure you could find the exact same model battery for pretty cheap and order a spare or two. The unit doesn't get hot or even warm when it's charging, so there's nothing to worry about there.All in all, the Supaboy is still worth it. The d-pad issues don't completely ruin games, they're still totally playable. It can be a minor annoyance, though, to all of a sudden, be sent off in the wrong direction and die, due to the bad spots of the d-pad. The unit will be loads of nostalgia for most people and it really is a decent handheld. You do have to take into account that this isn't a $200 official Nintendo handheld. It's currently going for $50-$60 dollars, so that's about the quality you're getting, not good, not bad, just average.I'd still recommend the Supaboy any day of the week to people who are into retro gaming!
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