For an engorged SNES controller stuffed with SNES guts, a 3.5-inch screen, a rechargeable battery and loaded up with an original F-Zero SNES cartridge, the Supaboy is surprisingly un-weighty.
It’s bulky – and I’m not even talking about the fact is plays giant, old school SNES cartridges – just shy of effortlessly comfortable. It definitely leans on the “retro” angle. You know you’re holding old technology. But it’s fine.
The screen is not a sight to behold, to say the least. A Hyperkin rep said the goal is for it to match the PSP’s screen in the final production model. We’ll see. (The one I got to use is a hand-built prototype. Semi-interesting fact: They’re all made in the US.)
The experience was very much playing a portable Super Nintendo, through and through. F-Zero was exactly the way I remembered it. It. Works. You can also pump the video up to a TV and plug SNES controllers into the pair of ports up front – but I’d recommend using the real deal if you’ve got them around instead of Hyperkin’s facsimiles, which felt cheap and stiff.
It’s hard to judge just how quality this thing is gonna be because it is an early prototype, and Hyperkin’s promising loads of improvements before it launches in July, but I can see how this thing might be worth $US80, especially to people who’ve got a load of SNES games but no way to play them. [Hyperkin]
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