Hyperkin Retron 5 Concise Review

Buy it on Amazon - (affiliate link)
The most important thing to keep in mind about the Hyperkin Retron 5 is that it's designed to play the physical cartridges you might already have in your possession for the Gameboy, Gameboy Advance, Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), Nintendo Famicom (the Japanese version of the NES), Super Nintendo/Famicom (SNES), and the Sega Genesis / Megadrive. It also has controller ports that support the original NES, SNES, and Genesis controllers.
The Retron5 works by doing a live rom dump of the inserted cartridge and running the game through its internal emulators. The system is closed (at the moment any way) from any kind of hackery, so it's not currently possible to have it run game roms from its SD card slot nor will it work with flash cartridges like the Mega Everdrive. Removing the cartridge from the system will stop the game play. The cartridges can be hot-swapped without shutting the system down, but Hyperkin warns against putting multiple cartridges into the system at the same time.
With the above limitations in mind the system works quite well. The games look nice on a full screen display thanks to its HD scaling capabilities. I did notice a slight button delay on my Samsung 1080p television, however. This might be due to the fact that the system outputs at 720p and my television needs to do some scaling of its own to bring the image to a full 1080.
There are some downsides, however. The first is the ridiculous vice grip the system has on the games.. NES games in particular are very difficult to pull out of the system and I fear that something will break given just how much force is needed. Second is the wireless controller... It's designed more to fit into a little slot on the back of the console for storage than it is for a hand. It's uncomfortable to hold. Hyperkin's decision to use a thumbstick control for a system that plays games from generation of consoles that all had gamepads is also a bit confusing. What's worse is that the system doesn't support other bluetooth controllers - it only supports the Hyperkin controller designed specifically for the Retron 5.
So, is it worth the investment? Maybe if you're somebody with a large collection of original cartridges. The system does a nice job of rendering things onto an HD screen but that comes with the risk of button delay if your television has a hard time up-converting 720p to 1080. But I don't like the fact that the system doesn't support bluetooth controllers, nor does it allow for carts to be stored on the SD card.
For those looking for a retro fix, an android-based game console like the Ouya might be a better choice as it doesn't suffer from the same limitations of the Retron 5. Both are emulating the old hardware but the Android route gives the flexibility of loading multiple games on a memory device and allows for the use of bluetooth controllers.
Visit the Lon.TV store to leave a tip or purchase some of my previously reviewed items!
Follow me on Facebook!
Follow me on Google+