Game Kiddy Pixel 2 Review

When I reviewed the Game Kiddy Pixel last year, I praised its screen, design and pocket-friendly size, but only felt comfortable awarding it 7/10. There was clearly a lot of room for improvement, and now, under a year later, here I am reviewing its successor, the Pixel 2.

At first glance, not much seems to have changed. The metal bodywork looks largely the same (the Start and Select buttons are a notable difference), and everything is very much in the same place as before. You've got the USB-C and 3.5mm headphone ports on the bottom edge, a cool LED power indicator on the right-hand side and nice grippy grooves on the rear, which make it easy to keep hold of.




The headline news is that the original Pixel's 2.4-inch, 320 x 240 IPS display has been upgraded to a sharper 640x480 variant. Also, the internal rechargeable battery now has a 1,800 mAh capacity, a bump from the 1,300 mAh power cell found in the original version. Fast charging is also included, but it still takes well over an hour to fully charge the battery.

Finally, the Ingenic X1830 CPU has been replaced by the more powerful Rockchip RK3326, which means the Pixel 2 is slightly more competent when it comes to emulation. All of this means the Pixel 2 is ever-so-slightly bigger than the original version. It measures 63mm x 81mm x 17mm, while the original was 80mm x 56mm x 17mm. It has a slightly wider profile, which, I feel, makes it more comfortable to hold. Even so, there will still be some people who find the device too small to use for prolonged periods.




In terms of performance, that beefier chipset means you'll be able to run N64, DS, Dreamcast and PSP games on this thing, although I should note that you shouldn't go expecting full-speed emulation for those systems across their respective libraries. Dial it back a generation or two, however, and you'll find that the Pixel 2 runs SNES, Game Boy, GBA, PS1 and more pretty much perfectly—and the games look stunning on that screen.

In terms of stamina, battery life comes in at around 4 to 5 hours, but as you might imagine, this figure fluctuates wildly depending on what kind of emulation you're getting up to.

If you already own the original Pixel then I'd recommend you think long and hard before shelling out the $75 this new variant costs. While there are many improvements to mention—the screen and processor being the most notable—there's perhaps not enough here to make the original model totally obsolete, especially if you're mainly after 8 and 16-bit emulation.

However, newcomers who want a truly pocket-sized emulation device with robust build quality and a good screen should definitely check this out.