A quick visit to AliExpress and other online stores will show you that the market is full of portable retro consoles with quality as variable as the number of games they include. However, if you can invest a little money and have access to custom PCB manufacturing, you should definitely explore the possibility of building a console like the Apple Pocket Pi, based on the Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, with the exact dose of RetroPie.
A retro console on Amazon costs around 20 euros. If you head to AliExpress, you’ll likely find similar models at a lower price. But all those consoles have something in common: most of their games are simple hacks or repeats of the same 20-30 NES titles. On the other hand, their configuration offers no flexibility, and only a few models allow manual loading of additional games.
So if you’re going to invest money, why not do it by building a DIY portable retro console? The Instructables user known as Applepie1928 recently shared the design of his Apple Pocket Pi, based on the inexhaustible Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, with a 2.4-inch screen and a 3,000 mAh battery that enables more than six hours of gaming on a single charge.
How to build a portable retro console with Apple Pocket Pi
Regardless of what Cupertino might have to say about its name, the truth is that the Apple Pocket Pi doesn’t look bad at all. The central piece of the project is its custom PCB, and Applepie1928 took the trouble to publish the design on PCBWay, so anyone can order its manufacturing directly, or alternatively, download the Gerber files. On the other hand, all the models for 3D printing the case and buttons have already been uploaded to Thingiverse.
The rest of the tutorial focuses on explaining the necessary connections, and surprisingly, the easiest part is the software. At the end of the day, we’re just loading a RetroPie image onto the Raspberry Pi so it runs automatically on every boot. The video shows a slight loss of speed when emulating Sega Genesis / MegaDrive games, but there is plenty of room for optimization. What about cost? Applepie1928 confirmed a total investment of £114.40, just over 130 euros. Honestly, I thought it would be worse.
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