Odroid Go Review

Odroid Go Availability Update

As of early 2021 Hard Kernel have discontinued the Odroid Go due to declining sales as the newer and more powerful handhelds like their own Odroid Go Advance and many others explode in popularity. However, they have indicated that they are evaluating whether or not to release a slightly upgraded revision of the Odroid Go in the near future with the recently released ESP32-S3 microcontroller. The possible benefits of this would be some somewhat significant changes allowing more games and emulators to be possible and even the possibility of being able to use a higher quality display. Fingers crossed this happens!

Overview

This is the first handheld gaming device I bought that was not a mainstream console from a known videogame company. The manufacturer is a company called Hard Kernel which I was already familiar with from owning a couple of their SBCs. While not quite as open and transparent as PINE64 Hard Kernel is still much more so than most companies you will come across and I appreciate that.

The Odroid Go is pocket-sized and looks roughly reminiscent of a Game Boy, though significantly smaller and slimmer, with just a dpad, 2 action buttons and 4 menu buttons. Inside it is powered by an ESP32 microcontroller with built-in Wifi and Bluetooth which was a great choice because it can do more than just play games despite gaming being the main focus of the device.

Gaming Capabilities

An impressive number of emulators and game ports are available and running nicely on the odroid go thanks to the work of hard kernel developers and numerous community members as well. While the Go is easily outclassed by more powerful handhelds the amount of quality gaming that can be had on this compact, low power and inexpensive device is very respectable. The list of emulators available includes nearly all major systems from the 8 bit era and even a couple 16 bit systems are playable. PC Engine/TurboGrafx 16 works well and the SNES is a work in progress but some games are playable and the dev currently working on it is hopeful it can progress to a mostly playable state eventually. Aside from emulators there are also ports of some older games such as Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, Duke Nukem 3D, OpenTyrian and a handful of others. The open nature and ease of writing your own programs to run on the Odroid Go means it is also possible to make original games for the device. While this capability didn't spark an active game dev community around this specific device there have been a few games made for it.

The built-in Wifi has also been used to enable multiplayer between 2 Odroid Gos in the MSX and NES emulators.

Non-Gaming Capabilities

What the Odroid Go can do outside of gaming makes it pretty interesting. The ESP32's Wifi and Bluetooth make a number of interesting things possible. Convenince things like a basic ftp server and a web based file management server make it easy to add and remove roms over wifi. There is a program that turns the Go into a bluetooth gamepad that you can pair with other devices like a smartphone so you can play games with physical buttons. Another useful program I like having on mine is ogo-shell which can display images and play mp3, ogg and FLAC audio files. A number of other things are possible as well for example playing internet radio, wifi sniffing and remote controlling a sphero robot.

Micropython is available for the Odroid Go too if that's your kind of thing. On top of the device is a port with 10 pins that can be used to interface with electronics such as sensors or the DAC and headphone jack board I soldered up to plug into mine which you can see in the photo below.

Conclusion

I really enjoy my Go and have given a few of them as gifts to friends and family as well. It strikes a good combination of gaming capabilities, flexibility, efficiency, portability and customizability at a very nice price of $36. The low price and very pocketable design make it a great candidate for everyday carry. I also find coaxing as much usefulness out of a limited resource device like this rather fun.

My Odroid Go, customized with a paint job and colored buttons

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