Finally it’s here! After thoroughly testing the Miyoo Mini Plus for over a week, I’m ready to share my honest opinion on this neat retro gaming handheld emulator. It’s safe to say that this device will now most likely take the place of the R36S in my backpack, for more reasons than one. Read on to see whether or not it’s still worth to get yourself a brand new Miyoo Mini Plus this year, and what things to keep in mind!
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If you’re still searching for the best retro handheld emulator for your needs, you absolutely have to check my updated list of the best consoles this year! You can find it here: 8 Best Retro Handheld Emulator Consoles This Year – My Personal Picks!
The Specs Table – For a Good Start
What’s Inside The Box?
Inside the box, we can find the Miyoo Mini Plus itself, a white USB-C charging cable, and what at first glance looks like a USB stick, however upon further inspection turns out to be a microSD card reader.
Besides that, Miyoo Mini Plus also comes with a simple screen protector which gets some rather mixed opinions from new MM+ users. If you’d like to make use of it right away however, the console also ships with two one-time use wipes that you can use to clean the screen before applying the protector.
When it comes to the box contents other than the handheld, that’s it. Now let’s get to the console itself.
Build Quality and the Buttons Hands-On
My first impression with Miyoo Mini Plus was that it was very well put together, and really did seem like a premium product when I held it in my hands for the first time. The black translucent casing looks great in person, and I don’t regret getting it instead of one of the other color options.
The console is pretty sleek, fits perfectly in my hands, and if you’re afraid that it might be too big for you, I wouldn’t worry about it. With 4.25 inches (108 mm) on the longest edge, the Miyoo Mini Plus is quite pocketable, while still letting people with larger hands enjoy using it without much trouble.
In the front, besides the regular d-pad and the YXAB buttons, you can find the small round “Menu” button which is mostly used for switching between games and accessing system menus, and the traditional “Start” and “Select” buttons which are very satisfying to push and have a slight quiet click to them.
The buttons, including the d-pad feel just as they should, and are much less tight and stiff than the ones present on the R36S handheld. They don’t wobble in place, and overall give off the impression of a high quality controller. I don’t feel like they would benefit from any further adjustments.
Other than that, there is also a single mono speaker, positioned in a way that doesn’t let your hand easily cover it during gameplay (at least if your hands are anything like mine). The sound quality is as you might expect, just alright, and nothing to write home about.
8-bit in-game soundtracks aren’t harsh when the volume is turned down, higher quality PS1 game audio sounds reasonably well even on higher loudness levels, and for everything more, you’ll probably use the 3.5mm headphone jack anyway.
On the back of the console, the trigger buttons are revealed. And they are probably my favorite part of this device. Their click is quiet but very satisfying, and I can’t help but compare it to the rather loud sound that the triggers on the R36S make anytime when pressed, which I don’t really like that much.
With how the device is supposed to be held because of the front button placement, there is virtually no risk of pressing the triggers by accident during gameplay. The back of the device is also where the battery cover is located.
On the very bottom, the Miyoo Mini Plus features the USB-C charging port which doesn’t support data transfer, a 3.5mm headphone jack output, and a single microSD card slot, which is a standard “click-in” slot you can find in any other retro console.
What I noticed is that the microSD card, when inserted into the console does stick out just a little bit, which might as well be a slight production error. Nothing to write home about, and it doesn’t really cause any problems. Just something I thought I should mention.
On the left side of the console, we can find the volume rocker. The right side is completely empty. The top part of the handheld is where the small power button is located, and it’s also the place where the green power LED will shine through the casing once we’ll power it on in a very short while.
Now let’s talk gaming and emulation performance, starting with the list of consoles that the Miyoo Mini+ supports.
Games, Performance & Supported Consoles
The Miyoo Mini Plus supports most of the major game consoles and systems up to PlayStation 1, but won’t be able to play games from consoles such as N64, Dreamcast, Sega Saturn, 3DO and Sony PSP.
The emulators for these systems aren’t present on the device, due to the console’s hardware not being able to ensure smooth emulation for them. Remember that the Miyoo Mini Plus has no GPU on board, so there is no true 3D acceleration involved in the emulation process.
Notable mentions from the vast collection of systems the MM+ can emulate are the PlayStation 1 – most of PS1 games are playable at full or near-full speed after a simple overclock which is done by editing a single .txt file on the microSD card, MS-DOS – many classics with reasonably simple controls that I’ve tested have worked without much trouble, and… Java – using Onion OS and an additional software package, you can play old mobile Java games on your Miyoo Mini Plus. Isn’t that cool?
You probably noticed that I briefly mentioned overclocking here. It’s very simple, doesn’t affect the battery life much, and can be done in less than 5 minutes. Keep in mind that the overclock will really only affect some more graphically advanced DS and PS1 games, which in most cases would be playable without it anyway, just in lower framerates. The whole process is explained in more detail here, and there is virtually no reason not to do it!
To see the full list of supported systems, I recommend that you check out the official Onion OS emulator support list here. On this list you will find all of the systems that your Miyoo Mini Plus will be able to run. And there are a lot of them.
It Can Play Old Mobile Java Games!
Yes, as I’ve already mentioned, you can play old mobile games on your Miyoo Mini Plus. To do that, you will have to install an additional software package – the FreeJ2ME port for MM+ made by aweigit.
Both the controls and performance of most games I tested was pretty decent, however I wasn’t able to run a few more graphically demanding titles such as Galaxy on Fire 2 without overclocking the handheld.
The installation process involves moving the software files into the “Emu” directory on your Miyoo Mini and putting your Java game files in the appropriate ROM directory. That’s it! Here is a quick tutorial on how to set it up in 4 short steps. You can easily do this in under 5 minutes! Now, onto the display.
The Display Quality
The screen on the Miyoo Mini Plus is really impressive, although when directly compared to handheld consoles such as the R36S it does look a little bit less vibrant with its default display settings applied. I think that briefly comparing these two rivals here might be beneficial to give you a neat point of reference.
What’s also quite interesting, and what I’ve noticed first when comparing it to my R36S as shown on the image above is that the MM+ is also noticeably more dim on the highest brightness setting. Nothing major, as you probably won’t find yourself playing in harsh sunlight outdoors that often, but it’s still important to mention.
While I somewhat prefer the less intense colors on the Miyoo Mini+, in direct comparison with the R36S the screen can look somewhat washed out when you hold the two devices side by side. You can read more about this, and see another example in my full comparison of the Miyoo Mini Plus and the R36S.
In practice I didn’t notice any issues with ghosting or afterimages with some more dynamic games, and overall, without comparing the screen to the one on the R36S which is notoriously praised for its display quality by everyone including me, in my personal opinion, the Miyoo Mini Plus screen is one of the better ones I’ve seen on handhelds in this price range.
The viewing angles are superb, and the overall quality of the image displayed is really impressive. All in all, I’m very positively surprised after reading many mixed opinions on this display online and now being able to check it myself.
Translucent Cases and the Green LED Light
Both the base Miyoo Mini and the Miyoo Mini Plus come in 4 different color options:
- Pure White
- Retro Grey
- Crystal Black
- Crystal Purple
The crystal black model I’ve got here seems to be one of the most popular options, due to arguably being the most neutral one, and due to its translucent case which in my honest opinion is a very nice design choice for a retro console like this.
I saw quite a few people online being worried about the green power LED that in case of the translucent cases (the Crystal Black & Crystal Purple models), does shine through when the device is on.
For me however, it wasn’t much of an issue, as I didn’t find it to be distracting when playing games, even in a completely dark room. Currently there is no way to disable the power LED from within the system software.
Stock OS vs. Onion OS – And Why I Chose The Latter
The stock OS, which both the Miyoo Mini and the Miyoo Mini Plus come with, is more than enough if you want to quickly start playing your favorite games on the handheld. All the basic features including quick save-states, fast forwarding are here, and they work perfectly fine.
However. It can be so much better. Trust me on this one when I’m saying that the upgrade to Onion OS I did right after finishing my initial tests was one of the best decisions I’ve made when it comes to this console.
Both the stock OS and the Onion OS support netplay features using the Miyoo Mini Plus’s inbuilt Wi-Fi module, and the Onion OS additionally has support for RetroAchievements.
Besides the default set of emulators, both systems also feature quite a few utility apps which can be used for various things form tweaking the advanced display settings, to watching movies on your handheld.
Onion OS, already mentioned in a few places here, is the community developed open-source Linux-based OS exclusive to the Miyoo Mini and the Miyoo Mini Plus, which you can setup in just about a few minutes, following the official instructions here. It offers so many new quality-of-life features, that it would honestly deserve a whole article to describe them all. Among them you can find:
- An activity tracker – tracking your in-game time for all of your games on the console, much like Steam tracks your playtime when it comes to PC games.
- Quick game switcher – allowing you not only to quickly save and exit and then resume all of the games you play, but also to quickly select between all of the recent games and jump straight back to them in just a few seconds from launching the console.
- An easy to setup PC ports collection – bringing games such as Cave Story, Diablo II or Jazz Jackrabbit from your PC straight to your pocket…
- …and so much more.
I’m going to stop myself here, as there is a lot more to this gem of an OS and we have to move on, but I’ll say one thing: you should definitely give it a try if you want to get the most out of your handheld.
The Battery – Type & Longevity
The Miyoo Mini Plus uses a standard 103665 3.7V 3000mAh battery, which utilizes a 2-pin JST 1.25mm connector. The 103665 batteries are named after their size, which is always exactly 10x36x65mm, and that is the package size you need if you’d like to replace the battery in your Miyoo Mini Plus.
You can find such batteries in many stores over on Amazon (such as this one), and on Aliexpress (like the one here). The replacement process is really straightforward, and simply consists of unplugging the old battery, and plugging in the new one while respecting the polarity of the 2-pin connector.
The battery should last you for a few hours of gaming (in my experience anywhere from 3-5 hours), depending on what type of games you play, your display brightness and sound level settings, and whether or not you have the Wi-Fi module turned on or off. If you’d like to, in the Onion OS you also have the option to undervolt your display to save up on juice without any downsize in the image quality.
The Gaming Experience In Practice
Having played quite a few titles on the Miyoo Mini Plus, starting with very simple GB games such as Catrap, and ending with more demanding titles such as the original Metal Gear Solid for the PS1, I really think that this console is one of the most enjoyable retro handhelds I have tested recently. I do think that the major part of this experience were the buttery smooth controls including the trigger switches that I absolutely adore, and the quality of the display which truly stands out in person. The convenience of quick game switching and save/quit – turn on/resume features on the Onion OS have also added a lot to the “pocket” gaming flow here.
Overclocking the device did fix some of the slowdown issues in more demanding PS1 games for me, however even without it, I didn’t come across many significant performance issues during my testing, and I certainly didn’t face problems that made a game I picked from my personal playlist completely unplayable. Still it would be pretty cool if the next version of Miyoo Mini was able to tackle more recent systems such as the N64. Overall, it’s really surprising how powerful this little device is, with its rather unimpressive specification compared to some more expensive options out there.
Miyoo Mini vs. R36S in Direct Comparison
The R36S handheld, which I’ve already mentioned a lot, is one of the main rivals of the Miyoo Mini Plus. The main features that make it different are its larger size, two analog sticks, the capability to emulate both N64 and Dreamcast games (and even some PSP titles), and its display which as you saw before, is a little bit more vibrant, and brighter than the one on Miyoo Mini Plus.
Owning both of the consoles I have prepared an in-depth comparison of the two, if you’re still unsure which one you want to choose. For me, the Miyoo Mini, while a little bit less powerful, is a lot more pocketable than the R36S (the size difference is pretty significant), and with the Onion OS it features a lot more neat quality-of-life features that make using it a little bit more pleasant especially if you’re more into quick gaming sessions on the go.
Pros & Cons And My Final Verdict
So, what are my final thoughts about this one? Well, for one, it has already replaced the R36S as my pocket daily-driver, due to its size and convenience of Onion OS features. In my honest opinion, for now, it’s one of the best retro handheld emulator consoles out there, taking into the account all of the top contenders I had the pleasure to review.
For the current price of the Miyoo Mini Plus, you cannot really go wrong with it, and it does go on sale reasonably often, especially during the holidays. This is one of those devices, where if you’re into retro gaming handhelds, you don’t need to emulate more recent systems such as N64, Dreamcast, PSP, etc., and you’re searching for the easiest way of getting into pocket emulators, this is probably it. That’s pretty much all that I’ve learned after a week of owning the Miyoo Mini Plus. I do hope it will continue to serve me well in the future. Hope you found this review helpful!