Powkiddy RGB20 Pro Review

Buy the Powkiddy RGB20 Pro here: https://joeysrh.link/GGG_RGB20PRO
(use code JOEY for 15% off)

Looking for the Powkiddy RGB20 Pro Setup Guide? Find it here.

Specs, Price & Screen

The Powkiddy RGB20 Pro has an RK3566 processor, allowing you to play up to and including Nintendo 64, Sega Dreamcast and PlayStation Portable, but some games from those catalogs will have some issues emulating – so not the entire catalogs are playable. 

The price is $85 US dollars, shipped worldwide with my code JOEY from GoGameGeek’s website.

The main highlight of the Powkiddy RGB20 Pro is the 3.2” 1024×768 IPS display. It’s still a 4:3 screen, and high definition, but a bit on the smaller side. It’s a very nice screen though, I’m a big fan and would love to see this in smaller sized handhelds. 

Features & Comfort

There’s both WiFi and Bluetooth on the RB20 Pro, which makes scraping artwork, RetroAchievements and connecting to Bluetooth controllers for remote play great. There’s a mini HDMI port so you can turn this into a stationary console if you want. 

I think the surprising part to me was how comfortable this device is, which you wouldn’t expect from one that looks like this, but the plastic is rubbery feeling and actually quite nice, plus the layout actually feels good in the hands.

Controls & Audio

The dpad is massive, and loose, which is great, but for some reason I found myself occasionally missing inputs and I wasn’t sure why. Sometimes I’d push a direction, especially in the ArkOS menu, and it wouldn’t go, but overall I like the dpad. 

The buttons are nice and soft, and actually feel really good. It’s a nice heavenly feeling which you don’t usually get from a lot of devices, and they’re pretty soundless with no loud clicks or anything like that. 

Fun to see a forward facing mono speaker. To me, more than serviceable for this price range, nothing crazy, but at least it’s forward facing – that’s half the battle already. 

Software & Performance

Software wise, we’re running a build of ArkOS here, which is great as ArkOS is a fantastic custom firmware. That means you have support for a lot of things – artwork scraping, bluetooth controllers, collections, themes and a lot more – ArkOS is a mature custom firmware.

Performance wise, like I mentioned before, you can do everything up to and including some Nintendo 64, Dreamcast and PSP. With the smaller screen, PSP is a bit tougher with text heavy games however.

NES/SNES

Let’s take a quick look at NES and it’s just super crisp on this display, like you’ll see on all the 4:3 content we look at today. NES, like SNES, is a good way to show off the crispy pixels and everything that this display has. 

Super Nintendo is a great example of that, especially with Super Mario World and the vivid colors. It looks great here, and SNES plays great. I would probably buy this to solely play Super Nintendo games honestly, but even Genesis and the other 4:3 systems are great here. 

Game Boy/Game Boy Color/Game Boy Advance

Some Game Boy and Game Boy Color here. And it seems like they set them to use 4:3 instead of the native aspect ratios, so you do get a stretched image. You can change it though, if you head into RetroArch settings in-game, Settings, Video, Scaling, and set Aspect Ratio to Core Provided. Head to Quick Menu, Overrides and Save Core Overrides to apply to all Gameboy and Gameboy Color games. Or you can keep it stretched, it might be too squished on this small screen for some people. 

Game Boy Advance has the same issue, stretched to 4:3, so follow the same steps to change it. For GBA, it wasn’t stretching that much, but I prefer the native aspect ratios so I’d change it and when you do, GBA games look really nice on this screen.

Sega/Nintendo DS/PlayStation 1

Next up is Genesis and GameGear. Nothing to change here, both are 4:3 systems and so both look and play great. 

Nintendo DS is definitely a system you can play on here, if you don’t mind swapping between screens often for games that need it. The right stick also acts as a stylus mover, so you can use that too if needed. 

On the PlayStation 1 side, another 4:3 system so no changes needed, but it’s crisp once again on this HD screen and plays great. There are a ton of great PS1 games, and you’d have a good time playing them here.

Nintendo 64, Sega Dreamcast & PlayStation Portable

Then we get to a few of the bonus systems, like Nintendo 64, where some games will play easily and some are a bit harder. Devices with this chipset have been around for years now, so we’ve seen this in action a lot, but feel free to have fun testing certain games. I wouldn’t buy this for N64, Dreamcast or PSP, but the option is here.

Dreamcast is all the same as N64, some games will do just fine, some won’t – mostly using frameskip to achieve playable frame rates here. 

Lastly, just to show some PSP and I think it’s a bit too squished and small for a lot of games, but it’s a bonus system if you want it.

My Thoughts

Overall, this is a very weird, but cool device. It’s surprisingly comfortable, has a nice screen, and Powkiddy has been making improvements on their dpad and buttons. I think we’ll start to see this screen being used in a lot of upcoming handhelds, which should be a good sign.

The price point might be a bit high, for the power in this, but it’s a niche looking handheld and I’m sure a lot of people will be happy with this as an option. It’s definitely surprising to see from Powkiddy and can’t wait to see what they release next – a small handheld with this screen would be great to see from them.