Interact’s product designers sure are a clever bunch. While most companies offer a light solution, and some also double as a screen cover, Interact has managed to design the ultimate peripheral that combines a light, screen cover and external speakers into a single product. But as Interact’s product demonstrates, a great design is only as good as its implementation.

The overall design of the product is nothing short of ingenious. Coming in two parts connected by a hinge (assembly required), the product wraps around the GBA from top to bottom, creating a plastic jumpsuit of sorts held together by a sturdy clip at the bottom. The plastic is perfectly molded to hug the GBA’s case and provides a surprisingly tight grip. When putting the unit on or taking it off, the GBA must be “rocked into place.” But thanks to its intelligent design, consumers will rarely need to take it off. The peripheral’s hinge allows the back half to fold open, so replacing batteries is a cinch. And since the product elegantly wraps around the GBA, gamers will be able to plug a Link Cable or even a GC-GBA cable without fooling with Interact’s accessory! NICE! Of course, that also means it uses its own power source: 2 AAA batteries. The speakers are on hinges and fold in to save space while protecting the GBA’s screen from scratches, while the battery compartment features separate switches for the light and speakers. If there is a downside to the design, it’s that the product is quite bulky, roughly doubling the system’s thickness and adding just over an inch to the width. It probably will not fit in your pocket.

When I first got the product, I was itching to test the stereo speakers. I’m no audiophile, but the GBA’s internal speaker is [expletive deleted] and I don’t always enjoy wearing headphones. Sadly, the HandyPak’s speakers left me less than impressed. In fact, they are of the same quality as the internal speaker. Replacing the HandyPak with headphones often revealed previously inaudible bass lines and produced a much richer sound. Like the GBA’s speaker, some games benefit from the higher fidelity better than others, and some games will sound fine on the HandyPak, but anyone who owns the system is familiar with this issue. If you don’t want to use the HandyPak’s speakers but still want sound, you’ll have to leave the audio cable dangling. Using brand-name batteries and leaving the light off, the speakers last around 60 hours at full blast before the sound becomes horribly distorted and new batteries are required. The product’s tight budget shows through further when the HandyPak itself vibrates sympathetically to certain songs, causing buzzing/rattling on certain notes. If there is anything positive about the speakers, it’s that they can get very loud. Of course an amplifier amplifies everything, so noise coming from the GBA itself (static and humming) is more audible when at full volume. In short, almost any pair of headphones will outclass the HandyPak.

But the HandyPak isn’t just a pair of speakers, and that is this product’s saving grace. While not perfect, the product’s light is very respectable. Its small LED light minimizes glare while adequately filling the entire screen. The bottom of the screen is naturally a little dimmer, but every game I tried was very playable—even Castlevania: Circle of the Moon! The light has a hint of blue, giving everything a moonlight glow of sorts, but it didn’t bother me much. With only the light in use, the HandyPak Advanced lasted around 17 hours with the included no-brand batteries. Expect brand-name batteries to last at least a few more hours.

The HandyPak Advanced has some good features—most notably the light and the product’s conservative power consumption—but that just isn’t enough. Unless you’re looking for a good light and don’t care about size, gamers interested in the HandyPak Advanced are better off spending the $15 on headphones instead.