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The Official "Oh ****, I forgot to preorder the Analogue Pocket" thread.

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Adrock:
I snagged a Group A preorder on 12/14/2021, order #89xxx. 🥳 Based on some Reddit posts, it seems pre-orders started around #85xxx and the Group A cutoff for the actual Pocket was #92xxx.

I pre-ordered the Pocket, Dock, screen protector, and case. I kind of regret the case as it seems more for show than utility, but I'll live.

To Analogue's credit, it put additional safeguards in place as it said it would. The order page handled the onslaught of site traffic pretty well this time. There was a waiting screen with a note NOT to refresh. I was extra prepared by saving some of my info the night before pre-orders opened again so I didn’t have to enter it again in the morning. I completed my order at 11:03 AM, and I was still 4000 orders after the earliest known order number.

While I was pretty tilted about the August 2020 pre-order flustercuck, I don't mind not getting one of the initial units in hindsight. Analogue finally started shipping Pocket earlier this month after THREE delays and has been dealing with some bugs. There have been a few reported lemons with some crummy hardware issues. I’m hoping these are ironed out by the time I (presumably) receive mine in a few months. Additionally, the jailbreak has not been released yet. While I have most of the games I wanted to play, I’m missing a few. Since there isn't a better way to try certain games, I'll have to settle for a CRIME ROM.

I'm actively trying to pick up some Neo Geo Pocket Color games for when the adapter is up for preorder. No, it isn't going well.

My initial thoughts with the final unit being shipped out (and admittedly, NOT using one myself yet):

* I don't like the Menu button placement. I'm absolutely going to press that by accident. I would have preferred Analogue make Start and Select longer and raised like the respective Game Boy buttons and the Menu button recessed if it even needed to be placed between Start and Select. I would have preferred right below the screen. Still, I mostly plan on playing while Docked so this may be less of a problem for me.
* The power button is too close to the volume rocker. Power will likely to be pressed frequently due to the sleep functionality so it a little baffling why Analogue made this design choice.
* The volume rocker is weirdly small though I don't often futz with the sound once I've set it.
* The shoulder buttons look uncomfortable as they flank the cartridge slot. I would have preferred they were placed in a bump-out like the Joy Cons though that wouldn’t be as aesthetically pleasing or portable. Analogue Pocket is larger than it looks in screenshots so I question it’s “pocketability” to begin with.
* There appear to be some issues with the cartridge slot. Some impressions so far have shown the games crashing when tapped. When Pocket was revealed, I thought this might be a problem as cartridges looked less secure than on Nintendo’s original hardware. It's obvious Analogue designed this with a form-before-function mentality.
* Despite getting delayed by like a year, the system software is unacceptably incomplete. I understand Analogue OS was only announced in October; the company never should have shipped in the state the software was in.
Has anyone else pre-ordered this recently? Has anyone received their unit? I think Ian said he snagged a preorder back in August 2020 though he checks into this forum less than I do.

Ian Sane:
Well I did get my Pocket when they first shipped in December.  It seems like life is much busier now than it was when I pre-ordered so I haven't had as much time to play it as I would like.  Gee, I guess that can happen if something gets delayed a year.  But I recently got Kirby and the Amazing Mirror for the GBA and that seems as good of an excuse as any to play it.

This is my first Analogue product and it feels like a quality product in your hand.  It has a bit of weight to it, not in a way that would affect portability but just that it doesn't feel cheap.  The screen is the most impressive part.  It's very clear and bright.  It has different display modes to simulate different system models and they're fun to experiment with.  By default you can play a pixel perfect mode but there also modes to make it look like the old green Game Boy screen where the pixels are just slightly separated.  I usually try out scan lines and such on retro style devices but this is probably the most authentic looking display options I've ever seen.

I also got the dock and the Game Gear Adapter.  The dock is not a impressive as I would have liked.  Those cool display modes are not enabled for a TV screen, so you only have the pixel perfect mode.  It appears to always send some sort of signal through the HDMI connection.  I have an auto-switch for my TV to have multiple devices connected but this doesn't work with it because the TV always thinks the dock is sending something.  That's a very specific issue with my set up though.  I'm also concerned about how the Pocket connects to the dock as it connects to a port at the bottom but otherwise just sits in a little pit with a brace behind it.  What if someone knocked it with their hand?  It doesn't snap in so I fear it would bend the connector.

The Game Gear Adapter is very nice though.  Usually when using cartridge connectors, like the Super Game Boy, there can be challenges with connections because you need to connect twice.  But I find this works like a charm.  I had to give my Game Gear games a good cleaning first but after a round of that everything has been consistent.

There were some bugs I initially encountered but they were all fixed by updating the firmware.  The Metroid GBA games had a horrible distorted sound in their intros for the spaceship engine.  Castle of Illusion for the Game Gear did a weird thing where the screen viewed seemed zoomed in with the edges getting cut off.  The Game Gear hardware is really just an extension of the Sega Master System and many games released for the GG here were SMS games in other parts of the world.  I wonder if Castle of Illusion's code is literally identical between the two and displays in a different mode depending on what system is running it.  So maybe it initially thought it was running on an SMS and displayed a TV resolution in a handheld sized screen?  Anyway, that was fixed by the firmware.  Though one note with the firmware is that the Pocket uses a micro SD card to update firmware but the dock uses a USB stick.  So you need two different storage devices to update what is essentially two parts of the same product?

I haven't played a game that really relied on the L&R buttons so I don't really know if those are an issue or not.  I played a race or two in F-Zero and was fine.  The cartridge slot doesn't hold the games as tight as a real Game Boy but it isn't like if you tipped the system upside down the cart would fall out.  I haven't had any issues with a cart loosening during gameplay.

So far I like it.  Is it worth the money?  Eh, not sure on that one.  I think for me it will be once the other systems get cartridge connectors and then I've got one mega-handheld.  If you have no way to play GBA games otherwise though, yeah this is a must own.

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