TrimUI Smart Pro
A teeny tiny handheld game console for nerds, that I bought for $51.52USD including shipping in 2024.
It runs a slimmed down version of Linux, which can run many emulated console games, and a limited number of PC games through an app called Portmaster.
It's possible to install a variant of Android on this called GammaOS, but I have not tried.
It's a little smaller than Nintendo Switch and a little bigger than my Samsung Galaxy S22. Has Nintendo style button layout on right, which i'm not the biggest fan of as I happen to prefer Xbox and PlayStation style layouts.
Of all the cheap handhelds of 2024, this has the biggest and best screen: 4.96" 1280 × 720p. This is perhaps a bit of a waste since this device is intended to play classic games that have a 4:3 ratio, but I have also enjoyed playing some widescreen games on it such as Dust Elysian Tale and Balatro (2024).
Has quite meagre specifications:
- Allwinner A133P 1.8GHz CPU
- 1GB DDR4 RAM. Together these have prevented me from running more demanding emulators and games, such as Hyper Light Drifter and a lot of Nintendo 64 games like Super Smash Bros 64.
- 5000mAh battery, which lasts me around 2 hours
I installed a custom layer over the base operating system, called Crossmix OS, which adds a variety of neat features:
- Moonlight for streaming games from my computer, which works well on the device but I've found that the device's weak CPU and RAM seem only able to handle a bitrate of 2.5Mbps. I've observed one person say that Moonlight works better at 30FPS on the device, but I'd rather keep the high framerate.
- Function switch remapping - there's a 2-mod switch on the bottom of the device, and its purpose can be defined to do all kinds of things. I set mine to put my console in Turbo mode for more CPU intensive tasks. Note that this seems to make the back of the device quite warm.
- SMB hosting, so when the device connects to WiFi, I can see it as a network drive from my desktop PC. This lets me easily copy game files to it
- Saving state on power off, and booting into saved state on power on
Notes for me and others who own it
The r/trimui subreddit has made a useful website, TrimUI Hub.
Another OS exists for the Smart Pro: Next UI. As of 2025-06-18 it lacks the ability to customise the toggle switch on the bottom of the Smart Pro, so I have not tried this OS yet.