I own both a Retron 3 and Retron 5 from Hyperkin, that I use for playing some of my older games, and thought I’d give my opinion on both.
I’ve seen a lot of Harries (I was going to say dicks, but I thought Harries would be nicer) that always post stuff like ‘You are a moron, use a PC for emulation, PCs rule, consoles suck’. To those Harries I would say this – I own a good portion of the carts that I like to play, I like jamming them into a console, and I like using the original controllers for the original experience, I like not having to use a mouse and keyboard to start my games. I do own (too many) PCs, and I do use one as a MAME machine (With a TankStick .. thank you Hayes it is awesome). I also own all the consoles that I use the Retrons for, but both my NES’s have died (even after performing surgery on one to replace the 72-pin connector), and the Retron 5 just look better onscreen that the SNES and modded MegaDrive. It is worth noting that these are not for purists Harries as they use emulators, so sounds and colour can differ, but they are good enough for me. Also, some games do work with either console, so I use the original hardware with them, I seem to have had better success with the Retron 3 than Retron 5 as far as cart compatibility goes.
So anyway .. the Retron 3.
Throw away those controllers immediately
The Retron 3 has three cart slots, one for each of the Super Nintendo, Genesis and Nintendo Entertainment System. It also has two control ports for each system so you can use the original controllers for the system.
The Retron 3:
- Uses US/Japan based power only (120V), so you will need a step-down transformer to play in countries like Aus.
- Is NTSC only, I have tried PAL carts and they work, but at a weird speed
- Has S-Video out, so slightly better video output than standard video out
- Has a switch at the back so you can switch between US and Japanese carts
- Comes with two IR controllers that you should throw away immediately
- You can have three carts plugged in and switch between the SNES/Genesis/NES at anytime, even when the system is on
- Supports emulation carts (I use the SNES PowerPak and Everdrive, both of witch are awesome)
The Retron 5 has 5 cartridge slots: NES, SNES, Genesis, Famicom, Game Boy Advance, and has the same controller ports as the Retron 3.
The Retron 3 on the left and Retron 5 on the right
With the Retron 5:
- Power is universal, so you don’t need a step-down converter, comes with connectors for Europe, the UK, Australia and China
- The power adapter is cheap and mine died within a couple of weeks, but easy to replace (5V, 2A from memory)
- Takes a stupid amount of time to power on, have to hold the power button for about 6-7 seconds
- Has HDMI out and audio and video up scaling, which looks awesome
- Can save the state of games to an SD card (also can use the SD card for upgrading firmware, storing cheat codes and screen shots), makes it easy to pick up where you left off
- Many, many options for how you scale and display screens, i.e. keep as 4:3, stretch to whole screen, add scan lines etc
- The connectors, at least to begin with, do not want to give your carts back and hold on for dear life, you definitely feel like some thing is going to break when trying to rip a cart out
- Will play both PAL and NTSC carts, which is awesome
- You can only have one cart plugged in at anyone time
- Controllers are Bluetooth and reasonable, but not fantastic, especially if you want that original experience, but hey, that’s what the controller ports are for .. neither good nor bad, thus the blue for ‘Bluetooth’
- Plays GBA, GBC and GB games, which is really cool
In short, I use my Retron 3 and emulation carts for playing games for which my cart is dead, or I do not (yet) own the cart, and use the Retron 5 for playing my SNES/MD/NES carts. Between them they cover all my needs in getting my retro games working and looking good, and I’m glad I bought them.