First off, I'm a tough audience for one of these all in one arcades. I've built my own modular arcade cab, and run a bunch of stuff off my main PC as well. So this has a lot of things that I miss from being able to roll my own.

So the good stuff. This is very easy to set up and use. Plug in the HDMI, USB to a power source (your TV probably won't be outputting enough power over its USB ports), and plug in the RF dongle for the controllers. Done. Also, it has a TON of games across multiple systems. Arcade, NES, Genesis, even PS1. And the games I ran all performed well. I was dubious about the PS1 games, but they performed better than I expected.

Now some of the bad stuff. All the games play at the same aspect ratio. You also cannot change this on the device. You'll have to change that on your TV. Otherwise you get an ugly stretched mess when you try to play a game. This is actually OK for the console based games. But arcade games came in a wide variety of aspect ratios, so a lot of them won't look right. Not a huge deal if you're just casually gaming, but it won't be quite like playing at the arcade. Also, navigation is a bit of an issue. The games are listed and sorted by a number, which is kind of in alphabetical order, but not really. There are also a lot of revs of the same games, which pumps up the number of total games (there's plenty anyway, so they really didn't need to bother), but makes finding stuff problematic. There is also a search function, but I noticed more than a few games had badly translated names listed, rather than their actual release names in the US. Lastly, the games just don't look quite right. There are no bezels around the games, and they did not bother to include scanlines. Again, for a casual gamer, no big deal. If you're trying to recreate as closely as possible to the good old days, not so much.

If I were rating this solely on the stick, I'd give it 3 stars. Great game selection, but a lot of the niceties aren't really there.

However, one big plus, which bumped this up a star in my opinion, are the controllers. Don't get me wrong, they're not anything special, but they will work on other devices. I tested the dongle on a Windows 11 machine and it was recognized immediately. The gamepad configuration worked as well. Just be aware that there are two modes, and in one of the modes, the right stick acts as buttons, so be sure you toggle modes to the correct one if trying to use them this way. The remotes are basically playstation knockoffs. Decent response and feel. They also have an on/off switch, which will help save the batteries.

So overall this is OK. I'd personally use it for traveling. Can't beat the form factor and ease of use.

Easy plug and play, tons and tons of games especially for the GEN X gamer. There is huge amount of Japanese and foreign games, but still hundreds of US games. What is keeping it from 5 stars, occasionally blinks off and on while playing for a second or two and amount of foreign games making it a little tedious to search, also when using save feature sometimes disappears when going back into that game. Overall for price and what you receive and picture quality on HD screen, definitely worth it!

The media could not be loaded. I've had a few similar "Retro/vintage video games" handheld consoles in the past, but they all pale in comparison to this outfit from XP-lode! First of all, most of the handhelds I've tried contained maybe a few hundred games installed - but this one has THOUSANDS! It should be noted that not all of them are perfect: some don't have any sound at all (i.e. the multiple Zaxxon versions); some have sound, but it is very choppy; some can't be controlled from the included wireless controllers (i.e. Afterburner II, a favorite of mine, allows shooting and activation of the afterburners, but the plane cannot be maneuvered at all - although the original versions of Afterburner in this console DO allow plane control - but the graphics are far inferior. Also, in Arkanoid, another old favorite, the paddle cannot be moved at all, although at least one of the later Arkanoid spinoffs allows control but this one has choppy sound and doesn't seem to operate at full speed).

With so many games to choose from, however, anyone should be able to find a LOT of titles that they like and that work without issues. One of my wife's favorites: Ms. Pac Man, is here, and it works perfectly. Tetris also works fine. There are side-scrolling games, driving games, sports games, fighting games, puzzles, Mario Bros are here, as are many different Pac-Man and MS. Pac-Man versions. And I am just scratching the surface. Some of the games have LOTS of different versions available, and in some cases they all look pretty much the same, although some are in non-English languages.

In the box are the following items:
> two wireless game controllers which in my opinion are a decent quality compared to the controllers that were included with the handheld consoles I've had;
> the game console itself ("console" is a bit misleading. It's a tiny thing not much bigger than a pack of gum);
> a small dongle that plugs into the "console's" USB port to allow wireless connection of the two game controllers;
> a USB-A to micro-USB cable for powering the game (no USB power adapter is included however - you'll need to supply your own); and
> a short HDMI extension cable.

The console has a slip-off cap on one end that when removed reveals an HDMI male connector which can either be plugged directly into a TV or monitor, or if it's more convenient, the short HDMI extension cable can be used between the two devices. There is also a micro SD card slot on which the games are all loaded. Any of the games can be permanently deleted if they are useless or in a different language if desired, and additional game ROMa can be downloaded from the internet and saved to the SD card (I personally don't know how to make that work, but for those who are familiar with game emulators like this one, it probably opens up a lot of possibilities. The wireless game controllers each use two AAA batteries (not included).

This would easily be a five-star item if more of the games that I used to love "back in the day" worked flawlessly, but because of this deficiency I'm awarding four. Since the makers of this game console (I'm assuming) simply gathered a bunch of game ROMs to load onto the SD card, I wouldn't actually expect them to analyze each title to make sure they all work. This would take an awful long time, and would greatly increase the cost of this unit. Anyway, there is lots of fun to be had for those of us who were around when these games first came out, and I would imagine, also for younger folks who like retro things. The fact that there are two controllers included for playing with a friend is a nice bonus. Also, the fact that it connects to the video device via HDMI rather than composite video (like all the handhelds I've had), makes playing the games so much more enjoyable with the high-res output.

I love that this compact little HDMI 'stick' carries literally hundreds of hours of memories from my childhood. We've spent hours already going through the game index and still haven't scratched the surface! Perhaps the only improvement I'd love to see is an easier way to search and sort through the massive list of options. The wireless controllers work great as well and we've had zero issues connecting and using these from across a pretty good size game room.

It's really fun and simple to use but I expected more game that are recent and in English or can be translated.