Miyoo Mini Plus Review | The Best £40 You Can Spend on Retro Gaming

Miyoo Mini Plus Review | The Best £40 You Can Spend on Retro Gaming

I wanted something small enough to carry every day, capable enough to run GBA and SNES games properly, and cheap enough that I wouldn't be precious about it. The Miyoo Mini Plus ticks every one of those boxes. I've had mine for just over a year, I use it three or four times a week and it's earned a permanent place in my EDC bag.

Build quality and buttons

For £40, this thing feels far better than it has any right to. The textured plastic shell is solid, the finish is quality, and the grey colourway with purple face buttons looks perfectly retro. I've had comments and questions from curious onlookers, wondering if it was a genuine console from the 80s. It wears the aesthetic well.

The buttons are a highlight. There's a satisfying amount of travel, not mushy, not clicky, right in the sweet spot. The D-pad is the best I've used on a retro handheld. The shortcut button is well placed and useful for quick access to save states and fast forward.

The only very minor hardware gripe is the side-by-side shoulder button layout, which can feel a bit awkward. It's an inherent trade-off of keeping the form slim, and every vertical retro handheld I've tried has the same issue.

The screen

This tiny device manages to pack a vibrant 3.5 inch IPS display, edge to edge with virtually no bezel. It looks brilliant, and gives GBA and SNES games a new life. If you do prefer the older, more desaturated or grainy look of the older devices, there are overlays built in to simulate this. The screen definitely contributes to this device punching way above its price point.

Size and carry

Big enough to be comfortable to hold, small enough to slip into a bag pocket. I keep mine in a fitted case I picked up for £6 on AliExpress, inside my EDC bag. The Miyoo Mini (the smaller sibling) was too small for me, a lot of people love it (shoutout to TechDweeb) but I found it uncomfortable. This is the goldilocks size. I wouldn't want it any bigger either.

Software and setup

When purchasing this device, you are offered a pre-loaded SD card with the stock OS and a bunch of roms as an add-on for a few more pounds. I declined this for a few reasons; I wanted to put a proper branded card in it rather than rely on whatever gets bundled, I wanted to hand-pick my roms, and I wouldn't be using the stock OS anyway. I grabbed a SanDisk Ultra 128GB, loaded OnionOS onto it, and was up and running in under an hour. OnionOS is clean, intuitive, and well supported. However, I've since gone one step further and developed my own private fork called CauleyOS.

Adding ROMs is straightforward - SD card into your PC, drag and drop. The smarter option is the built-in Wi-Fi. It opens a local network you can access via FTP from your phone or computer, meaning you can add, remove or update ROMs without ever pulling the SD card. Since discovering this method, I haven't done it any other way.

Having onboard Wi-Fi also enables one of my favourite aspects of retro gaming - RetroAchievements. An online system that adds achievement tracking to retro games. At this point for me, collecting RetroAchievements is just as fun as actually playing the game, so I wouldn't want to be without it.

Also worth mentioning, it's very easy and safe to overclock the CPU to squeeze out more fast-forward speed in slow paced games like Pokémon. I bumped mine up shortly after getting it and have never had an issue. It took my fast forward speed from 2x to roughly 3.5x which is a welcome and noticeable boost.

Battery life - the one real issue

In my experience, you get about 4-5 hours per charge. That's fine for what most people will actually use this for, 15 to 30 minute sessions on a lunch break or commute. In that case you're charging it once a week and you'll barely notice.

Where it becomes noticeable is a proper evening on the sofa. A few hours in and you're reaching for a cable or powerbank. It does feel like I charge this thing a lot.

Which brings me to my least favourite thing about this device. It has USB-C, but you cannot use a C-to-C cable. The recommended input is USB-A to C at 5V/1A-1.5A. Using a fast charger has been reported to damage the motherboard and battery circuits. In 2026, having to keep a USB-A cable specifically for one device is such a shame, especially as someone who likes to minimise and streamline my EDC. It ships with a compatible cable in the box, so you're not immediately stuck, but it definitely could catch you out.

Price and where to buy

It's still around £40 on AliExpress. Some UK retailers and Amazon listings are charging upwards of £130 for the same device. At that markup, the value argument falls down.

If you go to AliExpress, buy from a seller with strong reviews and a high volume of sales. The MM+ is a well-established product, so reputable sellers are easy to find. I used to avoid AliExpress like the plague, but it's nothing to be scared of. I've now used it for many products and never had an issue. The one time I had to return something it was easy and painless. This product was in my hands 5 days after ordering it, which is impressive and surprising for China to UK shipping.

Verdict

A year in, the Miyoo Mini Plus is still one of my favourite things in my EDC bag, I still get a little nostalgic buzz every time I pull it out. The build, the screen, the buttons, all of it punches well above its price bracket, at £40 this is crazy value. The Wi-Fi and RetroAchievements support turn it from a simple emulator into something you actually keep picking up.

The battery is a real limitation if long sofa sessions are your thing. The USB-A situation is a real shame. Neither changes what this is: the best value retro handheld out right now.