Today, I want to talk about the Typo Vintage Gamer. I’m always on the lookout for something a bit strange and unique. And also something a little bit dodgy. Yeah, this thing is basically a knock-off console made by Typo that looks a little bit like the PSP.
The package contained the Typo Vintage Gamer itself and a user manual. It boasts a 2.9-inch LCD display screen, and volume control (which is always essential). To power up, it requires four 1.5-volt AAA batteries. Sadly, these weren’t included in the package.
A less-than-perfect handheld
One thing to note is the message on the back says, “Due to the circumstances of the LCD, there are some dots that do not light up. However, please note this is not a defect.” I don’t know. Is that just because Typo can’t pass off the shoddy nurse of their work? Probably. I did also notice that it says, “You’re weird. I like it.” Which is kinda fun. I am weird, and I’m happy that Typo recognises and accepts that. They must know their target audience. Random tech/gaming YouTubers.
Once opened, the handheld device was stored in a plastic tray. The console weighed next to nothing and the manual was pretty bare bones regarding instructions. The overall weight of the handheld went up considerably after the required batteries were inserted. Inserting them was relatively easy, with the back cover popping off quite easily.
Button layout
Compared to a PSP, it’s physically smaller but significantly chunkier. It has a smaller screen too. In terms of the button layout, the D-pad is on the left as per usual. Below the screen is a Reset and Start button. A and B hang out on the right. The D-pad wasn’t great, and the buttons weren’t much better. There were rows of indentations along the top which I thought were speaker grills. This is technically true, but only a small section of the holes had speakers behind them.
Starting up the console, there is no loading screen or company logo. It just kind of turns on. A repetitive tune constantly loops on the main menu. Interestingly, there’s also a Goomba from Mario on the selection screen representing the “Arcade” section. That’s pretty funny because there are no Mario games included. A pretty random and kinda unnecessary bit of copyright infringement right there.
Even though this thing has 240 games, none were that great. Obviously, I didn’t try all of them, but the ones I did kinda said a lot about the quality control on this thing. The first game was a platformer featuring a monkey wielding a boomerang. Others included a generic racing and jet fighter flyer. It even has Hangman on there! Whilst not all games were absolute garbage, the controls made things also unplayable. Emulation made things even worse.
Conclusion
The Typo Vintage Gamer is the perfect combination of bad emulation, terrible controls and a lazy approach to making a product. It isn’t fun to play, it’s difficult to hold and after a while, the screen started to hurt my eyes. I would avoid this thing like the plague, even if you can pick it up for cheap as I did.
If you want to see the video this article was based on, check it out below! It also features some gameplay,
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