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Details
Display: 4-inch square IPS, 720 x 720, 254ppi, 60fps
Processor: 64-bit Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, quad-core ARM Cortex-A53
Storage: Removable microSD card; 32GB and 128GB bundles available
Battery: 1,600mAh Li-Po rechargeable
Dimensions: 128 x 88 x 6.5mm
Weight: 105g
Controls: Dual silicone navigation discs with eight tactile snap-dome buttons
Connectivity: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth
Ports: Mini-USB, USB-C, HDMI, Qwiic
Operating system: GamerCard OS, based on Raspberry Pi OS
Games included: Bloo Kid 2, AstroBlaze DX and the Saboteur trilogy
PICO-8: Installed on review sample; sold separately
Emulation: Recalbox, RetroPie and Lakka; Sinclair says RetroPie can run up to PlayStation 1 level
Cooling: Integrated heatsink radiator
Pricing: £99 handheld only; £125 with 32GB microSD; £149 with 128GB microSD
Having spent a week with the GamerCard, I still can’t fully explain why I like it so much. I just know I keep picking it up, carrying it around and finding another excuse to play something on it. It’s not exactly a retro handheld in the vein of the best retro game consoles, as it can run indies and be used to play and code PICO-8 games – GamerCard is its own very unique thing imbued with the spirit of Sinclair.
The screen is a big part of the appeal. It’s a four-inch, 720 x 720 square IPS display at 254ppi, running at 60fps, and because we’re so used to everything being wide these days, it takes a second to adjust to seeing a square screen again. Importantly, it’s designed this way for running PICO-8 games natively, which is one of GamerCard’s biggest draws and what sets it apart from pure retro handhelds like the HyperMegaTech! handhelds. GamerCard is more than a simple retro player, and that’s a huge part of what it does well.
GamerCard’s uniquely tactile design
GamerCard feels slightly odd at first, but once I start playing, it makes surprising sense for older games and small indie games, with pixel art looking crisp and bright. The big rubber discs covering the controls are probably the most obvious example of Sinclair refusing to do things conventionally. They hide the buttons underneath, and pressing them brings back the rubber-key feeling of the ZX Spectrum.
They’re not perfect, though. I’ve spent too much time remembering which ‘button’ A is, which is Y and which direction I’ve actually pressed because the labels are hidden under the rubber. The navigation discs also aren’t as responsive as a traditional d-pad, so anyone expecting modern controller precision will notice the difference. There are two smaller rubber discs on the rear of the handheld, which make playing 3D games easier.
Now, I’ve decided I’m prepared to live with the rubber discs, mainly because replacing those controls with something conventional would make the GamerCard a better controller, but it would also make it a much less interesting piece of hardware. If you spend most of your time playing games where accurate directional input matters, though, you’ll probably find them frustrating, but for simple indie games and retro games they fare well enough. You can connect gamepads via Bluetooth, but they will need to be customised in the setup menu.
The GamerCard is built around a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, which means it can run RetroPie up to PlayStation 1. I’ve had Alien Trilogy and G-Darius running nicely, which is pretty remarkable when you consider the whole computer has been squeezed into a device that’s just 6.5mm thick. I’ve got hundreds of ZX Spectrum games sitting on the removable microSD card in mine, too, all running on that little square display, looking fantastic with the retro-framed presentation. The small screen suits these pixel games surprisingly well.
My review model is the updated production version of GamerCard, which now includes a removable microSD card slot, something Sinclair says it added in response to the NAND memory shortage. It makes a lot of sense for a Raspberry Pi-based machine like this, particularly once you start filling it with Spectrum games, emulators, and PICO-8 titles, and it lets you use your own card or swap to a larger one rather than being locked into the storage it shipped with.
Sinclair has also bundled Nintendo Switch games Bloo Kid 2 and Astroblaze, which work nicely on the rubber discs, along with the classic Saboteur trilogy for some retro fun. Sinclair is also developing a GamerCard store designed to make the wider Raspberry Pi ecosystem easier to access without requiring users to type lines of code just to install or update things, and my review model has access to an early beta version of the ‘Get Pi Games’ app from which I downloaded Celeste Classic, Tombs of Myra and Quake, that latter id shooter looks incredible on the GamerCard’s display (though perhaps not ideal with the default rubber disc controls).
You’ll need to connect the GamerCard to Wi-Fi to access some of these features, including the beta store and PICO-8’s online games, so it’s worth knowing that some of the more interesting bits aren’t available the moment you switch it on.
Pi gaming has potential
Get Pi Games proves interesting, but it isn’t something I’d score the GamerCard on yet. The bigger store, full of games and apps, is still being developed, and Sinclair has plans for more games, paid content, and new developer partnerships, but for now I can review what’s here. The Raspberry Pi underneath already makes this more interesting than a simple emulator handheld. PICO-8 is installed on my GamerCard, although it’s sold separately, and it feels almost tailor-made for this machine. The games are small, strange, colourful and inventive, the square screen suits them beautifully, and the whole thing has that homespun quality that fits the Sinclair brand and hardware.
I’ve found myself spending more time browsing those games than I expected. I’d loaded up the GamerCard wanting to see how many Spectrum games I could squeeze onto it and ended up disappearing down a PICO-8 rabbit hole instead.
Load up Saboteur or a few thousand Spectrum games, and you’ve got a nostalgia machine like so many others, but PICO-8 changes the experience because it opens the door to discovering new, modern titles imbued with the ragtag bedroom-developer invention of how games were made, rather than simply digging through the past. There’s a Raspberry Pi computer underneath all of this too, meaning GamerCard doesn’t have to spend the rest of its life pretending it’s 1983 – connecting a monitor and peripherals turns this into a tiny indie dev platform.
It isn’t all as slick as the hardware design would have you believe. The GamerCard became warm to the touch in the bottom-right corner after I used it for a while, especially with more demanding software, and the interface can be confusing. I’ve spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to escape a game and return to the main screen, pressing buttons in increasingly random combinations until something finally happened. This tends to occur with emulated games I installed rather than with those set up on the device by Sinclair or those downloaded via Get Pi Games, and it can simply be one of those quirks we expect from retro gaming.
But there is a roughness, and that’s understandable given what Sinclair has actually built. The company has squeezed a full Raspberry Pi computer into a pocketable 6.5mm form factor, using a patented stack of PCBs as the structure rather than surrounding everything with a conventional outer enclosure. You really need to hold it, poke those ridiculous rubber discs, turn it over, look at the ports and start wondering what else you can get running on it. That’s when the GamerCard starts making sense.
I don’t think the GamerCard is for everyone. If you want the best possible retro emulation for your money, there are cheaper and more capable options. If you want a perfect d-pad and responsive controls for action games, I’d look elsewhere. If you want a slick interface, there are better choices; for instance, PlayDate has a similar target of uniqueness and indie appeal but is perfectly smooth and playable.
Why I can’t put GamerCard down
The GamerCard makes sense, however, if you want something that feels genuinely different: a gaming handheld you can tinker with but don’t necessarily have to, and something that sits between a retro handheld, a tiny Raspberry Pi computer usable out of the box (not a DIY project) and an indie games machine.
I thought the appeal would be nostalgia, and obviously that’s still a huge part of it, and seeing that Spectrum-inspired design and loading up old games scratches a very particular itch, particularly if you remember what tapping those old rubber keys felt like rather than simply what they looked like. And the more I use the GamerCard, the more interested I am in the newer games and features. As a retro handheld, it’s a lovely way into emulation, but the PICO-8 and the Raspberry Pi ecosystem give it somewhere to go beyond simply looking backwards, and that’s truly unique.
GamerCard is a bit awkward; the controls take some getting used to, and the UI could be clearer, but those things don’t completely undermine the experience. The alternative would probably have been a more conventional, more polished and considerably less memorable handheld. And honestly, I’ve got enough of those already.
