The Arduboy FX-C is an excellent time killer you might forget you’re carrying

The Arduboy FX-C squeezes a lot of entertainment into a thin, credit card-sized handheld. As handheld consoles continue to grow and push the limits of what you can actually hold in your hands, the Arduboy FX-C comes in a refreshingly pocketable package.  It manages to squeeze the best features of past models and some welcome upgrades into a handheld that’s still no larger or thicker than a few credit cards. It’s the best version of the Arduboy so far, particularly for gamers who want to jump into the handheld’s ever-expanding library of games and apps right out of the box, but one of its most compelling upgrades isn’t quite ready for primetime. The original Arduboy was a Tetris-playing business card created by Kevin Bates to show off his electronics skills. It went viral in 2014 prompting Bates to turn the idea into a commercial device a year later that was both a tiny open-source gaming device and a tool that could help would-be developers learn to code. Arduboy FX-C Where to Buy: $79 at Amazon $79 at Arduboy After over a decade of minor iterations, the Arduboy FX-C looks very much like the original. The controls are limited to six buttons, four of which function as a D-pad. They have a minimal amount of travel given the device is just 5mm thin, but a satisfying amount of click when pressed. The piezoelectric speaker is high pitched but more than loud enough, and its 1.3-inch, 1-bit OLED screen is bright enough to be playable outdoors. While the 37-year-old original Game Boy could display four shades of greenish-gray, the Arduboy FX-C’s screen is monochromatic and limited to only white pixels. Developers have to rely on visual tricks like dithering or flickering to create grayscale graphics. Equally limiting is the FX-C’s ATmega32u4 processor that’s paired with just 2.5KB of RAM. Compared to other black-and-white handhelds like the Playdate, the Arduboy FX-C feels primitive but its limitations have forced game developers to get creative and experimental, which is a...

Fonte: The Verge
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