We have played with the A500 Mini. The new Amiga 500 mini console.

Retro Games’ new mini console A500 Mini is a small mini / retro console that plays old Amiga games. It is of course shaped like the legendary Amiga 500, which was an incredibly beautiful creation. However, the A500 Mini is much smaller than the original and the device’s keyboard is only there for the sake of visibility, so there is nothing you can use.

The device comes with 25 pre-installed Amiga games. However, these are of varying quality and very many of them come from Team17. Among the better games you will find Alien Breed, Speedball 2 and Another World, but there are also real bottom buttons like Titus The Fox and Alien Breed 3D. It feels a bit like they took the games they could get without having to put too much effort into licenses and rights. Had it only been possible to play these 25 games on the device, it would have been difficult to recommend. However, the A500 Mini has a really nice ace up its sleeve, namely the ability to basically run any Amiga game via USB.

This means that you can fill a USB memory stick with all your favorite games from that time and drive on. Retro Games says that these games must be procured through legal means, but since it is not entirely easy, most people will probably turn to the legal gray area to expand the unit’s gaming library. However, a few games that you run from USB may require a little pill among the settings for them to work optimally. This is not very complicated, but it is good to know that it is not always just honking and driving.

The console comes with a hand control and a mouse. The hand control is similar to the one that came with the CD32, however, it is slightly smaller and of better quality. It fulfills its function but not much more. You also get a mouse that is similar to the beautiful Commodore 1351 mouse. This is also slightly smaller than the original and uses an optical reader instead of the ball. The mouse buttons are not as “clicky” either, but the clicks are quieter like modern computer mice. Both are connected via USB, which means that you can use them with your computer or you can use other controllers with your A500 Mini. As I said, the keyboard does not work, so if a game requires input from the keyboard, you have to open up a software keyboard in the system.

The A500 Mini connects to any screen via HDMI and spits out a resolution of 720p. The games can be run in both 50 Hz (PAL) or 60 Hz (NTSC), however, you should probably in this case choose 50 Hz as a large majority of the games are coded for it. If you want, you can also add filters to make the screen look more retro or finer, but it is best not to.

Emulation of Amiga games has been possible since time immemorial but has never been as easy to achieve as many other consoles or computers. Therefore, it is quite clean to have a small device that can run these games with almost perfect emulation. The unit costs 1290 kronor, which feels a bit too high, but if you are now like me and grew up with these games and sometimes feel that you just have to drive a little Goods, the A500 Mini is a bit of a must.

If you have any thoughts about this device, just ventilate them among the commenters and I will try to answer them.

retrogames.biz

Games, Other,

Amiga 500, Commodore, A500 Mini

The games that come with the A500 Mini …

Alien Breed 3D
Alien Breed: Special Edition’92
Another World
Arcade Pool
ATR: All Terrain Racing
Battle Chess
Cadaver
California Games
The Chaos Engine
Dragons Breath
F-16 Combat Pilot
Kick Off 2
The Lost Patrol
Paradroid 90
Pinball Dreams
Project-X: Special Edition 93
Qwak
The Sentinel
Simon the Sorcerer
Speedball 2: Brutal Deluxe
Stunt Car Racer
Super Cars II
Titus The Fox: To Marrakech And Back
Worms: The Director’s Cut
Zool