Odroid GO Advance: retro fun on Linux handheld

Ordering the device

Odroid GO Advance (OGA) can be ordered from the official HardKernel site or other official distributors. Unluckily due to the coronavirus spread in China, the device is out of stock until May 2020.

I ordered on 31 Jan and it was shipped on 10 Feb and I received on 13 Feb. That was really fast. Unfortunately they used DHL Express for shipping and I have to pay additional the custom fee. So in total 67EUR (device 55USD + shipping 16USD) + 27EUR (custom).

Hardware assembly

Official assembly guide video
Order: LCD display (BE CAREFUL) – screen protector – joystick (screws) – other buttons – speaker – motherboard (screws) – LCD and joystick connections (BE CAREFUL) – battery + back case – L/R and power buttons – lock case pins and screws
press power switch for 1s to turn it on: “No SD card” indication

Installing the emulation system

Will need a MicroSD card at least 8GB (up to 512GB). There are currently several OS under development:

Default Ubuntu EmulationStation
Others including Batocera, RetroArena, Debian, Emuelec on the OGA forum

Transfering games

The device doesn’t have Wifi or bluetooth. So to add games one would need

Linux PC (eg Raspberry Pi; Mac doesn’t work) or Windows with Software that can recognize linux partition
or using a USB-Wifi adapter (eg. TP-Link TL-WN725N) and transfering using SSH/SCP/SMB (odroid/odroid)

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# ssh to manage files
ssh odroid@192.168.x.xx
cd /roms

# scp to copy
scp <rom file> odroid@192.168.x.xx:/roms/gba

Using the Scraper to get game previews

The EmulationStation has the Scraper that pulls from TheGamesDB or ScreenScraper. Press the START button to use.

Buttons and operations

ON: press power button for 1s
OFF: single press power button
Force OFF: press power button for 6s

Function buttons at the bottom:

oga-buttons

Pros and Cons

Pros

high performance hardware (CPU RAM)
beautiful and bright LCD screen (wide color)
long battery life (10 hours)
attracting price (excluding the custom fee)

Cons

needs self-assembly
no USB charging (extra DC cable)
the transparent plastic case looks ugly (personal view)