Miyoo Mini Plus
1 April 2023, evening time
I ordered a Miyoo Mini Plus from Keep Retro earlier this month, which arrived this week. It’s a small portable console designed to play games for older retro consoles. I was keen to play some old NES, SNES and GBA games and this thing fit the bill. The original version of this device is notorious for being sold out all the time, and this new model seems to similarly have stock issues. (The RG35XX is the other fan favourite, that you can likely buy right now.)
The stock OS it comes with is kind of dreadful. I was worried I had made a mistake after playing with it for a a little while. Everyone’s advice is to install an alternative operating system, OnionOS, which improves the performance and quality of the emulators the system runs. Unfortunately that OS isn’t available for the Plus just yet. I opted to install another operating system that is more inline with what I’m looking for anyway, DotUI. It’s a minimalist OS that is removes all the options you probably don’t care about and refines the play experience. I love it.
So, if you end up picking one of these devices upgrading the OS is the first thing you do:
1. Format a new MicroSD card. (I just used the one that came with the device. If you go this route, you should back it up first.)
2. Download the latest release of DotUI from its releases page on Github. For example, I grabbed the zip file for DotUI-20230321b.
3. Unzip your download and copy it all to the root folder of your MicroSD card.
4. Copy any ROMs you want to the appropriate ROMs folder.
5. Put the MicroSD card in your device and boot it up. It’ll just magically do the rest.
Could it be any easier?
I’ve been playing Chrono Trigger, which is amazing. I somehow made it out of the 90s without ever playing it. Of course, pictured above is a screenshot of Final Fantasy VI, the greatest game ever made.