TrimUI Smart Review
It’s Always In My Pocket!
Purchase Price: $35.82Size and Shape
If I asked you to guess which handheld console I pull out to game with the most, I’m sure the answer would surprise you. I’ve had a Trimui device as my go to for retro gaming and it’s not the Brick that has occupied most of my time; instead it’s this tiny package called the Trimui Smart. While this is far from the best the market has to offer, it has plenty of actual useful advantages that I found myself drawn to.
A Pokemon GBA title running on the Smart
Size and Shape
The number one thing the Trimui Smart has going for it is its size. You hear a lot about the Ayaneo Pocket Micro and how it references the Game Boy Advance Micro, but in reality it’s like double the size and length. The Trimui Smart legitimately has a shot at being a micro handheld without it falling into party-trick status like a Micro Arcade or Anbernic RG-Nano. The Smart has just enough real estate to feel comfortable enough to hold while also maintaining an absolutely compact physical presence. The entire length of the Smart is only slightly longer than my palm.
Unlike a lot of these tiny handhelds, Trimui doesn’t force a Game Boy-style vertical layout. It instead utilizes a horizontal Game Boy Advance-type design with the directional pad on the left of the display and the X,Y,A,B buttons on the right side. This makes it a lot less cramped on the surface while allowing the device to maintain enough space for the thumbs to operate. The device is made out of a smooth plastic material with a flat back panel. There’s not much to grip onto which can make the Smart a bit uncomfortable to hold for long periods of time.
Micro Console For Real
The Smart measures in at 110mm×58mm×15mm and weighs 100g
Single L and R shoulder buttons occupy the top frame flanking a power toggle switch. There’s something nostalgic about powering up a device through a toggle switch. It’s also a more surefire way to know something is turning on rather than holding down a button for an uncertain amount of time. The odd omission from a physical control standpoint is that there’s no single way to control the audio that comes out of the single speaker below the buttons. You’ll need to use a combination of the select button and shoulder triggers to adjust the volume. The bottom of the frame holds the microSD card slot and a USB-C port for charging.
The buttons make a tappy click sound when pressed into. The directional pad is especially distinct and it doesn’t feel too bad to play with. Due to the distinct small size of the Smart, the travel of the buttons is as you’d expect: short. It’s nothing premium, but the Trimui Smart is more than capable to use as a daily gaming device for Game Boy family games.
GBA IS The Name of the Game
The Smart relies on a Allwinner S3 SOC that only has 128 MP of ram and 8 GB of storage. You’ll be storing the heavy hitting games on an external storage card, but the specs for this Linux device is lean. This is not a universal emulation console by any means. In fact, I would classify its limitations as PS1 generation. While it can run some games from the PS1, you’ll likely encounter one of a few issues that pop up from prolonged usage. The ones that do run well will have you around 30-40 FPS constantly.
Heating is a relatively common occurrence that will seek through the back plate and onto your fingertips if you play 3D games on the Smart for too long. Frame skips and audio tearing are also things that rear its ugly head with some PS1 titles. The Smart is really at its best emulating Game Boy Advance titles. The entire library fits this small form factor like they were meant to be together. GBA RPGs, and Metrovania-style games run really nicely together with the Smart’s intent.
Perfect for a quick session of Tetris
For me personally, the Smart has become a housing for my Tetris addiction. To have the ability to pull out such a pocketable little thing and play through a quick run of Modretro Tetris anywhere at any time is a god-send. As much as I love the ModRetro Chromatic or Analogue Pocket, I’m not going to bring that out with me without a bag at a coffee shop. I can literally pull the Smart out while waiting in line or sitting on the toilet and throw it back into my pocket in seconds. Games that don’t rely on progression like Tetris go perfectly with the Trimui Smart.
Weak Visual Experience
With only a 166 ppi count, the display isn’t all that sharp
The biggest weakness of a device like this is the display quality. While I wouldn’t necessarily say that it's woeful, the 2.4”, 320 x 240 p IPS display isn’t great. I’d say the 166 ppi count is just barely acceptable for a 4:3 aspect ratio of this display size. I see a lot of light bleed and the display is just generally not that sharp to look at. Colors are also a bit dull and there’s not much here to praise. The only thing I can say that’s remotely positive is that the screen size is pretty manageable for most games. It’s not too small like it may initially appear to be from a distance. Even text heavy games are tolerable as reading dialogue isn’t as big of a chore as they are on some smaller micro consoles.
While the Trimui Smart can come with a microSD card loaded with roms, it’s best for efficiency to use your own card. I took it a step further this time and removed the UI that came with the device and instead installed MinUI to simplify the console’s frontend even more. I was running into a lot of software related issues with the default frontend on the Smart that prevented me from opening a lot of the settings and roms that I needed to work. Once I swapped over to MinUI, everything came together and it felt like the system was complete.
MinUI is an absolutely barebones frontend that perfectly encapsulates what the Trimui Smart should function as. By not relying on animation, case art, and other fancier mechanics, MinUI makes the operation of this inexpensive device feel much smoother than it should be.
final thoughts
As for longevity, the 1,000 mAh battery isn’t large by any means, but because the device doesn’t have any power hungry pieces, I was able to get a good chunk of gaming out of one charge. Playing GBA titles, I would estimate that the Smart can last roughly 3-ish hours off one charge. When you consider how pocketable the form factor is, I don’t think that’s too bad.
This little device may not be built too well, nor is it that exciting to look at, but I do find it to be charming. There’s something really cool about pulling out a tiny but still usable gaming console to play your favorite classic games out of. That freedom and flexibility covers a lot of the downsides that come with a device without a premium agenda attached. While there’s Wi-fi and bluetooth connectivity to help maintain the Smart for years to come via potential firmware updates, it’s still surprisingly a bit more expensive than I would gauge a console like this should cost. While it is far from a joke handheld, you really have to prioritize the convenience factor as your number one priority when choosing to use the Trimui Smart.
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