Throwback to the Nintendo 3DS: A Retro Review of the Game Boy Advance SP

As I held the Game Boy Advance SP in my hands, I couldn't help but feel a sense of nostalgia wash over me. This portable gaming console was released over a decade ago, and yet it still manages to impress with its compact design and impressive library of games.

The Game Boy Advance SP is not backward compatible with any Game Boy or Game Boy Color games, which limits its appeal for some collectors. However, the console has an extensive library of games that were specifically designed for the Game Boy Advance, including popular titles like Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, as well as a wide range of lesser-known gems. The SP also features ports of classic NES and SNES games, making it a great option for gamers looking to revisit old favorites.

One of the standout features of the Game Boy Advance SP is its face plate, which is designed to resemble the Nintendo DS's stylized design language. While I appreciate the look, I have to admit that I'm not a fan of how easily the plates scratch. The console comes with a carrying bag to minimize scratches, but even with this protection, the plates still manage to scratch relatively easily.

Another issue I encountered was with the battery life indicator. Some gamers may not be aware when they last used their Game Boy Advance SP and what the battery life is like, so it's a welcome feature that provides peace of mind. However, charging the console can take around 3 hours, which is a bit slow compared to modern devices.

The speaker on the front of the Game Boy Advance SP is tiny, making it difficult to hear in loud environments. The headphone jack does provide stereo sound, however, and the console's design makes it easy to plug in headphones for an immersive gaming experience.

Overall, I think the Game Boy Advance SP is a classic that still holds up today. Its compact size, comfortable design, and impressive library of games make it a great option for gamers looking for a retro experience without the need for a separate handheld console. While there are some minor drawbacks, such as the easily scratched face plate and slow charging time, they don't detract from my overall enjoyment of the device.

If you're in the market for a Game Boy Advance SP, I'd recommend checking out eBay, where prices can range from $70 to over $200 depending on the region. While $100 seems like a fair price point, be aware that these consoles tend to retain their value well, so don't expect to get a great deal if you're looking for a brand new one.

In conclusion, the Game Boy Advance SP is a true throwback that still has plenty to offer modern gamers. Its design may not be the most advanced, but its compact size and impressive library of games make it a great option for those looking for a retro gaming experience without the need for a separate handheld console. Whether you're a casual gamer or a hardcore collector, the Game Boy Advance SP is definitely worth checking out.

Do You Think This is a Classic or a True Throwback?

As I reflect on my experience with the Game Boy Advance SP, I have to ask myself: does this truly qualify as a classic? Is it just a nostalgic throwback that doesn't quite live up to modern standards? For me, the answer is yes – the Game Boy Advance SP is a true classic. Its design may not be cutting-edge, but its compact size and impressive library of games make it a great option for gamers looking for a retro experience.

Nintendo has a way of making even the most mundane devices feel modern and desirable. The bottom of the Game Boy Advance SP, in particular, bears an uncanny resemblance to the Nintendo 3DS's design language. It's this attention to detail that sets Nintendo apart from its competitors and makes their devices truly special.

In contrast, many modern gaming consoles and handheld devices can feel overly bulky and impersonal. The Game Boy Advance SP, on the other hand, is designed to be comfortable and easy to use. Whether you're playing for hours on end or just popping in a quick game before bed, the SP's design makes it feel like an extension of your own body.

Of course, not everyone will share my enthusiasm for the Game Boy Advance SP. Some may view it as a relic of the past, a nostalgic throwback that doesn't quite live up to modern standards. But I believe that's unfair. The SP is more than just a device – it's an experience. It's a chance to revisit old favorites, discover new games, and connect with fellow gamers who share your passion.

Whether you're a classic gaming enthusiast or simply looking for a unique gaming experience, the Game Boy Advance SP is definitely worth checking out. With its compact size, impressive library of games, and attention to detail, it's a device that truly feels like it belongs in today's gaming landscape.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey everybody this is Erica the technology nerd likes to film stuff and welcome to the very first episode of tech throwback so we are all so entranced by all the new devices that are coming out in the future that we tend to forget about the past so what I want to do with this is periodically take a chance to look at some devices and gadgets and cool things from the past see how they're standing up over time if they're a classic or if they kind of just suck by today's standards so the first item that I want to take a look at is the game boy micro which I feel is a severely underappreciated Little Game Boy and also is the very last of the Game Boy line it was pretty much smashed into Oblivion by the DS so this was released after the DS and it really didn't sell very well but I love this thing I think it is quite a classic as you have a chance to play a lot of GBA games and a lot of SNES ports although it's not really like a real Game Boy where you can use any of the previous game boy cartridges you can only play Game Boy advanced games but just the sheer size of this thing is awesome so let's go ahead and have a chance to talk about it play with it see a little bit of how gameplay goes and you can decide whether you think that this is a classic or a throwback so let's go ahead and take a look at it and now for some mildly inappropriate humor this is actually the commercial the only real commercial that I Can See For the Game Boy micro this was released for Canada I did not see one in the United States maybe you have seen it maybe not as Nintendo begins to take on new forms it's important that we can measure how addictive they truly are and uh yeah sensorship censorship just a little inappropriate the new game boy micro extreme portable extremely stylish this is just playing to how desirable Nintendo thinks that the Game Boy is I can't believe that that one actually was a real commercial but indeed it is anyoo moving on to the Game Boy so I'm going to talk about the game boy micro in terms of pros and cons so let's start with the pros the first thing is of course it's small size and yes I'm going to call this a pro because after all this is the game boy micro and if you don't like the size you're free to go with a different size Game Boy including the Advan or the advanced SP now this is a really really great built little device here it is made out of metal so I believe that this is aluminum here we have a matte finish to it and this is the famicom version you can see it's got this glossy type finish very very well built very sturdily built it makes it feel gadgety something that we could find today and not really like a toy so if anything I think that the the appearance holds up to the test of time especially when looking at modern day technology like the Galaxy S6 you see we've got this aluminum band here on the side and you can see the size comparison here to a modern siiz day device really really very very tiny here we have just the normalized 3DS and you can see how small that is and once we open it check that out really very small impressive for being released in 2005 if you really think about it so let's take a tour around this device on the front here we've got our directional pad and also an A and B button we've also got a speaker here on the top we've got our shoulder buttons left and right now some people have not been so happy with the placement of these shoulder buttons most people would like to feel the click right here on the side but instead we feel it more towards the center that's something that hasn't really bothered me but it's just a remark we've got our charging port here on the Bott bottom we've got our select button and our start button you've got your power switch and also the cartridge slots and a headphone jack curiously the Game Boy Advance SP does not have a headphone jack so that's nice to see it squeezed into this little body on the right side we've got our volume rocker left hand side there is nothing then on the back we have our battery compartment so there's just a little screw here I believe it's a 460 Mah hour battery so it's really not a big battery but for this guy it really doesn't require a big battery I can get anywhere from 5 to 8 hours of battery life on this just depending on the brightness and speaking of brightness not only is this a volume rocker but it also doubles as the ability to turn up the brightness or down the brightness on the display that is coupled with holding down this left shoulder button so even though we've got a very tiny device here these are very normal sized buttons here we can compare them to what we have on the 3DS that directional pad is really the same size from what I can see here maybe even just a little bit bigger and also our A and B buttons look just to be a little bit bigger so I've had no trouble whatsoever with the button sizes they're nice and tactile and clicky they don't get stuck they don't feel cheap again this is a very well-built device so let's turn this puppy on shall we we've got a 2in display here this is 240x 160 it's a PPI of 4422 PPI so just 144 pixels per inch that is a very high resolution for the time especially because the Game Boy Advance is about 99 pixels per inch so jumping up from 99 to 144 is pretty significant and you can really see it it looks great now I was telling you earlier you can turn up the brightness on this display and it gets pretty nice and bright you see we can turn it all the way down there this will make the battery life of course last longer so we've got the Zelda game here now continuing to talk about this display this is an LCD display but it is not IPS it doesn't have the greatest of viewing angles if I hold it too much downward it really washes out and if I hold it up this way it's really contrasty so you kind of have to find that sweet spot when looking at it but comparatively to the others in the Game Boy line I would call this the best LCD display that nint output onto a device so this little game boy looks very minimalistic in terms of features but we do have the ability to put this into sleep mode and it tells you to get out of the sleep mode you need to press the select button the L button R button at the same time so that's really nice and it's going to flash here for you so these little buttons here are very important and play a crucial role in telling you what's going on with the device so when they Flash like this it means that your game is on pause now just say we turn it off if we turn it on you can see that this will flash three times that means that there is enough of a charge and if you turn it on and it shows red and it flashes three times it means that the battery life is low and of course these will just stay lit red so once they are lit red it means you've got 20% or 30% battery life left you don't have any little indicators on the display but having 20 to 30% battery life left is fair enough to let you know that you need to start thinking about charging it and once you get a feel for how long your gameplay lasts you'll know how long you have so I think what they have here is quite clever and I don't really think it's a con another nice feature that we have with this little Game Boy here is that it's personalizable so you can take off these face plates so let's go ahead and switch with the famicom version if you go on eBay you can find a lot of aftermarket products ones that have different cute designs and stuff oops and you have to put it in just like this from the right hand side press downward there you go so I find this to be very cute so let's step into talking about the game play here we have Super Mario Advance this is Super Mario Brothers too now to somebody who has good eyes and you don't really need reading glasses is I think that this works just fine I know that it's a little bit small but I haven't had much of an issue at all with playing on this tiny little screen these buttons are very nice and responsive so I have not had any issues whatsoever I found this to be very enjoyable for long plane flights and once you get used to everything it's it's really a charmer I think really very very cute works very very very well for gameplay I don't really have any complaints now of course I need to step into talking about some of the cons that would be a good time to do while looking at the game playay yes some people can't handle the size of the display it's only 2 in very very small and you can see just how tiny little Mario is here so for some that's going to be bothersome and it might cause some eye strain especially if you're not used to looking at things so closely so just keep this in mind about this little thing I would assume that as this is not available readily on the market you're probably not going to go and seek one out if you have real eye strain problems also regarding gameplay like I was mentioning a little bit earlier this is not Backward Compatible with any of the Game Boy or Game Boy Color games so you are going to be limited to the Game Boy Advance Market but there are a lot of games for the Game Boy Advance there are a lot of SNES ports there are NES ports there are just native games that are made for the Game Boy ad I think that you have a very Advanced Library so I don't have much to complain about but that's something to pay attention to you should probably go with an SP or just a normal Advance if you want that diverse library now while I love these little face plates on here one thing I don't appreciate is just how easily they scratch let's see if I can try to show this they actually provide you with a little carrying bag so that you try to minimalize scratches but I noticed that they're even scratched right out of the factory I got this brand new so these scratch very easily and if you don't store it in a sock or something it's just going to look terrible over time also because this is not airtight you get little fuzzies that get underneath the display and I have to remove this every so often to get out that dust so the dust is in the way and I can see it obstructing the screen when I'm playing and that can get quite annoying here and there and for some as I was saying I think that it's very clever what they're doing for the battery life indication some are not going to appreciate that you don't have a battery life indicator if you're someone who's a Casual Gamer you might have no idea when you used it last and what the battery life is like so it's probably best to top it off it's not the fastest at charging it takes about 3 hours to fully charge as far as the speaker that we have on here is this really teeny tiny little speaker and if you are in any type of loud environment you're going to find it very very hard to hear this is the loudest that it gets and it's okay for now in this quiet environment but you do have that headphone jack now the one thing about the headphone jack is that when you plug it in you get kind of a woring type of a sound and when the game is playing and you can hear noise that's in the foreground the worring just kind of Fades into the background and you don't notice it anymore so I think that it sounds pretty immersive when you have the headphones in it's good that this headphone jack does have stereo sound though as this is just a single speaker on the front so let's wrap up this little throwback do you think that this is a classic or would you consider this a throwback and you're just happy to see what we have now namely 3DS we've got our comfortable cozy 3DS XL sized screens versus our little dinky thing here but for me what really does it is the look and the feel it just feels modern to me something from 10 years ago looks like it could belong into today and I like that if I look at the bottom of the 3DS you can see that we've got very very similar looking layout here so it looks just like the bottom really of a 3DS cute as a button very very wellb built not region locked like the rest of the Game Boy series so whether I decided to pick up the famicom version from Japan or I wanted a European version which is this or I got an American version all the games will play so if you're curious as to where to get one of these your best bet is going to be eBay I got this brand new now a little bit of a hint here is that these are really really expensive in the United States so you're going to be paying maybe $200 for a brand new one if you try to do a broader search on eBay and do a search for European countries as well I was able to get this brand new for 70 bucks I believe so $70 versus $200 this came out at $100 on the market so I did not think that that was too bad not too bad at all these seem to retain their value so thank you everybody for watching this has been Erica the technology nerd likes to film stuff please rate comment and subscribe in the comment section below let me know what you want to see thrown back next I found my little carrying bag I dropped it underneath the chair now it can keep it nice and not scratched again let me know what you think about this do you think this is a classic or a true throwback or you just subscribed to believing that pretty much anything that Nintendo makes can be seen as a classic eventually they make great stuff after all so let me know what you think and have a good nighthey everybody this is Erica the technology nerd likes to film stuff and welcome to the very first episode of tech throwback so we are all so entranced by all the new devices that are coming out in the future that we tend to forget about the past so what I want to do with this is periodically take a chance to look at some devices and gadgets and cool things from the past see how they're standing up over time if they're a classic or if they kind of just suck by today's standards so the first item that I want to take a look at is the game boy micro which I feel is a severely underappreciated Little Game Boy and also is the very last of the Game Boy line it was pretty much smashed into Oblivion by the DS so this was released after the DS and it really didn't sell very well but I love this thing I think it is quite a classic as you have a chance to play a lot of GBA games and a lot of SNES ports although it's not really like a real Game Boy where you can use any of the previous game boy cartridges you can only play Game Boy advanced games but just the sheer size of this thing is awesome so let's go ahead and have a chance to talk about it play with it see a little bit of how gameplay goes and you can decide whether you think that this is a classic or a throwback so let's go ahead and take a look at it and now for some mildly inappropriate humor this is actually the commercial the only real commercial that I Can See For the Game Boy micro this was released for Canada I did not see one in the United States maybe you have seen it maybe not as Nintendo begins to take on new forms it's important that we can measure how addictive they truly are and uh yeah sensorship censorship just a little inappropriate the new game boy micro extreme portable extremely stylish this is just playing to how desirable Nintendo thinks that the Game Boy is I can't believe that that one actually was a real commercial but indeed it is anyoo moving on to the Game Boy so I'm going to talk about the game boy micro in terms of pros and cons so let's start with the pros the first thing is of course it's small size and yes I'm going to call this a pro because after all this is the game boy micro and if you don't like the size you're free to go with a different size Game Boy including the Advan or the advanced SP now this is a really really great built little device here it is made out of metal so I believe that this is aluminum here we have a matte finish to it and this is the famicom version you can see it's got this glossy type finish very very well built very sturdily built it makes it feel gadgety something that we could find today and not really like a toy so if anything I think that the the appearance holds up to the test of time especially when looking at modern day technology like the Galaxy S6 you see we've got this aluminum band here on the side and you can see the size comparison here to a modern siiz day device really really very very tiny here we have just the normalized 3DS and you can see how small that is and once we open it check that out really very small impressive for being released in 2005 if you really think about it so let's take a tour around this device on the front here we've got our directional pad and also an A and B button we've also got a speaker here on the top we've got our shoulder buttons left and right now some people have not been so happy with the placement of these shoulder buttons most people would like to feel the click right here on the side but instead we feel it more towards the center that's something that hasn't really bothered me but it's just a remark we've got our charging port here on the Bott bottom we've got our select button and our start button you've got your power switch and also the cartridge slots and a headphone jack curiously the Game Boy Advance SP does not have a headphone jack so that's nice to see it squeezed into this little body on the right side we've got our volume rocker left hand side there is nothing then on the back we have our battery compartment so there's just a little screw here I believe it's a 460 Mah hour battery so it's really not a big battery but for this guy it really doesn't require a big battery I can get anywhere from 5 to 8 hours of battery life on this just depending on the brightness and speaking of brightness not only is this a volume rocker but it also doubles as the ability to turn up the brightness or down the brightness on the display that is coupled with holding down this left shoulder button so even though we've got a very tiny device here these are very normal sized buttons here we can compare them to what we have on the 3DS that directional pad is really the same size from what I can see here maybe even just a little bit bigger and also our A and B buttons look just to be a little bit bigger so I've had no trouble whatsoever with the button sizes they're nice and tactile and clicky they don't get stuck they don't feel cheap again this is a very well-built device so let's turn this puppy on shall we we've got a 2in display here this is 240x 160 it's a PPI of 4422 PPI so just 144 pixels per inch that is a very high resolution for the time especially because the Game Boy Advance is about 99 pixels per inch so jumping up from 99 to 144 is pretty significant and you can really see it it looks great now I was telling you earlier you can turn up the brightness on this display and it gets pretty nice and bright you see we can turn it all the way down there this will make the battery life of course last longer so we've got the Zelda game here now continuing to talk about this display this is an LCD display but it is not IPS it doesn't have the greatest of viewing angles if I hold it too much downward it really washes out and if I hold it up this way it's really contrasty so you kind of have to find that sweet spot when looking at it but comparatively to the others in the Game Boy line I would call this the best LCD display that nint output onto a device so this little game boy looks very minimalistic in terms of features but we do have the ability to put this into sleep mode and it tells you to get out of the sleep mode you need to press the select button the L button R button at the same time so that's really nice and it's going to flash here for you so these little buttons here are very important and play a crucial role in telling you what's going on with the device so when they Flash like this it means that your game is on pause now just say we turn it off if we turn it on you can see that this will flash three times that means that there is enough of a charge and if you turn it on and it shows red and it flashes three times it means that the battery life is low and of course these will just stay lit red so once they are lit red it means you've got 20% or 30% battery life left you don't have any little indicators on the display but having 20 to 30% battery life left is fair enough to let you know that you need to start thinking about charging it and once you get a feel for how long your gameplay lasts you'll know how long you have so I think what they have here is quite clever and I don't really think it's a con another nice feature that we have with this little Game Boy here is that it's personalizable so you can take off these face plates so let's go ahead and switch with the famicom version if you go on eBay you can find a lot of aftermarket products ones that have different cute designs and stuff oops and you have to put it in just like this from the right hand side press downward there you go so I find this to be very cute so let's step into talking about the game play here we have Super Mario Advance this is Super Mario Brothers too now to somebody who has good eyes and you don't really need reading glasses is I think that this works just fine I know that it's a little bit small but I haven't had much of an issue at all with playing on this tiny little screen these buttons are very nice and responsive so I have not had any issues whatsoever I found this to be very enjoyable for long plane flights and once you get used to everything it's it's really a charmer I think really very very cute works very very very well for gameplay I don't really have any complaints now of course I need to step into talking about some of the cons that would be a good time to do while looking at the game playay yes some people can't handle the size of the display it's only 2 in very very small and you can see just how tiny little Mario is here so for some that's going to be bothersome and it might cause some eye strain especially if you're not used to looking at things so closely so just keep this in mind about this little thing I would assume that as this is not available readily on the market you're probably not going to go and seek one out if you have real eye strain problems also regarding gameplay like I was mentioning a little bit earlier this is not Backward Compatible with any of the Game Boy or Game Boy Color games so you are going to be limited to the Game Boy Advance Market but there are a lot of games for the Game Boy Advance there are a lot of SNES ports there are NES ports there are just native games that are made for the Game Boy ad I think that you have a very Advanced Library so I don't have much to complain about but that's something to pay attention to you should probably go with an SP or just a normal Advance if you want that diverse library now while I love these little face plates on here one thing I don't appreciate is just how easily they scratch let's see if I can try to show this they actually provide you with a little carrying bag so that you try to minimalize scratches but I noticed that they're even scratched right out of the factory I got this brand new so these scratch very easily and if you don't store it in a sock or something it's just going to look terrible over time also because this is not airtight you get little fuzzies that get underneath the display and I have to remove this every so often to get out that dust so the dust is in the way and I can see it obstructing the screen when I'm playing and that can get quite annoying here and there and for some as I was saying I think that it's very clever what they're doing for the battery life indication some are not going to appreciate that you don't have a battery life indicator if you're someone who's a Casual Gamer you might have no idea when you used it last and what the battery life is like so it's probably best to top it off it's not the fastest at charging it takes about 3 hours to fully charge as far as the speaker that we have on here is this really teeny tiny little speaker and if you are in any type of loud environment you're going to find it very very hard to hear this is the loudest that it gets and it's okay for now in this quiet environment but you do have that headphone jack now the one thing about the headphone jack is that when you plug it in you get kind of a woring type of a sound and when the game is playing and you can hear noise that's in the foreground the worring just kind of Fades into the background and you don't notice it anymore so I think that it sounds pretty immersive when you have the headphones in it's good that this headphone jack does have stereo sound though as this is just a single speaker on the front so let's wrap up this little throwback do you think that this is a classic or would you consider this a throwback and you're just happy to see what we have now namely 3DS we've got our comfortable cozy 3DS XL sized screens versus our little dinky thing here but for me what really does it is the look and the feel it just feels modern to me something from 10 years ago looks like it could belong into today and I like that if I look at the bottom of the 3DS you can see that we've got very very similar looking layout here so it looks just like the bottom really of a 3DS cute as a button very very wellb built not region locked like the rest of the Game Boy series so whether I decided to pick up the famicom version from Japan or I wanted a European version which is this or I got an American version all the games will play so if you're curious as to where to get one of these your best bet is going to be eBay I got this brand new now a little bit of a hint here is that these are really really expensive in the United States so you're going to be paying maybe $200 for a brand new one if you try to do a broader search on eBay and do a search for European countries as well I was able to get this brand new for 70 bucks I believe so $70 versus $200 this came out at $100 on the market so I did not think that that was too bad not too bad at all these seem to retain their value so thank you everybody for watching this has been Erica the technology nerd likes to film stuff please rate comment and subscribe in the comment section below let me know what you want to see thrown back next I found my little carrying bag I dropped it underneath the chair now it can keep it nice and not scratched again let me know what you think about this do you think this is a classic or a true throwback or you just subscribed to believing that pretty much anything that Nintendo makes can be seen as a classic eventually they make great stuff after all so let me know what you think and have a good night\n"