The ETA Prime's Handheld Adventure: A Journey with Curious Chip's PIP

Kind: captionsLanguage: enforeign

Hello everybody, it's ETA Prime back here again today, and we're going to be taking a look at a really interesting handheld that had kind of a lengthy Kickstarter campaign due to supply chain issues and just the fact that you know it was created by a really small company who goes by the name Curious Chip. This is the PIP, and I had no clue that this even existed until a viewer reached out recently and asked me if I wanted to take a look at the one he just received.

I figured it'd be pretty cool to you know just make a quick video on it, like I mentioned earlier. If this was released in a timely manner, I'm sure a lot of people would have wanted to get their hands on this at the time. Late 2018 we didn't have many great handhelds on the market everybody was loving the Raspberry Pi especially the compute module if you want to learn a little more I will leave a link to their website in the description but if you've got any questions let me know in the comments below and like always thanks for watching

The PIP, or Portable Interactive Player, is a handheld device that runs on the Compute Module 3 Plus. This tiny computer powerhouse brings a wealth of features to the table, including Wi-Fi connectivity, Bluetooth capabilities, and access to thousands of retro games through the Retropie image.

One of the first things we noticed about the PIP is its small size and lightweight design. Weighing in at just over 1 pound, this handheld is easy to carry around and can fit comfortably in a pocket or bag. The device itself has a sleek and minimalist design, with a simple interface that's easy to navigate.

The PIP comes equipped with a range of features, including an LED screen, speaker, and rear-facing camera. The screen is small but clear, making it perfect for browsing the web, watching videos, or checking email on the go. The speaker is surprisingly good, with clear and crisp sound quality that's perfect for listening to music or podcasts.

The rear-facing camera is another feature that caught our attention. With a 5-megapixel sensor and support for different color profiles, this camera is capable of producing some impressive photos. We were able to access the camera application on the PIP, which allowed us to adjust settings like ISO and exposure before taking a photo.

But what really sets the PIP apart is its ability to run retro games through the Retropie image. With thousands of classic consoles and games at our fingertips, this handheld is perfect for anyone who loves playing old-school games on the go. We loaded up some popular titles like PlayStation 1 and Bleeding Edge, and were impressed by how smoothly they ran.

One thing that did surprise us was the lack of volume control in the settings menu. Despite being able to adjust sound quality and other settings, we couldn't find a way to turn up the volume on this device. However, we were able to tweak the audio settings to get a decent level of sound out of the speaker.

Overall, we were impressed by the PIP's ability to run retro games and its overall design and build quality. While it may not have been the most profitable venture for Curious Chip, it's clear that they poured their heart and soul into creating a unique and functional handheld device.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enforeign what's going on everybody it's ETA Prime back here again today we're going to be taking a look at a really interesting handheld that had kind of a lengthy Kickstarter campaign due to supply chain issues and just the fact that you know it was created by a really small company who goes by the name curious chip this is the PIP and I had no clue that this even existed until a viewer reached out recently and asked me if I wanted to take a look at the one he just received and I figured it'd be pretty cool to you know just make a quick video on and I'll tell you if this was released in a timely manner I think a lot of people would have wanted to get their hands on this unit here now it wasn't specifically designed for Retro Gaming but of course we can install emulators on basically anything and we'll definitely be doing that we've got these detachable kind of controllers over here on the side which lead the full-size USB ports it's got HDMI out built-in camera RGB LEDs and it was really meant to be kind of an educational handheld to learn how to code and make your own games and applications I'm pretty sure they had a few different packages listed on their Kickstarter and with this one we got some alligator clips micro USB the handheld itself and this touch controller it's pretty cool actually there's a few different modes you can set it up for midi keyboard or even a Gamepad we've got a couple different touch sensors on the unit itself now before we dive a bit deeper I do want to give you a little bit of a backstory about the PIP itself so this was a Kickstarter campaign like I mentioned one of my viewers reached out and kindly sent this over so I could take a look at it it's by a company who goes by curious chip and over on their Kickstarter page if we uh take a look at their first update I believe the campaign was actually created November 17 2017. um a lot of backers started getting these in 2020 so it was definitely a kind of a drawn out project and I know when you're a smaller company it's really hard to get something off the ground like this and with this they had 241 backers that pledged a total of 40 000 Euro which isn't a lot of money to get you know a project off the ground especially when it comes to manufacturing shipping and everything like that so I'll tell you I don't think they really uh made any money on this and they might have not even broke even with you know how much it takes to get something like this going they did have a bunch of updates but obviously it did take him a long time to get everything together and I'll tell you you know this was announced on November 2017 even if this was shipping at the end of 2018 I think this would have been an awesome little handheld now this was the first prototype they haven't even swapped out the picture here for the newer ones which are a bit sleeker still a thick boy but uh overall does look a lot better than their initial prototype so yeah this is powered by Raspberry Pi it's got the compute module three plus and the whole design here was actually put together really nicely we'll do a tear down by the end of the video but let's go ahead and boot this thing up it does have Wi-Fi and a Raspberry Pi camera in the back of the unit as you can see up front here we've got this RGB LED array which allows us to either program or use different applications to kind of access these RGB LEDs it also works as a battery indicator and I believe a Wi-Fi strength indicator it's got a four inch IPS touch display like I mentioned it does have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth an accelerometer a single speaker and a microphone built in the operating system I have right now is their pip operating system I guess that's what they're calling it there's a few pre-made applications ready to go in here but uh yeah I mean just taking a look at the unit itself gpio up front these detachable controllers with abxy start select we've also got a d-pad here round back we've got our five megapixel Raspberry Pi camera and I'm pretty sure this could be swapped out for for another Raspberry Pi camera it's got a built-in kickstand and up top we've got micro USB for charging up the battery a power button our shoulder buttons and a full size HDMI port and around the bottom here micro SD card access and a 3.5 millimeter audio jack and once you pull off these controllers two full-size USB ports you can use these for data or different peripherals if you want to so I did want to show off some of these pre-installed applications and there was supposed to be a web interface to allow you to easily create programs to access all of the i o on this device like the RGB LEDs the gpio and even the rear camera but personally I can't access it not sure if it's up on their website or not or I'm doing something wrong but I've tried everything so the first one I wanted to take a look at was their little LED application very simple here this will allow us to control the RGB LEDs up top we can control them individually we can sync them together we can make them blink obviously very simple application but the next one one I wanted to take a look at was their camera application so this is just going to access that 5 megapixel Raspberry Pi camera around back and you can see we've got some different color profiles that we can add to the camera itself and with this application I haven't found out a way to take pictures or a video with it but you could always program your own but the last one I wanted to take a look at was their touch piano this is the one I've personally had the most fun with and the speaker with the operating system I have right now actually sounds really good super clean and loud but when I move over to the next operating system I just can't control the volume on it foreign by the Raspberry Pi there's a lot of different operating systems that we can run on here over on their website they do offer retropie image that's specifically tailored to the controller's screen and everything for the PIP so we can definitely play some of our favorite retro games on this device and you know since this is running the compute module 3 plus we've got access to PS1 Game Boy Advance Neo Geo FBA maim PC engine there's thousands and thousands of retro games that we can run on this device at full speed so I've loaded up a few here obviously we're running retro pie right now and this does have Wi-Fi built in so I was able to kind of transfer some games over and scrape all of my images we're going to go with some PlayStation one up front and then we'll just move over to some other ones just to see how it performs and we'll go with bloody Roar too one of my favorite fighting games and it is a harder one to emulate on lower end systems when it comes fortunately with this build of retropie I can't find a way to turn the volume up on this device I know it can go much louder given the other operating system we took a look at but with this even from the settings in retropie sound adjustment just isn't working but yeah it does handle PlayStation 1 games quite well and going into it I knew we'd have a great time with it there is a hotkey set up here so uh the power button up top and the start button bring us right back in the emulation station and we can move over to something else and before I wrap this video up I did want to take a look at the internals pulling the back cover off it's pretty easy we've got four screws I need to get this wi-fi slash Bluetooth antenna out of the way and the camera module itself kind of just sits in here on some pegs I mean it's definitely secure once everything's screwed down and overall solid build quality I think they did a great job putting this thing together and I really can't see where they made money on this from the kickstarter cam campaign maybe they got a grant somewhere to put something like this together but uh overall just selling the units with as many backers as they had and what was pledged I'm pretty sure they had to use some money out of their own pocket to finish this whole thing up but that's gonna wrap it up for this video really appreciate you watching I thought this was cool enough to make a quick video on and like I mentioned if this was released in a timely manner I'm sure a lot of people would have wanted to get their hands on this at the time uh late 2018 we didn't have many great handhelds on the market everybody was loving the Raspberry Pi especially the compute module if you want to learn a little more I will leave a link to their website in the description but if you've got any questions let me know in the comments below and like always thanks for watching\n"