HardKernel Odroid Go Advance

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Device Overview: HardKernel Odroid Go Advance

The HardKernel Odroid Go Advance is the device that dragged Linux emulation handhelds into the mainstream. HardKernel is a Korean single-board-computer company best known for its Odroid developer boards, and in February 2020 it shipped a $55 snap-together kit that dropped a Rockchip RK3326 into a Game Boy-shaped shell. There was no soldering involved: the retail box held a plastic clamshell, a populated board, a 3.5-inch screen and a battery, and you assembled the whole thing in roughly ten minutes. That chip and that form factor went on to become a template the rest of the industry copied. The Anbernic RG351 line, the RK2020 and a dozen other clones are, at the silicon level, the same machine wearing nicer clothes.

Emulation performance, generation by generation

The RK3326 is four Cortex-A35 cores at 1.3GHz paired with a Mali-G31 GPU and 1GB of DDR3L RAM. That is a modest, power-sipping ARM part, not a pocket PC, and it sets a hard and predictable ceiling. Everything through the 16-bit era runs at full speed with cycles to spare: NES, SNES, Genesis, Master System, PC Engine, Neo Geo and Game Boy Advance are all flawless under RetroArch cores such as Snes9x, Genesis Plus GX and mGBA. PlayStation 1 is the real headline, and it is a complete success. PCSX ReARMed holds full speed across essentially the entire library, which for a lot of buyers is the whole reason to own the thing. Nintendo 64 is where you start choosing your battles: mupen64plus runs first-party staples like Mario Kart 64 and Super Mario 64 well, but demanding titles dip and stutter. PSP through PPSSPP handles the 2D catalogue and lighter 3D games, while heavier 3D drops frames. Nintendo DS via DraStic is surprisingly usable across a wide slice of its library. Dreamcast under Flycast is the genuine ceiling, playable for 2D fighters and light games and a slideshow for much else, and Saturn is effectively off the table. Treat this as a PS1-and-below machine with N64 and PSP as a bonus, and you will never be disappointed.

Screen, build and controls

The display is a 3.5-inch 320×480 TFT LCD. It is a portrait-native panel rotated into landscape, so you are really looking at a 480×320 image, and colours and viewing angles are perfectly acceptable for retro content without being remarkable. The build is where the low price shows its face. The shell itself is solid and holds up to abuse, but the buttons feel cheap, light leaks through the translucent face caps, and the d-pad squeaks under your thumb. The original model carries a single analog stick built on ordinary potentiometers, not Hall-effect sensors, and its bare cap has a sharp edge that begs for a rubber topper HardKernel should have bundled in. The original also ships with only L1 and R1 shoulder buttons, has no built-in Wi-Fi, and charges through a barrel jack. The later Black Edition revision fixed exactly these gaps, adding L2 and R2 triggers, internal 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi and USB-C charging. At 180 grams and 155x72x20mm it is pocketable, and the 3000mAh cell delivers close to nine or ten hours of play.

Software and setup

Out of the box HardKernel provides an Ubuntu-based image (ODROIDGOA) running EmulationStation. It is functional but rough, the kind of interface that quietly assumes you enjoy Linux, and almost nobody stays on it. The community is what turns this board into something polished. ArkOS, maintained by christianhaitian, is the standard recommendation and a big part of why the RK3326 scene matured as fast as it did. ROCKNIX, the successor to 351ELEC and AmberELEC, is the other mainstream choice, and Batocera, EmuELEC and RetroOZ all support the chip as well. Because the original has no Wi-Fi, you load ROMs by pulling the microSD card and copying files on a PC, whereas the Black Edition can transfer over the network. Either way, setup is a matter of flashing an SD image and booting, not hand-editing config files.

Price, value and who it is for

At $55 in 2020 the Odroid Go Advance was the best value in emulation, full stop, and it is the reason the current budget-handheld boom exists at all. In 2026 it is discontinued, and its RK3326 has been comprehensively out-run by RK3566 and Allwinner H700 handhelds that cost about the same while adding sharper screens, Hall-effect sticks and meaningfully stronger silicon. So who is it for today? Tinkerers who want to build their own machine and understand the platform every modern clone descends from, and purists who mostly play PlayStation 1 and 16-bit libraries and prize long battery life over raw horsepower. If you want turnkey polish, or Dreamcast and Saturn running well, buy something newer. If you want the historically important, endlessly hackable board that started all of this, the Go Advance is exactly that and nothing more.