PowKiddy V90S

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Device Overview: PowKiddy V90S

The PowKiddy V90S is a budget clamshell that wears its inspiration on its sleeve: it is shaped like a Game Boy Advance SP and priced to be an impulse buy, launching in mid-2025 at roughly $40 to $60 depending on storage bundle and shipping. It replaces the long-running V90, whose ancient dual-core chip could barely hold 16-bit games together, with a modern quad-core Allwinner part. The result is a folding pocket machine aimed squarely at people who want NES through PlayStation on a small 4:3 screen and do not care about analog sticks, Wi-Fi, or a slick software experience. It competes with Anbernic’s RG35XX SP and the Miyoo clamshells, and it undercuts both.

Emulation performance, generation by generation

The V90S runs on the Allwinner A133P: four Cortex-A53 cores paired with an Imagination PowerVR GE8300 GPU and 1GB of DDR3. That is a low-power ARM SoC, not a handheld PC, so set expectations at the 32-bit era. Everything up to and including the 16-bit generation runs full speed and without drama, using RetroArch-style cores under the hood: NES, SNES, Genesis, Master System, PC Engine, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and the full GBA library all behave. Most arcade boards through CPS1, CPS2, and Neo Geo are comfortable as well. PlayStation 1 is the genuine ceiling here and it is a good one; the vast majority of PS1 games run at full speed, which is the reason to buy this over the old V90. Above that line, honesty matters. Nintendo 64 and Dreamcast are technically listed but unreliable in practice, and both are hobbled further by the physical controls. Nintendo DS is a stretch that only works for lighter titles because of the tiny single screen. PSP is not a realistic target on this chip. Treat the V90S as a machine that tops out at PS1 and arcade, and it will not disappoint you.

Screen, build and controls

The panel is a 3.5-inch IPS display at 640×480, fully laminated, with a native 4:3 aspect ratio that suits 8-bit, 16-bit, and PS1 content far better than a widescreen would. Colors are punchy and the lamination kills the air gap that made older PowKiddy screens look cheap. The shell folds shut like an SP, weighs around 120 grams, and measures roughly 89 x 85 x 26.5mm closed, so it genuinely disappears into a jacket pocket. The battery is a user-replaceable 3000mAh pack rated for four to six hours, which tracks with real use. Controls are the compromise. You get a d-pad, four face buttons, and only L and R shoulder buttons, with no L2 or R2 and, critically, no analog sticks of any kind, let alone Hall-effect ones. For the systems this hardware handles well that is fine; for N64 and Dreamcast it is a dealbreaker. Buttons are on the spongy side rather than crisp, and there is a headphone-jack omission you will feel, since audio is stuck coming out of the single 1W speaker or over USB-C.

Software and setup

Out of the box the V90S boots PowKiddy’s own multi-emulator Linux build, the kind of stock image that ships with thousands of preloaded games on the bundled card and a serviceable but unpolished menu on top of RetroArch. Storage is handled by two microSD slots, one intended for the operating system and one for ROMs, each accepting up to 256GB. Here is the part buyers should understand before purchase: the thriving custom-firmware ecosystem you read about, muOS, Knulli, ROCKNIX, and ArkOS, is built for the Allwinner H700 that powers the RG35XX family, not the A133P inside this device. The V90S does not inherit that scene. There is no mainstream, well-supported drop-in replacement firmware for it, so in practice you live on PowKiddy’s stock image, tidy up the ROM folders yourself, and configure RetroArch cores per system. It works, but it lacks the community polish that H700 clamshells enjoy. There is no built-in Wi-Fi or Bluetooth; the SoC supports external USB Wi-Fi dongles for netplay, but that is a fiddly add-on rather than a feature.

Price, value and who it is for

At its price the V90S is one of the cheapest ways to get reliable PlayStation 1 emulation in a folding form factor, and the modern chip is a real generational jump over the V90 it replaces. Buy it if you want a tiny, cheap, closeable machine for NES, SNES, Genesis, GBA, arcade, and PS1, and you value the SP silhouette and a replaceable battery. Do not buy it if you want N64 or Dreamcast, analog control, a headphone jack, or the deep custom-firmware support that makes an RG35XX SP more flexible. It is a focused, unpretentious retro player that does the older half of the emulation spectrum well and simply refuses to pretend it can do the rest.