GB Boy Colour - cheap backlit GBC clone

[A Beta Fu7ure]

I just thought I'd share this recent pickup of mine on here since it's (a) still available cheaply (b) I know there are people on here who still enjoy playing Game Boy and (C) it's, frankly, awesome.



This is the GB Boy Colour (Bonus points for the English spelling) a Chinese Game Boy Color Clone that finally solves the system's main drawback: it's lack of backlit screen. The product build is excellent. It's a little larger than the original GB Color but feels and looks like a sturdy piece of kit. The buttons all have a nice solid weight behind them with the select and start buttons arguably being better. The D Pad, while it may not look it, is comfortable and responsive. Sound is also amazingly clear and again, arguably louder and crisper than the original machine it apes.

One drawback is the screen's aspect ratio. It's a little shorter and wider than the original GBC which does somewhat alter the aspect ratio of games but not to the extent that playing them in the horrendous SP stretchovision will do. The screen itself however is brilliant, clear crisp and with no glare. There is no colour washout and you can still set the colour of monochrome games exactly as you could with the GBC when you switch it on.

Surprisingly, my model of the system also came loaded with "188" games on board. In fact this boils down to 65 games and a borked version of Donkey Kong that loop three times in the menu but as it includes a good number of first party GB classics as well as stuff like Yars Revenge, Pac Man and Asteroids (mostly all in English) it was a welcome surprise.



The system is currently available online at the link below at a very cheap price, which is the main reason i'm mentioning it here. I'd definitely recommend picking one up if you still like to play your old carts or prefer the feel of a GB over modern alternatives. The games built for the Super Game Boy look really great on the screen and I might finally even be able to play Alone in the Dark now!

Any questions, just ask and I'll try and answer on here, I'm still testing things out with it but I can already say that this is one of the best clones I've ever purchased.



Link to purchase for $25.99 including free international shipping:

http://www.aliexpress.com/store/product ... 55152.html

I didn't personally buy from this seller (I got mine from ebay to ensure it arrived quicker) but this is where i heard about the system and they have received good reviews on other retro sites.

[Kong Wen]

Is the d-pad as bad as it looks, or are the pics deceptive?

What kind of batteries does it use?

It'll be interested in hearing how long it lasts.

[A Beta Fu7ure]

Is the d-pad as bad as it looks, or are the pics deceptive?

Haha, that was my primary concern too when I first looked at it. The answer, happily, is that it isn't. In fact it's very comfortable. Not as nice as the original GBC but way better than stuff like the DS Lite. It has a nice weight and clickiness behind it as . It reminds me of something from another system that I can't put my finger on it right now. I tried it with Street Fighter and was pulling off dragon punches and fireballs with ease.

here is a closer look at it from another angle:

What kind of batteries does it use?

Same as the GBC. Two regular AA batteries.

It'll be interested in hearing how long it lasts.

That's something I don't know yet. I've only had it for 48 hours so far and I put two fresh batteries in it. I've been playing it pretty extensively though and no problems so far. I've heard good things about the battery life.

[Claytone]

Oh, wow, this is pretty cool. I'm surprised it's so... good. This looks like a pretty solid product!

Not sure I'll pick it up, but it's definitely neat. $26 really isn't all that bad for a backlit GBC.

[A Beta Fu7ure]

Oh, wow, this is pretty cool. I'm surprised it's so... good. This looks like a pretty solid product!

Not sure I'll pick it up, but it's definitely neat. $26 really isn't all that bad for a backlit GBC.

Initially it was even cheaper...about $15 iirc!

The seller seems to have been taken aback that people in the west wanted this sort of thing as the Chinese are not interested at all in old technology, preferring smart phones et al. This has also been my finding since living there. He wasn't expecting this stock to move so quickly so has increased the price recently and picked up more. But it's still great value.

If you do grab one and want the free games then it does seem to matter which color you choose. So far I've had confirmation that the clear green and plain yellow variants have the free games installed but some people have reported that the blue models don't. You could probably mail the seller as he is helpful enough from what I gather. It wouldn't be a deal breaker for me as with Roms I usually end up just flicking through them and never really giving them much time like I do with physical carts but it's handy to have preinstalled versions of more than ten titles from my GB collection without having to lug around the carts.

I got my unit from ebay and paid a bit more, mainly because I wanted it quickly but others have told me that their unit arrives from this guy within two weeks on average.

[A Beta Fu7ure]

Just a note regarding battery life. The new set I put in have started to die tonight (I can tell as the games keep resetting which is apparently the key that they are starting to fade on this device.)

I've been playing this pretty solidly over the past three days. I've beaten two different GBC games and made good progress in some others. I reckon on estimate that I've easily sunk somewhere between 8-10 hours into it across the last few days. A pretty decent showing if nowhere near the extraordinary life of the GBC itself and comparable to the Game Boy Light.