Evercade Nexus review: a $199 cartridge handheld with a big screen
Retro Dodo has published its review of the Evercade Nexus, a handheld that still runs on physical cartridges. It costs $199 / £169 / €199 and is due at the end of October 2026, bundled with a Banjo-Kazooie double pack that the reviewer says was made for the Nexus.
The specs are solid for the price: a 5.89-inch IPS screen at 840x512 and over 500 nits, a quad-core 1.5GHz processor, 512MB of RAM, a 5000mAh battery, Wi-Fi 6, dual joysticks with L3/R3 clicks, USB-C charging and a 3.5mm headphone jack. There is no HDMI or video output and no sleep/wake function.
The reviewer scores it 9 out of 10 overall, praising the screen (9.5), the user experience and the emulation quality, including authentic slowdown. Evercade has more than 80 licensed cartridges that cost $20 to $40 each.
There are real drawbacks. The menu button sticks about a quarter of the time, wireless audio has roughly half a second of latency, some Neo Geo cartridges briefly glitch green on start, boot takes over 30 seconds and battery life is about 3 to 5 hours. The triggers also have little travel.
Personally, I find the idea of a handheld built around physical, licensed cartridges refreshing at a time of endless emulation boxes. The reviewer expects software updates to fix the main bugs, and I will wait for those before judging it myself.
Source: Retro Dodo
The specs are solid for the price: a 5.89-inch IPS screen at 840x512 and over 500 nits, a quad-core 1.5GHz processor, 512MB of RAM, a 5000mAh battery, Wi-Fi 6, dual joysticks with L3/R3 clicks, USB-C charging and a 3.5mm headphone jack. There is no HDMI or video output and no sleep/wake function.
The reviewer scores it 9 out of 10 overall, praising the screen (9.5), the user experience and the emulation quality, including authentic slowdown. Evercade has more than 80 licensed cartridges that cost $20 to $40 each.
There are real drawbacks. The menu button sticks about a quarter of the time, wireless audio has roughly half a second of latency, some Neo Geo cartridges briefly glitch green on start, boot takes over 30 seconds and battery life is about 3 to 5 hours. The triggers also have little travel.
Personally, I find the idea of a handheld built around physical, licensed cartridges refreshing at a time of endless emulation boxes. The reviewer expects software updates to fix the main bugs, and I will wait for those before judging it myself.
Source: Retro Dodo
Comments 0
Leave the first comment, in any language.
Log in to comment