TRIMUI Brick Pro | A Casual Gamer's Review
It's one of the best built budget handhelds you'll come across, so why does the performance leave you wondering what the 'Pro' is for?
A Handheld With a Conundrum
The TrimUI Brick Pro presents a bit of a conundrum. On the one hand, it’s one of the best built budget handhelds you’re likely to come across. On the other, its performance profile doesn’t quite live up to that build quality. TrimUI sent me the Brick Pro featured in this review (hence the sponsored tag), so bear that in mind as you read.
Why They Call It the Brick
At first glance, the Brick Pro is a sleek and elegant little machine, especially in this white colourway with its grey accents and a nice touch of teal on the power button. It also sports quite an array of LED lighting, which makes it a bright and playful thing to get your hands on.
Pick it up and you’ll understand the name, because this thing is absolutely solid. It’s made from a tough-feeling plastic with plenty of texture for grip, and you could throw it into any bag without worrying about damage. The front-facing speakers sound great and get really loud, and the buttons are high quality too. I found the D-pad a little rigid at first, but it becomes more supple as you work it in. The ABXY buttons have just the right amount of give, and the swappable shoulder buttons on the rear are a nice touch if you’re not happy with the stock set.
The two analog sticks lack a bit of tension for my liking, but they’re nice enough, and the LED rings around them add a splash of colour. Which brings me to the big question about the Brick Pro: do we even need those sticks?
Capped at PlayStation
The chipset is an Allwinner A133P with a PowerVR GE8300, paired with 1 GB of RAM and 8 GB of internal storage, so you’ll probably want to pick up an SD card alongside it. It runs a Linux-based operating system and handles PlayStation games pretty well, but that’s still a constrained performance profile, especially for a device with “Pro” in the name. Realistically, it’s going to cap out at PlayStation and light Dreamcast titles.
Sonic Adventure 2 is the kind of game where you’d want those analog sticks, and it’s stuttery enough to put me off playing it here entirely. You’ll have a much better time if you lower your expectations a little and stop at PlayStation.
Where It Shines
Within those limits, the Brick Pro is absolutely superb for Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance and even Mega Drive (or Genesis, if you’re in the US). A slightly low-powered device doesn’t have to be a disadvantage for those systems, because you still get low boot times and none of the bloat of Android, with no Google sign-ins and all that nonsense. You just pick it up and get into your games.
The stock TrimUI operating system uses a custom build of RetroArch, so you can tweak your games to your delight and choose from a selection of shaders. If you’re willing to commit to those older systems, you can pair them with the brilliant build quality for a truly great experience, especially with fighting games and tough platformers.
A Bit of a Confused Device
I can’t get away from the fact that this feels like a slightly confused device. The “Pro” in the name suggests a more capable build than this chipset delivers. The analog sticks don’t make much sense given that performance profile, and they end up detracting from the supreme build quality you’re getting at this price. There will also be Android handhelds at a similar price that punch slightly above the Brick Pro.
Where I land is that this is for people who want to play retro games from before the age of 3D, in a really lovely-feeling device you can throw in your bag without worrying about it getting cracked or messed up. You also get an operating system that frees you from the Google sign-ins and app store downloads that plague the Android experience.
What Comes Next
There’s another TrimUI product coming soon that I’m genuinely excited about. I’ve ordered it with my own money, and it promises to be a much more powerful handheld at a much higher price. If TrimUI can marry the build quality of the Brick Pro with a far more capable chipset, we could really be onto a winner. Subscribe if you want to catch that video when it drops.
My recommendation: Buy the TrimUI Brick Pro if you want a beautifully built, Android-free machine for Game Boy, Mega Drive and PlayStation-era games. If you’re hoping for smooth Dreamcast and beyond, look elsewhere or wait for TrimUI’s more powerful follow-up.