Well, I don't really know who is going to read this, but I might have a problem.

Do you know the feeling of a brand-new interest? Newly discovered through a friend you only know through Discord. And suddenly you spent 500 bucks without even knowing if you're really into it?

Well, it just happened to me a few days ago...
I got nerd sniped by my friend Mistik. He already tried it once, and I waved it off, but hell did he hit me the second time!
To be honest, I don't really know how it happened. All I know is, that I bought the Ayn Thor the same evening.

The Beginning

For those of you who are not into retro gaming or have never heard of Thor Odinson, God of Thunder, son of Odin, protector of Asgard and Midgard... wait, that's the wrong Thor...
Well, basically the Ayn Thor is a modern handheld inspired by the DS/3DS which has quite some power under the hood. And in my opinion, it's really beautiful.
AND EXPENSIVE! At least, if you're like me and think "Meh, the Lite one is too weak. And how should I fit all my Games on this thing, despite not knowing how much storage retro games actually need? I'll take the large one!" And so I spent 520$ on this thing... Luckily, I "saved" 100 bucks after converting it to my local currency, but it's still 420 bucks! Also, I might have spent another 70, but we'll come to that later.

The Ayn Thor is basically the god tier as far as I can tell (with my very limited knowledge). According to reviews I've seen, it's even capable to run full-on Steam desktop games, although only the lighter ones. I mean, what the heck? I can play PC games on the go without having to take a brick, erm, I mean, a Steam Deck with me???

I might have a problem

But now that I'm out of my pre-delivery Honeymoon phase, reason sets in.

Have I just spent 420 bucks on a retro handheld, without even knowing if I like it?
Yes, yes I did.
Are there cheaper options, like an ANBERNIC RG35XXSP for 40 to 70 bucks?
Yes, yes there are.
Do I kinda regret buying the Ayn Thor?
Yes, yes I do...
Am I still excited till it finally arrives?
HELL YEAH I AM!!!!

Since the Thor currently is only in pre-order and batch 2 is not yet shipped, I can't show any fancy pictures of it. I don't even know how good it may or may not feel. What I want to say, I'm completely desperate and want something in my hands to play around with!!!
Wait... Haven't I just said there are cheaper options? 40 to 70 bucks? Let me look that up. Yeah, 70 bucks, delivered the day after tomorrow. Even from a Swiss retailer.
Wait, 70 bucks? I saved 100$ due to conversion from dollar to francs. This is basically free, isn't it?

You know it... I bought it...
It should arrive tomorrow!!!

Now I'm here. Waiting, desperately wanting to play with something!
And then he came. My savior, another dude I know.
Out of the shadows he stepped and showed me the magic of Delta!

Delta is an iOS/iPadOS/MacOS app to emulate retro games.
Well, I could have saved sooo much money...
But it wouldn't be the same! I regret NOTHING!!! Ok, well, maybe I regret my decisions a little bit, but meh.

You want to start Retro Gaming too?

Well, after all that you really want to start retro gaming?
I hope you've got more brain than I do, or a full wallet...
If not, stay here and read further ^^

If I could turn back time by just a week, I would not buy the Thor. I would have done the boring thing and first tried Delta and then bought the RG35XXSP. Maybe I'd even skip Delta, since 70 bucks aren't that much money for me. Have you seen my HomeLab? This new obsession is nothing against that... Take a look at my about page if you don't believe me...

How I would start now

What I want to tell you is, there are cheaper systems. The Thor is probably, quite literally, a god in the current handheld market. And that comes with its price.
But retro gaming does not need an RTX 5090 to run. A Game Boy ran with an 8-Bit 8.388 MHz processor and a whopping 8 KB RAM and VRAM each. And the games were/are still fun to play!
As Delta shows, you can even run emulators on your smartphone, the device you already own! And have I told you that you can run emulators on Windows and Linux as well? I don't know of any, but you'll for sure find a YouTube video about it.

So what's the holdup?
You read this whole thing, written by a clearly stupid/crazy person, and are still waiting to try it out? Go on YouTube and search for a tutorial. For handhelds, TechDweeb has... a special kind of video style but very good content.

So, have fun! 🤖