The toughest part of this build seems to have been the finish. The maker messed up the paint job a couple of times on the case and had to sand the parts back down and start again. The result is a handheld called the Aegis, styled like a certain hybrid console, with green grips that give it a clean, cohesive look.
Under the shell sits a Raspberry Pi CM4 driving a 7 inch touch screen over the DSI pins. Audio comes from I2S logic based on Adafruit boards, and the maker folded those parts into a single circuit board. The board itself was revised in several areas to improve signal integrity, and the original prototype design was reworked to be more robust and sturdy. The top edge carries an Ethernet jack, two USB Type-A ports, a 3.5mm audio jack, a cooling vent, and green volume and power buttons, while the bottom panel holds an HDMI port and USB ports. Controls cover two analog sticks, a d-pad, the four face buttons, plus and minus buttons, and shoulder buttons on the upper edges.
A 6000mAh battery gives 2 to 4 hours of play depending on the game, at a rough total cost between $250 and $350. On the software side it boots a Raspbian-based system into RetroPie and EmulationStation, with the Pixel desktop also installed. Demonstrated gameplay includes an SNES title, an N64 title, and a Nintendo DS title running through DraStic, and the maker reports it runs as smoothly as any Raspberry Pi 4 device.
Everything is open source on GitHub, though the Readme section was still being finished at release, and the maker may still revise the design if issues or improvements come up. Streaming PC games on that larger screen is the stated enjoyment here, and it was built purely as a passion project.
Project by Daniel Juckett. Watch it on their YouTube channel: