The SupaBoy's biggest weakness is its controls, which imitate the original Super Nintendo controller visually, but are placed in odd positions (Start and Select are oddly placed in the far upper left of the device) and function poorly. The D-pad, specifically, is so unresponsive that it dwarfs any other issue with the system. I’m not sure why a good D-pad is so hard to come by these days, but the SupaBoy D-pad makes the much-disparaged Xbox 360 D-pad seem like a feat of user input engineering.
If you are OK with fumbling awkwardly through a game, the SupaBoy will adequately display it for you on its 3.5 inch LCD screen. It’s crude compared to contemporary phones and gaming systems, but despite its low resolution, thin colors and single brightness setting, it gets the job done. The built-in speakers reproduce stereo sounds well, too (but the RCA cable the SupaBoy uses to attach to a television only carries a mono signal).
While the main appeal of the SupaBoy is playing games on the go, the SupaBoy also functions as a Super Nintendo clone when plugged into a TV. You can bypass its built-in controls with two controller ports and play both SNES and Super Famicom games on a television.
The SupaBoy is not an ideal replacement for your old, yellowing SNES, though, since it has problems playing some games. Building a system that runs Super NES games is harder than you might think, mainly because the guts of the cartridges vary greatly. The SupaBoy's press kit specifically touts its ability to play the more troublesome games, so I tried to test out many of the stranger games in my collection: The system played FX Chip-enhanced games like Yoshi's Island and Mega Man X 3 flawlessly, but there was some slight graphical distortion in Star Fox.
Super Famicom games like Axelay and Assault Suits Valken played perfectly alongside US games like Contra III and Earthbound, but Donkey Kong Country froze repeatedly. I tried two copies of the game, and eventually even summoned an archaic anti-piracy message from the depths of the DKC cart, which was cool, but ultimately damning for the system's usefulness as a replacement SNES.
For whatever reason, my copy of Yoshi’s Island stopped working and, after a bit of trouble getting the game going again, found my 100% save game zapped. Ouch. There was no chance I was going to risk my Final Fantasy III or Chrono Trigger saves after that.
Despite its Nintendo-like appearance, the SupaBoy is unlicensed, and you may be wondering how its developer, Hyperkin, is allowed to sell what amounts to an SNES hardware clone. When asked about SupaBoy's development, Hyperkin responded "To the best of our knowledge, all of Nintendo’s original design patents have expired, and none of the parts were reverse-engineered from the original SNES system." Expired patents and availability of off-the-shelf parts explain the sudden ubiquity of console clones in stores, but it’s clear that the actual innards of the SNES are still difficult to emulate -- especially at low cost.
Though my time spent with the SupaBoy was marred by technical problems, I still think it’s awesome concept that can surely be improved upon. Apparently the market for console clones is heating up, since I just received a press release about a similar device, The Retro Duo Portable, debuting at CES 2012. For the time being, though, if you really need bring a fully functional Super Nintendo along on your next trip, you’ll need a large suitcase.