If your idea of a good time is to be forced to sit one meter from your TV, using what is possibly the worst game controller ever designed for any console – enjoying a fixed number of games on a device that is bricked, then you definitively should go out and buy the Amiga mini.
If however you know how to use a screwdriver and can be bothered to assemble a simple Raspberry PI case, which took me less than 45 minutes, then you can build a gaming system that far surpasses everything the Amiga mini has to offer.
And as a bonus, you get to enjoy Sega Megadrive, Sega 32x, Sega CD, Sega Saturn, Sega Dreamcast, Nintendo Famicom, Super-Nintendo, Nintendo 64, Nintendo Wii, Mame (arcade), Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, NeoGeo SNK, Gameboy, Capcom, Playstation 1 and Playstation 2 (and a few others I didn’t bother listing).
Depending on where you live the price for an Amiga Mini can vary. Where I live it’s sold for roughly 1700 NKR ($160). Prices might have dropped slightly since I last checked in october 2023, but I doubt very much that it’s gone below the 1499 NKR ($140-ish).
Whenever I talk about how insane I think the price is for the mini, people constantly remind me that the device is not for people like me. It’s not designed for power users. But that argument makes little sense, because why would I not enjoy some quality Amiga gaming? I would love a dedicated Amiga gaming device, but like I have explained before – there are a few things I expect from such a device in 2024.
In short, I expect the following:
- Bluetooth game controller and wireless mouse. Such a device belongs under a TV, and nobody sits within a meter from a television, which is the length of the gamepad cable. The target audience here are in their late 40s to 50s, established, and used to modern devices. The mini is not just a step backwards, but two decades backwards. Gaming is best done relaxing on the couch or in a comfy recliner. Not glued to a 55″ television barely a meter away.
- Emulator access. The fact that Cloanto actually went out of their way to kill the Amiberry emulation menu is absolutely astounding. Amiberry is capable of mounting harddisk files, using a folder on a USB stick as a disk – not to mention fine tuning the emulation. I would have understood it if they wanted to avoid putting in extra work. But they actually put in extra work to limit already working software features. The shortsightedness is just breathtaking.
- Network share. Having to physically copy WHDLOAD games onto a USB stick and move it back & fourth between your PC and the device, is absurd in 2024. Sure, the USB stick can stay in the device, but at the prices involved the device should have wi-fi networking, and the usb disk should show up as a network share. That way you can copy games directly to the device, run software updates, and basically have ordinary freedom.
Let me show you how to build the best damn Amiga mini money can buy. And unlike Cloanto and it’s partners, every part of my device can be re-purposed for something else. That last bit is important, we live in 2024 after all.
Raspberry PI 4b
The first thing on our list is a Raspberry PI 4b. You can ofcourse get the newer and significantly faster 5B (edit: make sure you find a case for it first), but for our purposes the 4b will be more than enough. Preferably the 8Gb ram version, but the 4Gb will do just fine.
Next we need a good case for our pi, a proper console-ish case. We need a case that provides active cooling since we will be overclocking the CPU and GPU to get maximum performance out of it. Do not overclock unless you have active cooling (at least not in the ranges we will be doing). Besides cooling we also want a case that provides SSD support. SD cards are fun but they hold the PI back. You also want an SSD to store all the fancy games you will be enjoying, and having a 500Gb or 1Tb SSD drive will save you so much time,
The DeskPi Pro case
The case I have opted for i the DeskPi Pro case. This is a metal case that adds the features I have outlined – and then some. You also get two large HDMI out ports, plenty of USB ports, and safe shutdown.
Right now you can pick up a DeskPi Pro metal case with active cooling and harddisk interface, complete with a 4gb Raspberry PI 4b, for $140. If you dont need the harddisk interface (I strongly urge you to get that, you will regret it if you dont), you can get the lite version which is less expensive ($99 with a PI 4gb). If you already own a Raspberry PI 4B, you can order just the case and assemble it yourself like I did. This version costs just $60.
You can buy that directly from the manufacturer: DeskPi Pro
BT controller and less clutter
To make this system a truly TV friendly setup, you want a good quality BT controller, same quality that XBox and PS5 enjoys. But you also want it to have a USB dongle so you can use it on other devices as well, including your PC.
I got the Steelseries Stratus Duo at $78, which is perhaps one of the best game controllers I have ever owned. It is actually better than the one that ships with XBox X (IMHO). Solid, good grip, perfect balance and a lot of attention to detail.
The reason you should not cheep out when it comes to controller, is because retro gaming systems recognizes the expensive ones (read: popular and established) without any need for configuration. It literally just works once you plug the USB dongle into the usb port. Secondly, you get what you pay for. If you want a controller that will give you years of fun, perhaps even a decade worth, then this one is definitively in that category.
Alternatively, you can buy a stock Playstation 4 BT controllers and use that (ps4 controllers are spectacular, but dont expect more than 4 years lifetime if used daily). This will save you $30-$35 perhaps. But the lack of a USB dongle means it cant be used on older, non BT compliant PCs or devices. If you fancy turning an old PC into a gaming station at some point, this is worth keeping in mind.
You can read about the Steelseries Stratus duo here.
Software, what do you need?
There are plenty of options out there, from Recallbox to Emulation Station to Lakka and a couple more. You can either download these from their respective websites, where they will have no games to play — or you can do like everybody else and download a ready to rock system, pre-loaded with a ton of games.
Lets not beat about the bush, you will need to visit websites like kickass-torrents or TPB (the pirate bay) and search for “emulation station”, “RetroPi “or “recallbox image for raspberry PI 4”. There are also some retro websites out there that offer magnet links (that a torrent client can use to download such images) for custom disk images for a variety of SBCs (single board computers), not just for Raspberry PI.
If you want something a bit more powerful than the PI4, I strongly suggest you buy the ODroid N2+ with active cooling and the simple case they offer. That board is much more powerful than the PI v4, and will run more demanding titles, including PS2 titles. You can pick that up for $70 from Hardkernel website (also Ares computing have them).
If you somehow have any moral quarrels about such downloads, then please fuck off. I do not fraternize with the ompa-lompas of moral judgement. I dont pirate modern software because that hurts people, but when its 20 or 30 year old software that you cant even buy even if you wanted to — then i honestly dont care.
The best damn Amiga Mini you will ever own
If you go the route that I did above you will get a nice, shiny metal case with SSD support and active cooling ready to rock that you can put neatly under your TV. All you will need is a USB-C power cable and a normal, large HDMI cable. No clutter, no cable soup, no flimpsy case that weighs less than the hdmi cable, just a good looking case that fits neatly in with your TV decoder or NAS.
You can just snuggle up in the sofa or chair, and enjoy thousands of titles from a UI and system that is nice looking and user-friendly. Most Recallbox images come with Kodi pre-installed (media center), so you can plug in a harddisk with movies and it will download box art and display them more or less like netflix. It also plays just about every movie format and codec out there, so its been my go-to system for playing downloaded movies and documentaries.
So, building a better system than the Amiga Mini, one that is 1000 times better to use and completely open, supporting every platform and game system out there, can be done in a couple of hours. And it will only cost a tiny bit more than the Amiga mini does. If you already have a pi 4b floating around the place you cut costs in half.
While on torrents, you can download pretty much all the games that each platform have in a single archive. Just imagine that. All the megadrive games ever made. All the SNes games ever released. All the PSX games that came out. And all the CD32 titles that came out too 
This is why i picked the DeskPI case, for that SSD support. Adding a 1 or 2 Terabyte SSD wont cost the world, at least not considering what you get! Or just buy a 1Tb SD card (if you dare) and just fill it up from your windows PC over the network.
The PI will register with the network so it shows up in Windows Explorer, then just copy the rom-files (game files) to their respective folders (e.g PSX games into the playstation folder and so-on).
Oh and in case you wondered, you get Amiga compatability out of the box. Even better is that you can download every CD32 game known to man and just copy the disk images over to your device (into the Amiga folder ofcourse) and enjoy the media enriched versions of your old favorites.
WHDLoad games are also supported (It’s Amiberry after all, same thats in the Amiga mini, except not crippled), harddisk games and ADF games.
I already owned a Raspberry PI 4b, so this system cost less than what Cloanto (or retro systems or whatever the fuck they are called) are asking for the Amiga mini. Dont bother, you build this in an hour or two.
People expect devices released today to have the features of today (or at least the bare minimum like BT support). Sure, the mini is a retro system, and those systems had a ton of cables. But that cable soup was something we dreamed about getting away from. I mean -they are competing with off the shelves hardware costing less, that delivers more! I did not expect much, honestly, but i did expect BT, networking and being able to control my own goddamn emulator session.
I would have respected the mini and it’s makers if they had at the very least offered some thought to the Amiga community. They are essentially selling our own software back to us in a crippled state after all. Had they done so, i would have supported them 100% and done my part to boost sales and spread the word.
Sure, the mini might be a useful start for people who sold their system 30 years ago, or young retro fans wanting a go. That is a fair point ofcourse. But why cripple it? Why on earth would you go out of your way to cripple the software, removing the chance that amiga users could use your product as their daily driver? It makes absolutely zero sense. I would have understood it if it cost them money to cater to our community, but it’s actually the direct opposite. It cost them money to exclude the features we need.
Well, roll your own is my advice. It will be so much better and requires practically zero effort 😎🤘🍺
Cheers!
RetroMod World 
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