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The Arduboy FX-C is an excellent time killer you might forget you’re carrying
Tech Close Tech Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All Tech Gadgets Close Gadgets Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All Gadgets Gaming Close Gaming Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All Gaming The Arduboy FX-C is an excellent time killer you might forget you’re carrying The latest version of the Arduboy comes with over 300 games in a handheld still small enough to hide in your wallet. The latest version of the Arduboy comes with over 300 games in a handheld still small enough to hide in your wallet. by Andrew Liszewski Close Andrew Liszewski Senior Reporter, News Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All by Andrew Liszewski May 30, 2026, 2:00 PM UTC Link Share If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement. The Arduboy FX-C squeezes a lot of entertainment into a thin, credit card-sized handheld. Andrew Liszewski Close Andrew Liszewski Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. Follow Follow See All by Andrew Liszewski is a senior reporter who’s been covering and reviewing the latest gadgets and tech since 2006, but has loved all things electronic since he was a kid. As handheld consoles continue to grow and push the limits of what you can actually hold in your hands , the Arduboy FX-C comes in a refreshingly pocketable package. It manages to squeeze the best features of past models and some welcome upgrades into a handheld that’s still no larger or thicker than a few credit cards. It’s the best version of the Arduboy so far, particularly for gamers who want to jump into the handheld’s ever-expanding library of games and apps right out of the box, but one of its most compelling upgrades isn’t quite ready for primetime. The original Arduboy was a Tetris -playing business card created by Kevin Bates to show off his electronics skills. It went viral in 2014 prompting Bates to turn the idea into a commercial device a year later that was both a tiny open-source gaming device and a tool that could help would-be developers learn to code. Arduboy FX-C $ 79 $ 79 $79 at Amazon $79 at Arduboy After over a decade of minor iterations , the Arduboy FX-C looks very much like the original. The controls are limited to six buttons, four of which function as a D-pad. They have a minimal amount of travel given the device is just 5mm thin, but a satisfying amount of click when pressed. The piezoelectric speaker is high pitched but more than loud enough, and its 1.3-inch, 1-bit OLED screen is bright enough to be playable outdoors. The Arduboy FX-C (right) has a design that’s nearly identical to the original Arduboy (left) but with some added chips to accommodate hundreds of pre-installed games. While the 37-year-old original Game Boy could display four shades of greenish-gray, the Arduboy FX-C’s screen is monochromatic and limited to only white pixels. Developers have to rely on visual tricks like dithering or flickering to create grayscale graphics. Equally limiting is the FX-C’s ATmega32u4 processor that’s paired with just 2.5KB of RAM. Compared to other black-and-white handhelds like the Playdate , the Arduboy FX-C feels primitive but its limitations have forced game developers to get creative and experimental, which is a big part of this platform’s appeal. The original Arduboy features a microUSB port on the bottom, while the FX-C finally gets an upgrade to USB-C without adding any thickness. My biggest frustration with the original Arduboy was its minimal storage that had me regularly connecting the device to my laptop when I wanted to play a different game. In 2020, Bates introduced the Arduboy FX with an extra flash chip on board that could hold 250 games. The FX-C inherits that chip, but a slightly larger version, bumping its included library of games to over 300, while also upgrading the device from microUSB to USB-C. It’d be nice if the FX-C had a color screen, a proper D-pad, dedicated volume buttons, an improved sound chip, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and even a microSD card slot, but none of those upgrades really feel necessary. It’s a handheld that feels pared down to the absolute bare necessities for gaming, but it works. One feature that could use an upgrade is the Arduboy FX-C’s sliding power switch. It’s small and embedded on the top of the handheld, which sometimes makes it difficult to reach. A tiny switch on the top edge of the FX-C powers up the handheld but it can occasionally be a challenge if, like me, your fingernails are short. After a near instant boot up, you’re presented with a simple homescreen and menu system. The bundled games are sorted into several categories including Action, Adventure, Arcade, Runner, Puzzle, and Racing you cycle thro
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