Kevin Bates never even imagined he’d be making the same tiny handheld forever. Nine years have gone by since his original Arduboy quietly slipped into pockets like a sneaky credit card, and now he’s released the FX-C – same wafer-thin body, a shiny new USB-C port and just one cable to turn button mashing into head-to-head battles.
When you pull the FX-C out of its sleeve, you’ll notice one thing straight away: it’s 3.4mm thick and weighs only 25 grams, with cold stainless steel on the back and a pretty great looking matte polycarb in front. It’s so thin that it fits easily into a pants pocket, but it feels sturdy enough to withstand a few subway tiles. The six rubber-domed buttons have a great click to them – like the old Game Boy from ’88 – and the 128 x 64 OLED screen glows bright white, with no shades of grey and no anti-aliasing – just sharp pixels that really make all the sprites pop.
- PLAY ANYTIME, ANYWHERE – Ultra‑mini keychain game console with 6 tactile controls and OLED display ready with 5 built‑in retro games; portable...
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The power comes from a tiny 180mAh lithium-polymer battery – thin enough to make you wonder how on earth it’s powering anything. A full charge will get you around 4-6 hours of playtime, depending on how loud the 4 channel piezo speaker is chirping. Plug the USB-C cable into a phone charger and the battery will be full in 40 minutes – and if you forget about it for a bit, the screen is smart enough to go dark after 30 seconds, but still keeps the battery sipping along to the point where you can still boot it up a week later.
Inside is the same ATmega32u4 chip that’s also in an Arduino Micro – 32KB of flash, 2.5KB of ram and now 16MB of external SPI flash. The extra storage space is home to 300 community built games – all carefully curated by Bates himself. Boot the thing up and you’ll be presented with a menu that scrolls through crisp cover art. Some of the highlights include : Castlevania: Arduboy Symphony (where you get to whip your way through 40 screens), Hollow Seeker (an endless runner with one button wall jumps), TeenyTank (artillery battles that now actually happen in real time against a friend), and Mystic Lantern (an 8-bit Zelda clone with 50 rooms and boss keys). Every game loads in half a second, and if you hold Left + Right + A at the menu to delete you’ll be left with a blank canvas to create your own sketches.
The USB-C cable contains four extra wires that communicate with I²C at 400 kHz, enabling multiplayer functionality. Plug in two FX-C units (you may use any Thunderbolt 3 connection for this), and a “Link” symbol will appear. Currently, games like TeenyTank, MicroCheckers, Speed Snake and a co-op mod of Catacombs of the Damned are all multiplayer ready, and community coders have already got another 20 titles up on the forum, with leaderboards stored right on the devices themselves.
The bad news is that the Founder’s Edition, which has purple buttons and a laser etched serial number 001-500, costs $99 direct from arduboy.com. The conventional green-button model will soon be available on Amazon for $89, with free Prime shipping. Bates attributes the price increase to tariffs imposed on Chinese PCBs.
