Best Handhelds for Zelda

Zelda is the widest library in this series. The games span eleven systems and nearly forty years, from The Legend of Zelda on the Famicom in 1986 to Echoes of Wisdom on the Switch in 2024, and no other franchise on this site comes close to touching that many eras of hardware. So the buying question is not which handheld is fastest. It is where your library ends.

That question resolves into four steps, and the price of each is set by exactly one system:

• The 2D games run on almost anything. From $15.
• Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask are the first real step up. From $70.
• The Wind Waker, Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword are a second, steeper step. Playable from $114, at a straight A from $160.
• The Wii U remasters and the Switch games are the wall. From $299, or $399 for a straight A on the Switch.

Where the Zelda games live

No other franchise on this site is spread across more platforms, and that is what makes it awkward to shop for. The games are grouped by the hardware generation that produced them, not by release year:

The catch is that these generations map onto two different classes of handheld. Every system up to and including the GameCube and the Wii is served by ARM chips and mature emulators. The Wii U and the Switch are not: they need x86 hardware or a high-end Snapdragon, which is why the last step in the ladder is the steepest and why most of the interesting prices in this guide sit below it.

What to look for

Three things decide the purchase:

1. Where your library ends. Every step in the Zelda ladder is a full emulation class apart, so the device is chosen by your single newest game, not by your library as a whole.
2. The emulation grade, not the chip name. Our capability index grades every handheld on every system, and those grades say plainly which devices clear a system and which merely boot it.
3. Whether you want the Switch games. This is the only question whose answer moves from three figures to four, and the only one where a cheap handheld cannot be talked into doing the job.

The price ladder

Every figure below is computed from the capability index: the cheapest handheld in our catalogue that reaches that grade on that system, with the grade letter it publishes. The right-hand column is the cheapest handheld that makes the system playable at all.

Three things stand out in that table. The 2D era costs almost nothing — fifteen dollars for the NES and Game Boy games, thirty for the SNES and Game Boy Advance — because those emulators have been finished for twenty years. The 3D Zeldas are where the money starts: the Nintendo 64 is the first system in the catalogue whose grades actually separate devices, and Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask are the two games that first make a buyer care.

And the last two rows are the wall. There is no cheap handheld that emulates the Wii U or the Switch well, so the ladder jumps from a $209 ceiling on the classic systems to a $299 floor on the modern ones.

The shortlist

The GB300, $15. A straight A on the NES and the Game Boy, which is the entire 2D handheld canon: the 1986 original, Zelda II, Link's Awakening and the two Oracle games. It grades the SNES a C and the Game Boy Advance a B, so it is not the device for A Link to the Past. It is the device for the games you played on a Game Boy.

The G28, $30. The cheapest handheld that takes a straight A on both the SNES and the Game Boy Advance, which is A Link to the Past, the GBA port of the same game, and The Minish Cap. The G28 is a straight A on all four 2D systems, and it is the cheapest device here that covers the whole 2D era at full quality.

The R39S, $40. The cheapest straight-A Nintendo DS, and the cheapest handheld that plays Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask without compromise — it grades the Nintendo 64 a B+. It is also the cheapest straight-A Game Boy, Game Boy Advance and DS machine, so it covers the entire 2D canon plus the two N64 games plus Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks for forty dollars. It is the best value in the guide.

The Pocket Air Mini, $70. The cheapest handheld that takes a straight A on the Nintendo 64, which finally makes Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask a straight-A proposition for the price of a budget smartphone. It is also the cheapest handheld that makes the Nintendo 3DS playable, at a B, and it grades the GameCube a B and the Wii a C.

The Retroid Pocket Classic, $114. The first device here that makes the home-console Zeldas work. It grades the GameCube a B+ and the Wii a B, which is The Wind Waker, Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword running rather than merely booting, and it is a straight A on the NES, SNES, Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, N64 and DS. It is the cheapest handheld that reaches the whole classic canon in playable form.

The Mangmi Air Y Pro, $160. The value winner. It is the cheapest handheld in our catalogue that takes a straight A on all nine classic Zelda systems — the NES, SNES, Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo 64, DS, 3DS, GameCube and Wii — which is every Zelda game from 1986 to 2011 at full quality, including all three 3D console titles. For $160 it is the cheapest single machine that finishes the pre-Wii U series.

The Retroid Pocket 6, $209. The cheapest handheld that clears the Wii U. It grades the Wii U an A-, so The Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD play at near-flagship quality, and it takes a straight A on every system below the Wii U. It also grades the Switch a C+, which makes Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom playable for the first time — badly, but playable.

The Odin 3, $299. The winner. The cheapest handheld to take a straight A on all ten systems carrying a pre-Switch Zelda game, Wii U included, and the cheapest to reach a playable B on the Switch. It is the only device at this price that runs every era from 1986 to 2011 at full quality and the two modern games at playable speed on the same machine.

The Steam Deck, $399. The cheapest handheld to grade the Switch a straight A, and therefore the cheapest device that runs Tears of the Kingdom properly rather than through a compromise. It also grades the Wii U a B+, which is the cheapest straight-A Switch and the strongest Wii U performance in this shortlist.

The honest counterpoint

Most people shopping for a Zelda handheld do not need to emulate the Switch, and it would be dishonest to write this page without the number that cuts against the winner.

If your library ends at Skyward Sword — that is every Zelda game from 1986 to 2011, all nine classic systems, all three 3D console titles — the Mangmi Air Y Pro runs the lot at a straight A for $160. If you only need those games to run rather than to run perfectly, the Retroid Pocket Classic does it for $114. That is a $139 saving over the Odin 3 and honest money: the only thing you give up is the two Switch-native games and the two Wii U remasters.

If, on the other hand, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are the reason you are reading this, then the ladder starts at $299 and there is no budget route around it. The Switch is the one system in the Zelda canon that no inexpensive handheld emulates properly, and the honest advice is to buy the Odin 3 for a playable result or the Steam Deck for a full-quality one. A note worth stating plainly: Switch emulation is legally complex, and you should own the games you run.

How to choose

Read the Zelda ladder as four questions.

If your library is the 2D games, the GB300 at $15 covers the NES and Game Boy titles and the G28 at $30 adds the SNES and Game Boy Advance, which is the whole 2D era at a straight A for thirty dollars.

If your library includes Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, the R39S at $40 makes the N64 playable at a B+, and the Pocket Air Mini at $70 is the cheapest handheld that takes it to a straight A.

If your library includes The Wind Waker, Twilight Princess or Skyward Sword, the Retroid Pocket Classic at $114 makes the GameCube and Wii games playable, and the Mangmi Air Y Pro at $160 is the cheapest handheld that runs every classic Zelda system at a straight A — which is the pre-Wii U series complete.

And if your library includes Breath of the Wild or Tears of the Kingdom, there is no cheap answer: the Retroid Pocket 6 at $209 is the cheapest handheld that plays the Switch games at all, the Odin 3 at $299 is the cheapest to play them well, and the Steam Deck at $399 is the cheapest to play them perfectly.

The pattern that runs through this series holds one more time. The buying decision is decided by the single system your hardware cannot emulate, and for Zelda that system is the Switch — the one that sits a four-figure emulation class above everything that came before it, and the one that decides whether you spend $160 or $400.

Verdict

Buy the Odin 3 at $299 if you want the whole franchise, including the modern games, on one machine — it is the cheapest handheld that reaches every era from 1986 to 2011 at a straight A and the Switch at a playable B. Buy the Mangmi Air Y Pro at $160 if your library ends at Skyward Sword, which is most people reading this page. Buy the Retroid Pocket Classic at $114 if you want the entire classic canon playable and nothing more. And buy the Steam Deck at $399 only if Tears of the Kingdom has to run properly — because that, and nothing cheaper, is what it costs.

Sources

• Nintendo — the Zelda series and the hardware history of the NES, SNES, Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo 64, GameCube, Wii, Wii U, Nintendo DS and Nintendo 3DS: nintendo.com
• Nintendo — The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild on the Switch, the system that sets the top of this ladder: nintendo.com
• AYN Technologies — the Odin 3 and its Snapdragon platform, the winner of this guide: ayn.com
• AYANEO — the Pocket Air Mini and the Pocket handheld line: ayaneo.com
• Retroid / Moorechip — the Retroid Pocket Classic and the Pocket family: goretroid.com
• Mangmi — the Air Y and Air Y Pro vertical handhelds and their Snapdragon platforms: mangmi.com
• Valve — the Steam Deck, the cheapest handheld to grade the Switch a straight A: steamdeck.com
• Data Frog — the GB300 and its NES and Game Boy coverage: datafrog.cc
• Dolphin — the open-source GameCube and Wii emulator referenced for those systems' grades: github.com/dolphin-emu
• ares — the multi-system emulator used as a reference for the Nintendo 64 grades: ares-emu.net
• melonDS — the open-source Nintendo DS emulator referenced for that system's grades: melonds.kuribo64.net
• Citra — the Nintendo 3DS emulator referenced for that system's grades: citra-emu.org
• mGBA — the open-source Game Boy Advance emulator referenced for that system's grades: mgba.io
• Retro Handhelds — community reference used to cross-check device identities and form factors: retrohandhelds.gg

Method: the per-system grades in this guide are the frozen values published on each device's page in the Lost In Consoles capability index, and the price floors ($15 GB300 on the NES and Game Boy, $30 G28 on the SNES and Game Boy Advance, $40 R39S on the Nintendo DS, $70 Pocket Air Mini on the Nintendo 64, $114 Retroid Pocket Classic on a playable GameCube and Wii, $160 Mangmi Air Y Pro on the straight-A classic tier including the GameCube and Wii, $209 Retroid Pocket 6 on an A- Wii U, $299 Odin 3 on the straight-A Wii U tier, $399 Steam Deck on the straight-A Switch tier) are computed directly from that dataset. The index grades the Game Boy as one system, which covers the Game Boy Color titles by backward compatibility. Prices are the tracked street price at publication and move with the market.