TRIMUI Brick vs Miyoo Mini Plus

The TRIMUI Brick and the Miyoo Mini Plus are the two vertical handhelds people actually argue about in the sub-$100 bracket. Both are small, both are 4:3, and both sell on the same promise: your whole 8-bit and 16-bit library in a pocket. They are not the same device at all once you start feeding them anything 3D.

Performance and emulation ceiling

The gap is a whole hardware generation. The Brick runs an Allwinner A133 Plus, a quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 with 1 GB of LPDDR3. The Mini Plus runs a SigmaStar SSD202D, a dual-core Cortex-A7 clocked around 1.2 GHz with only 128 MB of DDR3.

On our performance scale the Brick scores 5.25 and the Mini Plus scores 3.50, and the grading splits cleanly along the same line. Both devices grade A on Game Boy, NES, Sega Genesis, Game Boy Advance, Super Nintendo and PlayStation — for pure 2D work they are equals, and the Mini Plus holds that A on PS1 despite the modest silicon because OnionOS has been tuned around exactly that ceiling for years.

Above PS1 they separate. The Brick grades A- on Nintendo DS and B on both Nintendo 64 and Dreamcast, with PSP in the B- range and Sega Saturn at C. The Mini Plus grades B on Nintendo DS and then falls off a cliff: F on Nintendo 64, Dreamcast, PSP, Saturn, GameCube, Wii, Nintendo 3DS, PlayStation 2, Wii U and Switch.

That is the honest version of "the Mini Plus plays everything up to PS1" — it does, and it plays nothing reliably beyond it. If your library includes Dreamcast, N64 or PSP, the Brick is not the better buy, it is the only buy of these two.

The screen is the real differentiator

The Brick carries a 3.2 inch IPS panel at 1024 x 768. The Mini Plus carries a 3.5 inch IPS panel at 640 x 480.

Bigger is not sharper. At 1024 x 768 the Brick can integer-scale 320 x 240 content at 3x and 256 x 224 content at roughly 4x, which is why the panel has a reputation for being the crispest thing in its price band. The Mini Plus's 640 x 480 is an exact 2x of 320 x 240, which is clean, but it leaves far less headroom for higher-resolution 2D systems and for the on-screen overlays and shaders that community firmware layers on top.

The Brick's panel is also laminated, which cuts the internal reflection you get on the Mini Plus in a bright room. Screen quality is the single strongest argument for the Brick, and it is the one spec that does not depend on which emulator you happen to be running.

Battery

Both ship a 3000 mAh battery, and both land in the same practical territory of roughly four to six hours depending on what you are emulating and how bright you run the panel. The Mini Plus battery is swappable, which matters if you plan to carry a spare on a long trip; the Brick is a sealed cell.

Firmware and controls

This is where the Mini Plus fights back and where it still wins for a lot of people. OnionOS is the most mature custom firmware in the budget Linux scene — a purpose-built RetroArch build, a game switcher that resumes exactly where you stopped, a ports collection, and hundreds of community themes. It is the reason a 2023 device with 128 MB of RAM and no analogue stick still gets recommended in 2026.

The Brick is no slouch either: CrossMix-OS, Knulli and MinUI all support it, and the community tooling is good. But the Brick's firmware story is younger, and its controls have no analogue stick at all — same as the Mini Plus. Neither device has one, so neither is a good N64 or PSP machine in the way a stick-equipped handheld is. Treat both ceilings above as emulator-compatibility ceilings, not comfort ceilings.

Price

Our tracked average puts the Brick at around $80 for the plastic shell and $95 for the metal one, against roughly $70 for the Mini Plus. Street pricing moves, and the Mini Plus in particular has been discounted hard for years, so check the current numbers on our price index before you commit — the Mini Plus is frequently the cheaper device by a meaningful margin, and that is not nothing at this end of the market.

If both land within $10 of each other, the Brick is the better device. If the Mini Plus is $25 cheaper on the day you buy, the value argument flips entirely and you should buy the Mini Plus without hesitation.

Which should you buy?

Buy the TRIMUI Brick if you want the sharper screen and you intend to push past PlayStation into Dreamcast, N64 and Nintendo DS. The 1024 x 768 panel and the A133 Plus are a real step up, and the extra headroom is what you are paying for.

Buy the Miyoo Mini Plus if your library is 8-bit, 16-bit and PS1, if you want the most polished firmware experience available at any price, or if it is simply the cheaper device on the day. For that library it gives up nothing that matters.

The one thing to avoid is buying the Mini Plus expecting it to grow into Dreamcast or N64 later. It will not — and no firmware update will change that.

Sources

• TRIMUI — official product page for the Brick: trimui.com
• PowKiddy official store — manufacturer spec sheet for the Trimui Brick (TG3040), giving the Allwinner A133P, PowerVR GE8300 and 1 GB LPDDR3 configuration: powkiddy.com
• Miyoo — official site, Miyoo Mini Plus: lomiyoo.com
• Onion UI — the official OnionOS project for the Miyoo Mini and Mini Plus, including GameSwitcher, the ports collection and the custom RetroArch build: onionui.github.io
• Retro Handhelds — "Trimui Brick Review" (March 15, 2026), covering the 3.2 inch 1024 x 768 panel, firmware options and where N64 and PSP actually top out: retrohandhelds.online
• HandheldDatabase — "TrimUI Brick — Specs, Review & Emulation Guide", source of the real-world battery estimate and the CrossMix/Knulli support note: handhelddatabase.com
• RetroDex — "TRIMUI Smart Brick Handheld Full Specs and Performance" (November 2024 release, Allwinner A133 Plus, 159 g): retrodex.org
• FinalBoss — "Best Retro Handheld Under $100: Miyoo, Anbernic & TRIMUI picks" (2026), source of the SSD202D clock speed, 128 MB DDR3 and $50 street pricing for the Mini Plus: finalboss.io