GameMT EX8 review: an attractive retro handheld with control issues

A low-cost Helio G99 handheld with a 3:2 display sounds like a smart answer to a real niche. The problem is that the EX8’s controls keep undermining the case for the hardware wrapped around them.

A handheld that understands the assignment

The GameMT EX8 makes a strong first impression because it is not chasing the same fantasy as every other retro handheld. Instead of pretending to be an all-things-to-all-people machine, it plants a flag in a specific bit of nostalgia: Game Boy Advance. The oversized GBA-inspired shell is not subtle, and neither is the 3:2 display ratio. That is the point. This is a device clearly built around the idea that one of the best ways to stand out in the retro market is to make a machine that treats GBA software as a first-class citizen rather than as one system among dozens.

On paper, that is a compelling strategy. The EX8 pairs that screen with a 1620 by 1080 panel and a MediaTek Helio G99, while coming in at $149, roughly €128. That puts it in an unusually attractive position for buyers who want a relatively inexpensive Android-based emulation handheld with enough headroom for broad retro coverage and a display that suits Nintendo’s 32-bit portable library unusually well. At a glance, this looks less like a random budget device and more like a targeted product with an actual thesis.

The screen does real work here

And to be fair, some of that holds up. The display is one of the EX8’s clearest strengths. The unusually high resolution and 3:2 aspect ratio are not just spec-sheet decoration; they serve a practical purpose for GBA games, which scale cleanly on this panel with very little visual ugliness. The result is an image that is described as crisp and stable, without the distracting artifacts that often show up when retro games are stretched or awkwardly resized on ill-suited displays. For the intended use case, that is not a minor win. It is the center of the argument in the EX8’s favor.

There are other welcome signs of care. The angular shell apparently proves more comfortable in practice than it looks in photos, with the corners not digging into the hands during play. The face buttons, using rubber membranes, are also reported to feel good. Even the software seems to show more restraint than is typical in this category: Android 14 sits beneath a clean launcher with soft colors, readable menus, quick game access, and expected conveniences like save states and display-border options. In other words, the EX8 is not failing because nobody thought the product through. In several respects, somebody clearly did.

Then the d-pad ruins the mood

The problem is that retro handhelds do not live or die by menus or screen density. They live or die by trust. You press a button, and the machine has to answer immediately and correctly. That basic contract is where the EX8 reportedly starts to fall apart. Its d-pad is described as inaccurate enough to miss individual directional inputs outright. Not constantly, not catastrophically, but often enough to matter—and always in the moments when precision is the entire point.

That is the sort of flaw that instantly changes how a device feels in the hand. A missed input on a handheld built for retro games is not the same thing as a minor ergonomic complaint. It strikes at the thing users are actually buying: reliable interaction with games that were often designed around exacting controls. A beautiful panel can make a sprite look pristine. It cannot compensate for a jump, turn, or diagonal input that never registers. Once that doubt creeps in, every demanding game starts to feel like a hardware test.

The shoulder buttons don’t help

The EX8’s shoulder setup compounds the problem. Rather than giving the player a clear, decisive press, the L, R, L2, and R2 buttons are reported to have very little travel and an unsatisfying feel. Worse, they can apparently remain pressed unintentionally. That kind of mushiness is easy to dismiss in a checklist comparison and much harder to forgive in actual use, where shoulder inputs often need to feel deliberate and distinct.

This is where the device’s balancing act starts to collapse. A niche handheld can survive a few rough edges if its priorities are in the right place. But when the primary interaction points—the d-pad and shoulder buttons—are the weak spots, the machine ends up feeling backward. The EX8 gets credit for understanding display geometry and software presentation, then gives that credit back when the player actually touches it.

There is also a durability problem waiting in the wings

Then there are the analog sticks. The exposed modules, lacking Hall effect or TMR technology, leave visible openings into the hardware. That design may look mechanically interesting, but it also raises an obvious concern: dirt and debris have a more direct path into the joystick assembly. The critique here is partly about long-term confidence. Even before failure becomes a measurable problem, the exposed construction makes the system feel more vulnerable than a portable device should.

That concern matters because handhelds do not exist in pampered conditions. They go into bags, onto desks, into laps, and through travel. A machine that already has control issues does not benefit from introducing one more uncertainty about how it will age. The EX8’s analog design may not doom the hardware on day one, but it adds one more reason to hesitate when the rest of the device is already asking the buyer for patience.

The frustrating part is how close this gets

What makes the EX8 interesting is not that it is a disaster. It is that it is pointed in a direction the market arguably needs more of. A cheaper Helio G99 handheld with a strong 3:2 screen, a clear GBA focus, and cleaner-than-usual software is a product concept that makes immediate sense. There is a real argument for a machine like this. That is precisely why the flaws are so deflating.

The device seems to understand its audience better than some of its peers do. It recognizes that retro enthusiasts are not only buying chips and spec sheets; they are buying fit, feel, scaling, and a sense that a product was designed around the games they actually want to play. But understanding the audience and satisfying it are two different things. The EX8 reportedly gets far enough to be intriguing, then stumbles on the most basic requirement of all: dependable control input.

Verdict

The GameMT EX8 is easy to admire from a distance. It has a smart screen, a sensible niche, a competitive price, comfortable-enough ergonomics, and software that sounds more polished than one might expect at this level. But none of those strengths can fully compensate for a d-pad that misses inputs, shoulder buttons that lack clear feedback, and analog hardware that invites questions about longevity. That leaves the EX8 in an awkward category: not a bad idea, but not a safe recommendation. It aims at exactly the right target and still misses, largely because the act of playing on it seems less dependable than the hardware’s premise suggests. In a market full of retro handhelds trying to differentiate themselves, that is a particularly painful way to come up short.

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