The PicoPal runs Game Boy and Game Boy Color games on a Raspberry Pi Pico 2 microcontroller that costs only about $5, which is comparable to the chip inside a smart light bulb. This is a remarkable feat given how underpowered the hardware is compared to typical emulation platforms.
Unlike most handheld emulators that rely on Android or Linux as their base operating system, the PicoPal runs directly on a bare microcontroller through clever low-level programming. This makes it a genuinely unique approach in the retro handheld space.
One standout feature is the ability to fully power off the device mid-game and resume exactly where you left off simply by holding the start button on boot. This goes beyond standard save states and is something the reviewer had not seen implemented so seamlessly before.
Investigate the RP2350B variant of the Raspberry Pi Pico 2 as a capable microcontroller for building emulation hardware, as demonstrated by PicoPal running full Game Boy Color emulation on a $5 chip.