Hey everyone, it's Colin. How's it goin'?
There are plenty of ways to play Tetris,
but could this tiny handheld be the most compelling of them all?
[♪ Music - Intro ♪]
This is the Tetris MicroCard from Arduboy.
Its clear and purple design is made up of a polycarbonate front panel
and an anodized aluminum back.
It has fairly minimal controls, just the white D-Pad and action buttons,
and the Power and Mute switches.
It's very small, about the size of a credit card,
and not a whole lot thicker than its Micro-USB port.
That port is, of course, used to charge the MicroCard,
which has a Lithium-Polymer battery rated for a 180 milliamp hours,
and is said to last for about six hours.
It can get that kind of run time from such a small battery due to its efficient design.
It's powered by the same 8-bit processor as used in the Arduino Micro.
It even supports sound, though the built-in speaker has no volume control,
and isn't all that loud.
The screen in the MicroCard is simply fantastic.
It's a 64x128 pixel OLED panel in a portrait orientation.
It's only black and white, but has really nice contrast and brightness,
and I found that motion is very fluid, with no ghosting at all.
And this plays really nicely into the overall experience.
Despite its small size, the handling is surprisingly good.
It's too little for the squared-off corners to touch your palms, let along dig into 'em,
and it's quite lightweight.
The buttons are one of my favorite parts.
They're clicky with a short travel,
but really responsive and take just the right amount of pressure to activate.
If you play Tetris quickly, these buttons will keep up.
Now let's be clear: this is definitely a purpose-built device.
It *only* plays Tetris, and unlike its Arduboy sibling,
it's apparently not re-programmable.
The version of Tetris on it is also pretty limited,
offering only the classic gameplay, with no other options or modes.
You pick it up,
you play Tetris,
you put it down.
That's it.
I paid $54 US plus shipping for mine.
If you're not all that into Tetris, that's simply too much money.
But despite the cost, I have no regrets picking one up.
If you've watched many of my videos, you'll probably know that Tetris is one of my favorite games,
and I think the MicroCard is perhaps the best way to play it.
Between the OLED screen's small size and and perfect buttons,
you totally get lost in the game and forget about the hardware.
The software is no-nonsense. It starts up in just a few seconds with minimal Credit and Start screens to wait through,
and gameplay is *really* responsive.
While it only plays the original Korobeiniki theme song and some sound effects,
the mute switch quickly shuts the device up.
The battery feels like it lasts longer than it does because most of the time,
interactions with the MicroCard are brief.
I've found myself reaching for it whenever I have a spare minute between tasks.
It's really optimized for these sorts of quick games.
To me, at least, it strikes the perfect balance of hardware and software.
It's easy to get lost stacking Tetriminos, even if only for a few moments at a time.
So if you're a big fan of Tetris,
the MicroCard may be worth looking into, even though it's relatively expensive.
But for everyone else, another version of the game will likely suffice.
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