Retroid Pocket Mini V2
Qualcomm Snapdragon 865 · ~$219
Experimental rather than a reason to buy the device.
Tested by: RetroSpecGame
Nintendo Switch (Nintendo, 2017) tested on 4 devices, cheapest first.
2 of 4 tested handhelds run Switch well enough to play, starting at $299.
None of them hold full speed across the library. Ratings come from 5 publishers who had the hardware; the comparison across all of them is ours.
Runs at upscaled resolution without stuttering.
Experimental rather than a reason to buy the device.
Tested by: RetroSpecGame
Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 class hardware is the entry point for attempting it at all.
Tested by: RetroResolve
Runs at upscaled resolution without stuttering.
Tested by: overkill.wtf
The bulk of the Switch 1 library runs at full or near-full frame rate.
Tested by: Techxreviews, Stuff
Devices are ordered by price, not by score, because the useful question is usually the cheapest thing that clears the bar rather than the best thing available. “Playable” is where most people should stop reading upward: past that you are paying for headroom and upscaling, not for the game running.
Devices absent from this list have no published Switch testing found. That is a gap in the data, not a verdict on the hardware.
Every rating on this page traces to one of these. The compilation is ours; the measurements are theirs.