The mobile phone It has replaced many objects that we used in our day to day. Smartphones have left behind a lot of victims such as agendas, calculators or MP3 players, but without a doubt, one of their great victories is having established themselves as a substitute for portable consoles. The power of current terminals allows us to play all kinds of games, either native or through emulators. However, there are users who are not satisfied with their series mobiles and resort to some tricks to get the most out of them. maximum performance in the face of long game days.
This is how a mobile is modified to turn it into the definitive portable console
As much as technology advances, the antagonist of any portable console is always the battery. More than two decades ago, we all became anxious when we saw that the red light of the Game Boy was going out, a sign that you were running out of batteries —and not to mention the Advance, which changed color so that it was still the warning more obvious. On mobile, things have not changed. Video games consume a lot Energy, and playing connected to the charger can significantly reduce the life of it. Not to mention the temperature. Any mid-range or high-end smartphone you find on the market today will have a design that is capable enough to dissipate the thermal energy of its components, but if you play too many hours a day, the terminal’s lifespan will be affected.
There are very few differences between the mobile phone you are using to read these lines and a console like the Nintendo Switch. The secret of Nintendo’s hybrid console is in the cooling and battery. And around these two concepts, the youtuber Geekerwan posted a video in which modifies a Xiaomi Mi 9 to turn it into a whole portable console.
Extra battery, active dissipation and overclock to get the most out of the Mi 9
The Mi 9 was launched in the year 2019, and has a processor Snapdragon 855a very capable chip, but that is limited by the 3,300 mAh battery of the terminal and its design, which limits the activity of the processor to a certain extent by having only passive ventilation, as usually happens in all mobiles.
For this experiment, Geekerwan bought the second-hand cell phone and went to work making his Frankenstein. He started by placing two more batteries in parallelachieving a total capacity of 9,900mAh. Subsequently, he raised the plate voltage to overclock the processor. With this tweak, he managed to break through the 50 FPS barrier that was found in multiple games.
After doing that process, it was time to cool down the machine. Geekerwan removed the camera module from the phone and added a oversized heatsink accompanied by a fan, which is connected to the terminal’s own battery. Lastly, the modder he made his own 3D case with support to connect a console controller.
The result of the experiment is really interesting. The performance of the terminal is much higher than what would be obtained with the standard phone —especially since the possibility of thermal throttling has been eliminated. In addition, it is a fairly cheap and affordable project for anyone with a little technical knowledge.
