Can play in the dark

I already had a normal, unmodified Game Boy Color in good condition but I bought this so I could play on original hardware in the dark without having to perform any mods myself. Front-lit Screen: First, I understand that this will never look as good as a modern back-lit screen. The light feels like it has a slight tint to it, but it's because the GBC doesn't have a pure white background, not from the light itself. There are little imperfections in the screen (little bubbles in the adhesive between the screen and the light) and from what I understand it's near impossible to get rid of them all. I expected this, and I figured I'd rather trust someone else who's experienced to do a better job with the mod than I could. After playing for several days, the imperfections don't bother me. Though, be sure to experiment with different color palettes on original games as sometimes the default green/pink is hard to see with the light. I've not done rigorous battery tests, but I put in some old batteries and the front-light in this GBC was so low I thought it was broken. Fresh batteries and it works fine. So something to think about - at the tail end of your batteries the front-light may start to fail, but you'll still be able to play. Replacement Shell: I like the replacement shell. It looks and feels brand new. The only visible difference is that a regular GBC has the Nintendo support hotline sticker on the battery door and this one has an embossed GameBoy logo, which looks fine. Replacement buttons: Here's where I had the most problem with this product. The buttons (esp B and A) didn't register as well as in my un-modded GBC. I really had to mash down the buttons to make a good connection. It was most obvious navigating menus, where I could sit there tapping A lightly over and over and nothing would happen. Also the power switch wiggled a little bit and made a click noise whenever I touched it. Rather than go through the hassle of sending it back, I decided to pop it open. Ultimately, several fit and finish issues were causing the innards to not close together snugly and so the buttons didn't hit all of the time. Here's what I had to fix: 1. The power wires for the front-light were getting pinched by the replacement shell, so that the front of the shell was being pushed out, lifting the buttons a mm or two higher than they should be. I fixed it by shaving the plastic where the wires were passing through so the shell would rest flush where it wanted to. 2. Part of installing the front-light means removing the normal padding behind the screen to make room. There were still a couple globs of padding and adhesive goo behind the screen (maybe 3mm thick) on one edge, causing the screen to torque slightly and again push the front of the shell out. I scraped off the globs and everything fit much nicer after that. 3. The rubber membranes under the problematic B and A buttons felt fine, but they were a little dirty, so I cleaned them. (The other membranes under the other buttons were fine.) 4. Part of the problem is the replacement buttons themselves. I compared them with real GBC buttons, and the replacements are in fact about 1mm shorter overall and are molded slightly different on the inside (where they touch the membranes). So turns out they are a little more sensitive to the gaps caused by the issues I identified above. 5. The external power switch has two little nubs that reach in and move the "actual" switch on the circuit board. The molding of the replacement external switch is close, but not a perfect match to a real one. When the shell was being pressed outward, the switch was just loose enough that the little nubs weren't aligned and would "click" against the internal switch. Fixing the issues above stopped the clicking. Ultimately the GBC works great. It was a little annoying to have to fix things myself but I can see how it would have passed a quick "turn on, game starts, press some buttons" test. If I didn't have another GBC to compare with I might not have noticed and just got used to pressing harder. I'm still glad that I didn't have to to the light-mod myself, though in the future I'd probably stick to original buttons and shells.Read full review

Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned