The ZX Spectrum Gets a New Lease of Life
A new dedicated hand-held version of the classic home computer is set to be released next month.
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The Sinclair ZX Spectrum Vega+ Console is a very nice-looking piece of kit, it must be said. The sleek retro hand-held raised £433,155 thanks to its Indiegogo campaign that concluded in March of this year, and has been in production ever since.
Created by UK-based startup Retro Computers Ltd, with help from the original designer of the ZX Spectrum, Sir Clive Sinclair, the Vega+ is basically a hand-held version of the UK's second best-selling home computer of all time (the Raspberry Pi recently eclipsed the Speccy's five million sales to become the best-selling British computer ever). It comes with 1,000 preloaded licensed games, and is apparently capable of running any ZX Spectrum title, which users will be able to load onto the machine using a micro-SD card.
The hand-held features a 259 x 192 LCD screen, which matches the original ZX Spectrum's resolution, but can be connected to either a PAL or NTSC TV via composite video through its headphone jack socket, which doubles as a TV-out. Games are controlled using a combination of a D-pad and four buttons which are fully configurable using the system's in-built pop-up operating system.
The Sinclair ZX Spectrum Vega+ goes on sale on October 20th at a price of around $130 (£100 in the UK), and will be available through Amazon.