I’m trying to figure out if I wanna get one of these for the family to share and they look pretty cheap. I like that the ones I see advertised come preloaded with games so I don’t have to do all the setup and downloading. But I’m capable of doing that setup if there’s a better device that doesn’t come preloaded.
Retroarch on android is free and doesn't have ads, not sure what you're on about. Also, OP is specifically asking about handheld devices.
Because a lot of handhelds use Linux as the OS. Do research