The best thing I ever did to my Game Boy Advance

I wasn’t a particularly rich kid, so my collection of Game Boy Advance games from childhood was pretty small. Recently I’ve been spending a lot of time with an infant sleeping on my chest, and needed something to do with my hands. I decided that now that I can afford games, I’d revisit some of the great titles I never got to play as a kid. I picked up a copy of Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and started playing. The game is fantastic, but the unlit GBA screen leaves a lot to be desired in 2022 after being spoiled by bright colorful smart phone screens.

Thus I discovered the active Game Boy modding community. There are screen upgrades, lithium battery upgrades, audio amplifier upgrades, shell upgrades, anything you’d need to turn a Game Boy in to a great modernized game console. Fellow owners of Game Boy Advances will remember that it did not come with a backlit screen, which makes playing games impossible in the dark. There are a wealth of screen upgrades available today, but IPS panels appear to be the most popular. These are newly manufactured unused screens, many of which were originally designed for older smartphones that got discontinued. One of these screens was now destined for my GBA.

You can buy these screens from a number of different stores. Funny Playing, Cloud Game Store on AliExpress, Ebay, and more. I won’t go in to detail about the different versions, but I settled on an Ebay listing that included all the compatible parts I would need. That said, the Funny Playing version is the most highly regarded GBA screen you can buy.

Installation

Installing the screen was not terribly difficult. However, I would definitely recommend purchasing an iFixit driver kit before you attempt this because the tri-wing screw driver included with the screen kit is terrible for anything but stripping screws.

I followed this guide on YouTube which covers the process for several different, but similar kits which are installed the same way. The whole process took me less than two hours. I did have some trouble getting the glass screen lens installed without any smudges on the inside, so take your time and be very patient with this part. I used isopropyl alcohol to clean the under-side which left some residue that’s visible when the screen is off. If I were to do it again I’d probably stick to just those cloths you use to clean glasses and no solvents. Whatever you do, do NOT apply any solvents to the IPS display itself or you could ruin it.

The kit comes with replacement D-pad and other buttons (should you need them), but I did not like the feeling of the replacement D-pad membrane. It was very mushy and not tactile at all, where the original D-pad felt very nice. So I opted to keep the original D-pad parts in the new shell. The other buttons didn’t feel noticeably different.

Results

If the title didn’t give it away, I’m extremely satisfied with this new screen. Games are bright with vivid colors, and there’s very little image ghosting which is only visible in specific areas. It’s worth noting that the “pixel grid” which is visible on the original GBA screen is invisible with an IPS display. This is because the actual resolution of the display is 4x the original GBA, and the image is scaled up such that four pixels on the IPS show what was originally a single pixel on the stock GBA.

Circle of the Moon is playable without standing in direct sunlight!

Power Consumption

Battery life is noticeably less, but that was to be expected. With a set of Eneloop NiMH rechargeable batteries, you can expect to game for about 8 hours on the lowest brightness, and 4 hours on the highest. I didn’t bother getting a Lithium battery kit, because with the AA’s I can just have a spare set charging while I am playing and swap them out when I see the low battery indicator.

Current draw of unmodified GBA: 110mA
Current draw of IPS on lowest brightness: 210mA
Current draw of IPS on highest brightness: 450mA