The last thing I need is another project
I've had this Game Boy Advance since the first Christmas after it came out, I must have been 15 or 16 at the time. I've not played it regularly since about 2004/2005, it got relegated to a drawer since the release of the Nintendo DS, which could play GBA games with the added benefit of a backlit screen.
I've recently been enjoying going back and playing older games I enjoyed as a kid, mostly on the Nintendo emulator apps on the Switch, but that's led me to dig out this old device and see if I could breathe new life into it.
The GBA still works perfectly well, I've apparently looked after it but as you can see from the photo, it's not looking as good as it once did and I keep coming back to this idea of perhaps updating some of the components.
What started as a thought of replacing just the grey buttons with a new brighter colour to contrast the white has then led to "well if you get brand new buttons, you'll need to either really clean the white case or buy another. If you're going to take it apart to replace the components, you may as well look at replacing the screen with a backlit one...".
Taking a games console apart will be easy, it's putting it back together that's challenging if you've never done it before, so there's a real risk I'd break a perfectly good GBA device in the process.
So I'm between two options. Try to do it myself and take the risk or just fork out roughly £180 for a refurbished one?
Learning a new skill is an attractive prospect but with comics and other house-related projects on the go at the moment, I'm not sure I have the time...