Voltage and current - Comparing Game Boy Color backlit LCDs

We've been selling a backlit Game Boy Color LCD solution for a bit now and by all accounts people are loving them... we keep getting in more, and they keep selling out... thank you for your support!

Regardless of if you want to find out before-purchase or after-purchase, it's about time we posted the electrical consumption data on the displays at this time and show a simple comparison. Keep in mind these displays are using the same LCD, but are very different with regards to the hardware and software 'driving' them... and voltage-current is just one of many ways these displays could be compared. This data is perhaps geared more towards those looking to have multiple mods on their console and want to know details of the GBC LCD solution we sell.

Lets back up...

...just a minute and take a look at what happened before. Our good friend - Matt Whitehead of Jellybelly Customs - did two write-ups for his site and ours that detail how much current the different backlit GBC LCD solutions draw at different voltages across the BennVenn Freckle Shack, the McWill, and the Midwest Embedded solutions. This is just one way to compare the solutions, but also a way to be more informed about what is in your console - especially when doing multiple mods to it.

Method

We followed-suit with what Matt had done before - taking a stock Game Boy Color (no mods) and only removing the stock display to replace it with one of the backlit solutions. In our test we also used a v5 motherboard and have the volume on full, with a bench power supply to control the voltage to the console. We watched the power supply for how many mA the console draws. This can give insights into what kind of battery life you can expect... we'll get into that later, though.

Results

Conclusion

So at this point you may be asking “Yeah, Dustin, but what does this all mean?” It’s a valid question and honestly conclusion from this data is that if you’re looking purely at power consumption, in which lower consumption will translate into more play time, then the backlit Game Boy Color LCD we sell and the BennVenn Freckle Shack are the best performers, the McWill is next regarding consumption, then the Midwest Embedded solution… that said, the McWill console shuts down once the batteries hit 2.1v which is rather early relative to the other options. As a reminder, too, this is just one of multiple affinities to evaluate the solutions on - other factors include price, availability, what shell modifications are required, and more.