I have slightly mixed feelings about the Playdate. The build quality and form factor are impeccable. The small rounded rectangle shape and friendly yellow color give me "lil guy" vibes in a way I've never seen before for a console. I feel like it is a friend.
The actual buttons and crank all feel great, with reliable d-pad inputs and fast, slightly clicky responsiveness. The screen looks great during the day or when there's light from above, but it can be quite hard to see at night with a floor lamp. I do wish there was some option for backlighting.
The battery life is... somewhat worse than I was hoping for something with an e-ink screen, although it seems to vary a lot by game and I think the processor is probably eating most of the power. I guess it's somewhat debatable if that's a console issue or a game optimization issue, though.
It's pleasant and refreshing to see games with such small download sizes, that straightfowardly cost a few bucks and that were made by small or solo indie devs. The catalog already has plenty of games in it and I'm sure it'll only get better for here. Some specific games feel a bit too small in scale for me to really find compelling or get a lot of playtime out of, but I have no real complaints about the average level of polish and presentation.
There is some digital cruft that I wasn't thrilled to have to deal with upon first turning it on. I like when devices just work out of the box and I don't love having to scan a QR code or enter a PIN on a websites while logged into an account. I'm sure there's practical reasons for this stuff but it does remove some of the nostalgic, gameboy-esque charm. The game download speeds are also rather slow considering how much is actually being downloaded.
I think the one thing that I consider straight-up bad is the text entry method. It has three parallel vertical lines of letters and symbols in alphabetical order (one capital letters, one lowercase, and one punctuation) and it can take so damn long to scroll to the letter you need. I really would prefer a grid of letters with some keys off to the side to select capitals and punctuation, and I honestly hope they somehow change, patch, or replace this.
All in all, I can't deny the Playdate's charm, and I love supporting indie devs in such a direct way and getting cute little games, but I feel a bit let down by the screen, battery, and always-online nature of it. A lot of people criticized the Playdate for being too expensive and I can definitely understand that. Although the build quality is impeccable and I suspect they're charging as little as they can for a relatively small company, it's undeniably somewhat niche. However, I do think the charm and vibes and fun factor win out if you're someone who likes retro gaming, indie games, or interesting hardware, and you have a few hundred dollars to spare.