We are big fans of old games and were looking to try upscalers. One of the biggest things that hold us back is cost. For upscalers the new and used market are high. The Retrotink 5x and 4K cost a lot of money, but the resale on them can be much more. 

Then we found out about the Morph 4K by PixelFX. An alternative upscaler to the Retrotink 4K and 4K CE, but cost a lot less. We saw reviews and decided to try it out, and got one with the analog board for composite and component inputs. Usually they come with just HDMI.

The Morph has one big issue that no one has brought up. Why is there a component input for video but no place to put RCA for the audio? All they have is a 3.5 audio jack  and you have to get an RCA to 3.5 converter. The Retrotink doesn’t have this issue.

The lack of RCA inputs lead to other issues.  If you don’t have the converter, you need to use a speaker with optical input or go over HDMI. A lot of consoles use HDCP, which doesn’t show picture over HDMI when it detects its connected to the Morph. HDCP can’t be turned off in a lot of devices. So you may have to buy an HDMI splitter to get around it.

How does it perform? Decently well, it can usually handle anything. Theres also a list of profiles you can download and they do a decent job. People say the Morph still is lacking in profiles compared to the Retrotink. They may be true but, the picture differences aren’t that much different. The Morph seems to be a bit brighter, which is fine. Profiles and firmware updates can be downloaded over wifi, a feature the RetroTink still doesn’t have.

I find that it rendered most of the games like I remembered them. But there was an issue that I wish upscalers fixed. For me to spend all the money for FPGA upscaling, there should be anti aliasing done. Whether it’s FXAA or SMAA, it should be an there. Games that didn’t have AA can look bad, but ones with AA hold up well. Thats why emulation will always be better because you can not only upres, but add AA, AF, texture filtering, custom textures, and widescreen. Another feature I would have liked to see was the ability to take screenshots and save them on the SD card. Id also have like a non line of sight remote, like a bluetooth one. Thats more of me having to put it behind my TV or under it.

Should you buy this? This is for the retro enthusiasts, and if you’re looking to put your games in 4k, this is the cheapest way outside emulation. The price dropped by $125 recently, but its $100 more for the analog bridge. This is still cheaper than the RetroTink 4K CE, the cheapest of their 4K lineup. I got my Morph 4K with analog bridge for around the cost of the HDMI only model. For me, I only use this when an emulator can’t run games well or you lack the power to emulate it correctly. Should you choose this over RetroTink? Yes, the lower price and similar picture make spending that much more money unnecessary.