The Vectrex Mini was pitched on Kickstarter with an OLED display. It will now ship with an 800 x 480 IPS LCD, and project lead David Oghia has said so in a backer update with unusual bluntness: ‘We know perfectly well that this is not what we originally announced.’ A little further on he admits the team ‘completely shot ourselves in the foot’.
Why the OLED went
Oghia’s explanation starts with arithmetic. When the team planned the machine, the information it had suggested a suitable 5-inch OLED would cost far less than the panels it found once real production sourcing began. It couldn’t find one for under $40 a unit, and paying that or more would have pushed up the price of the finished console.
Engineering came into it as well. OLED glass is very thin, so the chassis would have needed considerable reinforcing, while the IPS panels the team tested arrive in a much tougher metal housing. A higher-resolution OLED would have leaned harder on the ESP32-P4 processor and cost frame rate. And vector graphics are high-contrast and full of static elements, which is a burn-in risk on an OLED.
Where the project stands
The Kickstarter has closed. The Vectrex site says the team is aiming for a retail release towards the end of 2026, through its own online store rather than the big retailers. Time Extension reports a launch event in London on 21 November, which the Vectrex page doesn’t mention. Neither source gives a changed price or shipping date.
Does the panel matter?
If you backed it for the OLED, you’re entitled to be annoyed, and Oghia seems to agree. If you backed it for a Vectrex, the original drew lines with a beam on a glass tube, and the Mini was always going to be a grid of pixels pretending otherwise. Would you rather have the OLED at a higher price, or the IPS panel at this one?
