Finished this up earlier this evening. This has been a project that has been worked on and off again since PRGE. But first some quick background on this Game Gear...

I originally purchased this GG off Ebay where it was clearly stated as Not Working - Parts Only. However, from the pictures shown of it powered out, I had a pretty good feeling that it was something I could fix by simply replacing all of the capacitors as I've gotten a number of GGs working again doing this. The seller had a make offer option with a $35 BIN price. I made an offer for $25 and they accepted. So for just over $30 shipped I was able to get a pretty good deal here.

A word about a tip when buying consoles like this from ebay. Make sure to check the sellers other items they have sold in the past or have currently up for sale. The reason is that consoles listed in parts only condition from sellers that deal in tech like this, will usually not be fixable because the seller has likely already taken parts from the system to fix others they have sold and so they sell the left overs as parts only systems. The seller of this GG I could tell didn't normally deal in video game tech, so I stood a good chance on this GG being all there and fully intact.

When it arrived it only gave a white screen, but if you held the screen at the right angle, you could just make out game graphics. This was good as it meant the main logic on the system was functional and the lack of actual usable video and sound just meant it needed some TLC to replace the capacitors throughout. Sure enough an afternoon spent on that and the GG was back to working 100% in stock condition again. I could have sold it easily for twice what I paid at that point but had other plans.

For some time now BennVenn has offered replacement LCD kits for various handhelds. But since this year, he has had new HD IPS screens for the GG available. These newer screens have better scaling that allows for more screen to be filled without the usual image tearing and shimmer of pixels that would normally occur with these updated LCDs due to the odd resolution that the GG puts out. So I was anxious to try out these new screens for myself. And... I present you the newest member of the Ivory Tower Collections!:

Here is the inside of this GG with the new capacitors installed and new screen in place. These newer screens are easier to install as compared to older ones that had more point to point wiring required. Now most of them use flex ribbons that line up better to the points needed to install them into place.

The new kit uses a touch sensor that I've installed at the top center of the case shell. This sensor opens up an on screen menu to change some of the LCD functions and to change the output between the IPS panel and HDMI....yes HDMI.

There is an optional HDMI output kit that you can purchase that is designed to work with these newer kits. Installing it is very straight forward as the bracket for the HDMI port is designed to fit over a large boss post on the bottom rear of the shell that wasn't used much. This makes alignment easy and it is a snug fit.

It does of course require some case shell modification in order to access the HDMI port. So some cutting and fine detailed filing work was needed. Especially as this was a brand new shell. The port is a full size HDMI port and is recessed in far enough that a standard HDMI cable will be flush with the plastic when inserted.

Another cool feature about these newer screens is that they auto detect when playing Master System games with a Master Gear like converter on the GG. The screen will change scaling modes and resolutions to allow SMS games to nearly fill the entire screen. This is a big upgrade compared to the older LCD kits where there were always significant borders around the edges of the game play view. Here you can see I'm using my BackBit Pro with the SMS adapter on it, into a master gear converter. It sticks up quite oddly but at least the color matches pretty well and SMS games look fantastic on this new screen!

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