The A1200 at 190 euros: judge it by what it lets you do

Is a machine a real Amiga because it says so on the case, or because of what you can do with it? The new THEA1200 forces the question, and our answer is that the badge is the least interesting part.

A 190-euro emulator with a keyboard, now due in December

According to Giga, Retro Games' full-size A1200 recreation was meant to ship in June but slipped to early December 2026 because of component shortages. It can be pre-ordered on Amazon for 189.99 euros. It comes with a working keyboard, a USB mouse, a gamepad and an HDMI cable. You supply your own power adapter.

Inside there is no old silicon. It's emulation, and gugeli.de describes an ARM processor running a Linux base. The machine covers the A1200's AGA chipset plus the A500's OCS and ECS, according to the idealo listing. It outputs 720p over HDMI and ships with 25 games. Your own games load from a USB stick, and WHDLoad is supported.

An emulator in a beige shell is still a fair deal

Purists will say this isn't an Amiga, and technically they're right. We think that misses what the Amiga was. It was never a sacred set of chips. It was a machine where people made demos, music and games, and swapped them. A box that runs that software faithfully on a modern TV, with a real keyboard, serves that culture well, and probably with less fuss than an aging original that can need a scaler, repairs and a lot of patience.

The price also looks reasonable. We can't say what a used original costs today, because the documentation doesn't say. But 190 euros for a full-size machine with a keyboard is a lot less intimidating than most hobby entry points.

Openness is the real spec sheet

The headline feature isn't the 25 games. It's the USB loading and WHDLoad support. WHDLoad is a widely used format for running Amiga software from mass storage, and Giga says it opens up a huge library of further titles. For us, that's what decides whether this is a console-like appliance or a computer.

The questions we would want answered before recommending it are the ones the documentation leaves open. Can you get at the Workbench environment, as gugeli.de suggests? Can you load your own software freely, or is it locked down? Can you update it? Retro Games' own page calls it a "re-imagining of this classic home computer complete with working keyboard", which is the right ambition. A keyboard that does nothing but navigate a menu would be a costume.

Demosceners should care most. A demo is a program that pushes specific hardware, and emulation is only as good as its timing. We have no evidence yet either way, so we would wait for independent testing with real productions before trusting it.

The bundled games undersell the A1200

One ComputerBase forum post complains that at most 4 of the 25 games are AGA titles, and that the rest were made for the A500. That's a forum opinion, not a review, but it points at something real. A machine named after the A1200 should show off what made the A1200 special, and a bundle that is mostly A500-era software doesn't do that. Settlers II and the Turrican games are great, but they are a nostalgia pick, not an AGA showcase.

Our view is that this matters less than it seems, because the bundle is a starter pack. If the machine is open, the community can fix the library in a weekend. If it's closed, no preinstalled list will save it.

Our verdict: buy it for the living room, wait if you code

Buy it if you want a plug-and-play Amiga for the living room and you value the keyboard and the form factor. Wait for hands-on reviews if you're a coder, musician or demoscener who wants to run your own work. The December 4 launch date gives reviewers time to answer the questions that matter. The badge is nostalgia. USB loading, WHDLoad and an open system are what would make it an Amiga in the sense that counts.