Anbernic RG35XX
Apr. 16th, 2023 10:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroAnbernic introduced this “mini” handheld to compete directly wit the Miyoo Mini, but I really think it’s there to trounce all the cheap “pick up and play” PowKiddy handhelds.
First off, the screen is very nice. It’s got a 3:4 aspect ratio and looks very bright and crisp. The device physically reminds me of the Retro FC 500-in-1 I explored a couple of years ago; it’s a small Game Boy with a larger screen, and the triggers on the back are an interesting choice but they work reasonably. There’s both a nice, central Menu button and a reset button tucked away on the side; and I do love a dedicated menu button. (And neither is in a place you’d accidentally hit them.) It doesn’t have an analog stick, but it doesn’t particularly need one; and it does have L2/R2 triggers for the PS1 games that require them.
The base emulation software is very bare-bones: It’s set up for convenient savestates (and saves sram for everything except SNES, oddly; I need to fiddle with that) and to let you fiddle with the graphics options (so you never get locked into stretched images and there are a few filters if things don’t render correctly with one), but that’s about all. The OS is designed for easy, fast pick-up-and-play. It’s got recents, favorites and a search feature and they all work properly. The emulation is very good tier 2: Everything up through PS1 runs cleanly. Every system I tried had solid, clean emulation. The 64gb card I got had a lot of Japanese games; I’ll need to refill it for ongoing use, especially for rpgs and such. This system setup doesn't do cheats at all, but I could load up GGGuy hacked roms, so that’s something.
It comes with a screen protector and a charging cable (I didn’t buy it from the AliExpress seller who includes a case), and one microSD card with everything on it; though it has two microSD slots so you can have a card for swapping roms and saves between devices. There’s a mini-HDMI port which (with an adaptor I had to supply myself) did a lovely output to my portable monitor. I’m not sure you can get it to register a second controller properly, though. The battery life was claimed to be 4-5 hours; and I got about 4.5 hours in my testing before game speeds started getting wonky because the battery was clearly on dregs.
I got a Miyoo Mini Plus at the same time (which I’ll probably hold off on reviewing until I can upgrade OnionOS and try the full suite of emulators on it), but the RG35XX is actually more comfortable (at least for my big hands) because it's slightly wider. I think I generally prefer the wide system designs to the tall ones, and hand size is likely the reason.
Overall: I give them a lot of credit here for putting together an optimal version of what PowKiddy has been stumbling around for years: It’s pocket-sized with a nice screen and good battery life. I think “35XX” was a great name for it, because it represents a different evolutionary path from the 351 and 353 devices—instead of pushing the envelope to try to play later systems and add touchscreens, this evolved to be better at the original niche.
First off, the screen is very nice. It’s got a 3:4 aspect ratio and looks very bright and crisp. The device physically reminds me of the Retro FC 500-in-1 I explored a couple of years ago; it’s a small Game Boy with a larger screen, and the triggers on the back are an interesting choice but they work reasonably. There’s both a nice, central Menu button and a reset button tucked away on the side; and I do love a dedicated menu button. (And neither is in a place you’d accidentally hit them.) It doesn’t have an analog stick, but it doesn’t particularly need one; and it does have L2/R2 triggers for the PS1 games that require them.
The base emulation software is very bare-bones: It’s set up for convenient savestates (and saves sram for everything except SNES, oddly; I need to fiddle with that) and to let you fiddle with the graphics options (so you never get locked into stretched images and there are a few filters if things don’t render correctly with one), but that’s about all. The OS is designed for easy, fast pick-up-and-play. It’s got recents, favorites and a search feature and they all work properly. The emulation is very good tier 2: Everything up through PS1 runs cleanly. Every system I tried had solid, clean emulation. The 64gb card I got had a lot of Japanese games; I’ll need to refill it for ongoing use, especially for rpgs and such. This system setup doesn't do cheats at all, but I could load up GGGuy hacked roms, so that’s something.
It comes with a screen protector and a charging cable (I didn’t buy it from the AliExpress seller who includes a case), and one microSD card with everything on it; though it has two microSD slots so you can have a card for swapping roms and saves between devices. There’s a mini-HDMI port which (with an adaptor I had to supply myself) did a lovely output to my portable monitor. I’m not sure you can get it to register a second controller properly, though. The battery life was claimed to be 4-5 hours; and I got about 4.5 hours in my testing before game speeds started getting wonky because the battery was clearly on dregs.
I got a Miyoo Mini Plus at the same time (which I’ll probably hold off on reviewing until I can upgrade OnionOS and try the full suite of emulators on it), but the RG35XX is actually more comfortable (at least for my big hands) because it's slightly wider. I think I generally prefer the wide system designs to the tall ones, and hand size is likely the reason.
Overall: I give them a lot of credit here for putting together an optimal version of what PowKiddy has been stumbling around for years: It’s pocket-sized with a nice screen and good battery life. I think “35XX” was a great name for it, because it represents a different evolutionary path from the 351 and 353 devices—instead of pushing the envelope to try to play later systems and add touchscreens, this evolved to be better at the original niche.
