Anbernic RG353V review

Finding new ways to play old classics has always been a quest in finding the balance between accuracy, accessibility, and price. The Chinese company Anbernic has been making a name for themselves creating retro handhelds. Since we’ve gotten an Anbernic RG353V 6 months ago, how does it hold up and should you still get one in 2024?

Straight out of the box

Straight out of the box is a Grey/White/Black or Purple transparent, 12.6cm x 8.3cm x 2.1cm gaming handheld. Big enough to fit in your hand with a form factor mimicking the original Game Boy but with more buttons and dual thumbsticks and the build quality isn’t as great. 

For the level of graphics you’ll be playing, the 3.5-inch touch screen that can display 640×480 is enough to display what you need. The touch screen feels similar to a smartphone and works well for Nintendo DS games for example. The Li-polymer 3200 mAh, which is listed as lasting 6 hours, has a rating of 5V meaning you shouldn’t charge it with a fast charger. Whenever it wasn’t in use for months, the battery still maintained its charge.

Running off a 1.8GHz RK3566 Quad-Core 64 bit Cortex-A55 with 2 GB of RAM, the RG353V is adequately powerful enough to run games from the Atari 2600 to the PSP. With over 20 emulators installed and running on Android 11 and Linux.. The included SD cards come with preinstalled games but it’s still recommended you get a higher capacity one.

What does playing it feel like?

If you’re playing the Handheld consoles (the Game Boy, DS, PSP, etc.) the performance will be good for the most part, only occasional stuttering when you get any area where heavy 3D needed. Up to the Super Nintendo/Genesis era, the games run smoothly enough with little to no issues in graphics and sound. The aspect ratio can be changed easily so the games can be seen in their intended resolution.

The PS1, Saturn, and Dreamcast era games are where it gets tricky as a good chunk of the games we played kept crashing or were unplayable. When they worked, they were usually the 2D heavy games and still weren’t immune from crashing. The most magical experience we had was when we finally got notoriously difficult-to-emulate Sega Saturn games to work and that “eureka!” moment is one of the appeals of emulating retro games.

Playing games on the RG353V feels a little cramped as all the buttons are tightly bunched up together. The d-pad and face buttons in the front feel stiff enough to handle the level of button mashing you’ll be doing. The dual thumbsticks do feel too close and are fine for PS1 games but as a replacement for the d-pad, it feels too loose for that. For a system that doesn’t follow the traditional layout set by the PS1, namely the N64 and Saturn, confuguring the controls or just adapting to it can be a chore.

Some assembly required

If you’re planning to get this or any Anbernic, there are many things you have to know beforehand. 

First, you must be aware of the limitations the emulation and hardware have as they’re not going to be perfect nor are they guaranteed to run as well as intended on original hardware. So you’ll have to accept these compromises for portability.

Second, you have to know how to get ROMs , how to configure various kinds of emulators settings for more comfortable play, and how to tinker around to get the best possible experience. A reasonably high bar for entry for those who want to add more games and test the limits of the handheld. Now, as we’re already well versed in setting up emulators for our PC’s, getting the unit working for the first time wasn’t much of a hassle but we can imagine it’ll be difficult for first timers. Even then we had to struggle through trial-and-error in getting certain games to work. 

The last thing you’d want to consider is: Why would you get this instead of just playing these games on your PC or your phone? We think the main appeal of these is the pick-up-and-play nature without much in the way of distractions. When everything was set up and done, the RG353V played whatever game we were in the mood for and did so well enough. Old DS RPGs we missed out on, Japanese-exclusive Sega Saturn games, and old platformers that made us love video games in the first place. The AnbernicRG353V is a fitting package and a fine first retro handheld for anyone who wants to relive the past in 2024.

We give it 2.5 stars out of 4.

Pros

• Pick-and-play almost any retro games at your leisure.
• Has additional features over its counterparts.

Cons

• Struggles with 5th generation console emulation.
• Requires some level of experience with emulators.