Anbernic RG35XX H In-depth Review

I was going to start this video by saying that the rg35 xxh is the culmination of development of some of the best devices of the last 3 years like the RG 351p the rg350m but that would be ignoring the evolution we've gone through as a small Tech Community so what does this device have that the others don't it has price going for it it has form factor going for it but on the other hand the competition have better firmware options options for more creative tastes stick around at the end and you'll see what I mean and specifically this is going to be a low-key RG Arc comparison video I want to suggest that as an alternative it has a bigger screen it is admittedly a lot bigger but the ergonomics are much better and it has a little bit more power under the hood plus I have some bonus devices at the end of this video that I will suggest over the rg35 xxh so let's get into this review SL comparison video of the anic rg35 [Music] XX so thank you to go Game Geek for providing this device there are links below affiliate links to their website the reason why I like supporting them is their shipping is good to outling areas whether you're in the states or anywhere in the world if I quote a price that is the price you're going to get and you're going to get pretty good shipping with that and overall they haven't given me any reason to think that they're untrustworthy and they seem to offer pretty good service so let's take a quick look at the device we've got the glossy buttons that annick have started to use lately very nice very nice buttons got a good travel to them I've actually been sitting at my desk doing this with them to try and get them to scrape and I don't seem to be able to get that nice rubber membranes they just feel good I like them these are plastic not rubber a sort of a a firm soft press to these St and select buttons very nicely positioned start and select buttons this d-pad it's got a little bit of a sharp edge it's not as um rough textured as the RG 405m but it's um and this actually has a softer Edge to it yeah this definitely has a Sharper Edge and it's a smoother d-pad but yeah similar fing membrane I wouldn't be surprised if it has the same membrane as the RG 405m but definitely a Sharper Edge it and a smoother d-pad that the membrane is really good on this d-pad and then obviously we've got switch style joysticks I know Shem from retr bre did a test on the fact that they snaap to Cardinals but you know on a device like this that baely needs Joy sticks um these are pretty good uh they got a little bit of travel to them you'll see they got quite a bit of sort of rock to them um and they are not really recessed but they're recessed enough to make it pocketable so that's good we've we' got our speaker holes here so downward facing speakers we've got our SD cards here dual SD card which helps us with some custom firmware options we've got the typical anck R2 L2 here which on a device like this is just a really good design we'll speak about this later but we've got HDMI output which is great we've got the DC OTG here another OTG Port there function button which is really nice throughout the operating system to have that it opens the menu in every single emulator very good your audio jack the little rubber pads that we've come to expect from our anck device which I I love these I really like this about anck uh we've got a volume rocker on this side power button on this side and a reset button so you've kind of got buttons everywhere um it's just on the bottom where you don't have buttons but you do have stuff going on so there's no sort of naked edges to this device and then we we've got our 3.5 in screen which uh we'll get into later and do some comparisons and tests of that but but a perfectly decent screen on here and then we've got a lovely textured plastic for the case on the shell and I'm really happy with my um choice of this clear plastic it I think it really looks great I've considered the black to to go with my RG 350m kind of like a a Nostalgia there of these these modern emulators I'm pretty happy with this because it is a nice companion to it's a nice companion to my retro pocket 4 Pro which twinsies so the standard features of this device it's one of the nicest form factors like I really like this form factor I'm glad that anck stuck with it and perfected you know the heritage of the RG 351p and the RG 350m and the price you know on Go Game Geek it's $89 it's $68 on anic but that's excluding shipping so you're probably going to get out cheaper on Go Game Geek um so the price is pretty good good on this it has HDMI output which you'll see just now is a really nice thing to have the and the F button I feel is just you know in terms of quality of life really makes this a nice device to use for anyone like whether you're a pro or a novice it's really nice to have a F button that does menu features throughout the system but the critical issues I know this is a little thing but I actually got there so I actually got my SD card in like that and uh that is a bit of a problem because you could accidentally push that in and break the whole SD card mechanism so that is that is a bit of a concern anyway so I just thought I'd mention it it's a small thing but I thought it was worth mentioning and as much as other reviewers say that the firm way is okay and it is the firm way for you know just pick up and play is okay and I I I mull over this for a while I just feel like in 2024 this firmware is kind of unacceptable that the it needs to be better there's there's no artwork scraping I found quite a bit of glitching especially in retro Arch I had to reset retro Arch at least three times while doing this video but we'll get to it shortly we'll get to all of that stuff in this video so what it plays we do get a little bit more Headroom than the original RG 35xx so you're going to get some N64 gameplay it's you know it's the same story some N64 gameplay some PSP Some Dream cost NDS Nintendo DS should be okay little bit fiddly because it doesn't have a touchs screen so two of the most notable Hardware features is the fact that it has HDMI out which which gives you the option to consolized it and I was able to do that with my 2.5 GHz ultimate controller which was really cool and then the F button so whether you're in a standalone emulator or retro Arch that function button will open the menu Fe features and allow you to control the system the first d-pad test I like to do is power blade because it is the most sensitive to to Dad ghost input so um there you'll see if I wiggle the d-pad he moves around I can do my diagonals let's see I got I don't think it's going to affect my game play but you can see there that I am getting movement even though I'm pressing down so that's the first test and then the next one I like to do is Contra so Contra the same story I'm getting ghost inputs there like I said a contra isn't as sensitive as power blade but as you can see my gameplay isn't too encumbered by it okay and then let's test Darkwing Duck so to give you an idea one of the worst d-pads I've seen in a while was the power Kitty x55 and the darking duck would move here as well so Darkwing Duck is a good kind of calibrator to this test because it's not as sensitive and you can see wiggling the d-pad and we're not getting any movement from docking duck it is sensitive but it's not ridiculously sensitive I have been sitting at my desk pushing these buttons over and over again to try and get some scraping going and I cannot see let me just look with my eyes I cannot see much scraping going on there so these buttons are pretty good and uh pretty well placed and sized and all that sort of thing I'm sure you'll get scraping over time but in my limited testing in the studio I'm not getting anybody scrap on the buttons and then overall the action buttons the d-pad the sticks uh the these are very clicky very nice firm membrane resistance very good retro feeling to it but maybe a little bit firm for some you know if you compare it to like an original Game Boy and that there it is quite stiff but I think that's good in terms of longevity I think they're going to last a long time and then these sticks were designed for a device like this not for a higher end device like the Nintendo switch which who invented these things you know I think that the switch is I digress but I think the switch is due for a major overhaul and uh I think these sticks are great for little devices like this but not great for higher end devices where you're playing AAA games on sticks like this is just not acceptable in 2024 so for a device like this these sticks are just perfect you know you're not really going to there will be you know a few reasons to use this stick in some firstperson shooters that you managed to get this to play but most of the time you're going to be using this instead of the d-pad in games to give you a you know more modern experience I've been playing the Avatar RPG for Game Boy Advance and I've been using the joystick just because it feels better but I mean the original Hardware just used the d-pad okay let's quickly get these two out here uh this is the RG 351p which I remember being pretty good so the shake taste on the RG 351p is pretty good the 350m was terrible it's like a box of matches so the rg35 xxh also quite bad it's an erroneous test but you know I think some people might be bothered by that I remember when I first got my RG 350m and it was it's the only device I owned it was my first Retro Gaming device and I picked it up and it shook like a box of matches and I was like I paid money for this like good money why is it shaking you know so I think it's a good point to make and the fact that ambic aren't dampening their shoulder buttons just is beyond me so we're going to do a screen comparison with the anck RG Arc and you know I've done a body analysis of this and never really compared it to this but uh so these buttons have got a little bit more travel uh this thing's also also pretty rattly so this d-pad is just fantastic like it it is absolutely wonderful for fighting games especially um this thing is amazing but just for everything you know like I said I was playing um Avatar the RPG and I was using the joystick because it just had a natural kind of move the character around Vibe this does that so you kind of just wiggle it around to do what you want to do that feels really good and these buttons I've been mentioning this throughout my videos through the the time that I've been doing this and I've been saying why or why is nobody making bigger buttons this has bigger buttons which you know the original Hardware has bigger buttons and why are we still doing these tiny little buttons you know so that is nice about it and it has this beautiful bigger screen okay so I've been looking at this for a while now and what I can see obviously this is not really comparing apples with apples because I mean this is a smaller screen it's a cheaper device but the price is not that different between these two and the saturation is better on this um so this is a little bit more washed out um nice and clear nice nice and crisp but uh but definitely better saturation better blacks you know if you look at this compared to this this kind of feels like a OLED screen compared to LCD screen that's the kind of comparison I got richer blacks richer colors um you know it's it's darker it is a darker screen so this is set to 50% 50% and this is one is darker than this one so you know whatever that means overall to my eye this is just a you know how it feels to me looking at it in the studio here this looks nicer I prefer the screen this is definitely more washed out more of a magenta tone whereas this has just got a rich warm tone to it compared to the screen I'm going to set the brightness to one all right so this into my eye in the studio looks very dim so let's switch the studio lights off and that looks really good for a low light situation um I've got a quite a bit of light bleed going on here let's switch the screen off but this is a good dim light and you know playing it in bed at night and that it's it's okay it's a little bit bright a little bit on the bright side when it's in a pitch black room but this is pretty good but let's go into the bright situation now so fire dipe dark wiing duck and this is at its brightest with you know my bright studio lights um and it's not blowing out the camera so what happens is the camera will overexpose and it'll tell me which it isn't doing so um you know this is the brightest screen that I can get let's go it is quite a dark game here you go and usually these blowouts so this is not the brightest for outdoor gaming and then the most important and scientific test of my YouTube channel is what I affectionately call crotch time and here we go it is very pocketable so here is where my ambic arc test really does fall flat I mean this is just ridic like it's it's probably one of the least pocketable devices that I own I don't know if you can see that but that is just annoyingly so this is a this is a backpack device um this is very big it just isn't pocketable that is just where my little Theory Falls flat is this is very pocketable and if that's something that's important to you then this device is good but you know the trim UI smart which has a really big screen is also very pocketable so is the Miu Mini Plus okay RGB 30 not so portable but still pocketable you know I'm going to whip out the old scale and we're going to go cool 81.7 G we've got the Miu Mini Plus at 163 G we've got the rgb3 at 25.8 G we've got the trim UI smart Pro which has got a big battery big screen all that kind of stuff 230 G and then we got the anic arc which I do find to be quite light 250 g okay so the min mini plus obviously the lightest but this is still a very light device now I want to compare this to my most premium compact Retro Gaming device and that is the Retro pocket 2s this thing has the most incredible inhand feeling it's got these great trigger buttons which makes it less pocketable but has these wonderful trigger buttons it's very solid the plastic feels super premium it's just it's one of the nicest devices and I gave it the best device of 20203 um in the Retro Gaming scene so there's that now let's I've just held that in my hand let's do this now the only thing you're missing is that ergonomics of the of the finger grip so that really feels good in the hand but this plastic okay there's something about the Retro pocket 2s plastic that just feels amazing but this is pretty good this is pretty damn good and when you consider this is a fair amount cheaper that is cool you know the these shoulder buttons are not dampened they shake a lot this thing it doesn't rattle at all so this is very premium device um this feeling in the hand it just it does feel cheaper but it is a very nice compact Good Feeling device with nice firm rubber me membrane buttons you know the compact ESS of it does also really feel good this form factor is good they've shamer the corners so it's not sharp in the hand like the RGB 30 is it it does feel good in the hand not quite on the level of the RG RP 2s but um a really good feeling in the hand device and and the compared to the devices that I'm going to compare it to later I would say it's kind of in the middle of the bunch in terms of the inhand feeling and then you know my overall build quality I'm going to give it a 4.8 it really is exceptionally made you know the rattle does still bug me the fact that anck don't dampen their buttons but it is a very well-made device it's really well put together it's got a good screen it's got good joysticks good buttons everything is good okay now my audio test this is not scientific but we're going to just get this closer and get a bit of a a test going all [Music] right so the sound is a little bit boxy on the aminic arc but it is front-facing so that is a huge [Music] win [Music] so I'm definitely getting distortion on the audio um on the high and with this device compared to the anic arc there got bigger speakers in there so definitely getting a better audio even though there's a little bit boxy getting a better audio from The anic Arc but you know on these retro devices it's not the end of the world but it is it is a little bit muff muffled and distorted on this which I haven't actually noticed now that I think about it because in the real world experience of its play it at a at soft volume it's not that bad but uh it is something to note you know the audio isn't fantastic and then I haven't done my battery test so I will put the information of my test on the screen now and give my findings there I feel like The Real World experience of this is fairly good and the reason for that is because instead of doing a sleep mode I don't I almost never do that what I usually do is I just press and hold and it says goodbye and it switches off and that just because it does that you end up switching the device off more and that saves you on battery life okay so let's go through the operating system I'm not I don't feel like it's good enough when stuff like onion exist um on something like the Miu mini uh plus but I'm going to go through and show you the things that do make a case for it being a good operating system one of the things is a search feature when I originally did the original RG 35xx which has the same oper operating system and I told everyone to use garlic people reached out to me and said but now I don't have a search feature and that is true it has the search feature whoops and we go let's say Contra you go okay and you can now go through it and if you look at the top here it has a little ra a that pops up every now and again that means it's going to open up in the Retro Arch core if it doesn't it's going to open in the Standalone course so once you get to know the system and you maybe like a certain game in the Standalone core the Retro Arch core you find out that a specific game you want to play plays better in one of those you can then choose it via the search feature and that's how I would recommend using the system search feature and history so another really nice thing is that it it keeps the score it remembers what you've been playing and you can go back and go oh what was I playing yesterday Sonic the Hedgehog 2 and go in it remembers what you've been looking at and then the other way that I would say navigate this is set it's your favorite so when you're in a system and you're over a game and you press start it will favorite it and that will then start building a library of your favorite games I've been playing Al alien hominid on I love that game on Game Boy Advance and you can slowly but surely build up your favorite games here so that is really nice it's simple and it's great to follow so if you're new to this and you just want to use their games that they've got on here it's it's it's a really cool system to use okay moving on so you know we do have Wi-Fi but there's no artwork scraping so again they are trying to encourage us to use their ROM files and all that kind of thing and just use the game device as is but I really want to use my ROMs and I want to use a better operating system and I think I have mentioned this in this video but to press and hold the power at any moment in time to switch it off is a good thing whether or not that good by splash screen is very nice or not not is debatable but you know that is pretty cool I also like the fact that we have a volume indicator over here so you can see the volume there uh it seems like in retro Arch games I have a volume indicator there but I don't seem to have a volume indicator when I'm using Standalone emulators I have messed up the retroarch settings a couple of times so I've gone in you know whether I'm trying to work with bezels or um whatever I'm trying to do um in the back end of retro Arch it kind of just messed everything up globally and then I had to reset it but if you go to the main menu and you go to Retro Arch settings you can reset your retro Arch and then something just to kind of make a case for using these Standalone emulators is the menu system you've got this menu system and it it it's the same throughout like I showed it doesn't have the the volume uh indicator when you're in the Standalone emulator so that's a downside but overall it's just much simpler so if you're new to this the the stock operating system with the Standalone emulators is is quite a nice simple system to use um they've got these shaders that you can try out but it does enable them throughout the system so I have done the scan line one and it seems to work nicely throughout all the systems so I do kind of like that and then you know once you're in the game it's the same and you lose a few features on some of the emulators or what have you but uh it's pretty much the same throughout so I do like this game rooms more um on the stock operating system than I do using retro Arch the other you know thing that I I like on the stock operating system to make a case for the stock operating system is this little apps see it it is I mean it's tucked away in the ra game menu but you go down here to here and you go here and you can rotate so they've made a specific folder for vertical arcade games which I find quite nice V arcade so you go in here and you can play vertical games um and you know that's sometimes a bit of a thing and you know it puts you off because to find vertical games and then to set it all correctly is quite a frustration so here you can just go to the vertical games folder and have vertical arcade rotation on and then it will rotate the games to vertical and then you can play them like this it also enables shaders that's going to affect performance on a little device like this so I don't recommend that this is going to set a timer to shut down I've tried this night mode it doesn't set its yellow what it does do it makes all your retro Arch games really dim so I'm just going to switch this off and there's a global setting for your bezels which I've now turned off because I just find again it's glitchy and I'm having issues with getting them set correctly scaling and all that sort of thing so I'm just leaving that off I think the problem with this operating system is that onion o exists and it just kind of blows this out the water and so to summarize the things I don't like about this operating system is it it's not creating the bezels correctly um that that night mode is just going to make your games dimmer might be nice if you're in a very dark room you know everything's kind of executed but not really executed and the fact that I am finding retro Arch quite glitchy I think in them wanting to create these Global changes um it's become quite hard to work with so if I change something here something else breaks on the other end and so just overall I'm finding it a frustrating system to work with and I want to make it my own I want to put my own Rams on my own games and make it my own system and this is not really geared towards that this is my favorite part of the video the costing analysis other devices similar devices that you could buy for a similar price the extra expense maybe it's a little bit more expensive is it worth it so the first one we're going to look at is the ambic arc a larger screen really beautiful screen uh you're getting bigger buttons here you're getting front-facing speakers you're getting this wonderful d-pad you're not getting joysticks but joysticks are not that NE necessary on a little device like this you know so you know maybe this one does play more PSP than the RG 35xx so PSP is a little bit of emission on here but other than that in terms of an alternative to the RG 35xx this to me is just fantastic the massive downside com this compared to this is the fact that it is massive you know it is huge it hails in comparison the next one I want to talk about is the MI Mini Plus to me in my opinion this is the best compact affordable Retro Gaming emulator hand out on the markets uh thanks to onion OS it's also they've up their build quality compared to the original Miu mini um so it is really wellmade um and it has all the Retro feel so if you get the gray version you know you're getting the just the ultra retro FS I love this little purple one really really nice if you want something alternative but you know you're getting that game boy experience with a beautiful beautiful screen this one is $69.99 um I know it's vertical but I have to mention it cuz it is one of the best devices on the market onion OS is just fantastic um and this if you are interested in Game Boy Game Boy Color Game Boy Advance game gear this is the emulator to beat and if those are the systems that you're wanting to emulate I reckon this is the one you should be buying and here's a device that I haven't thought about in a while and I'm going to do a video about this device with menu eye on it because I think it will fix the device um is the trim UI smart Pro um lovely device I haven't gone back to it even though I gave it a good review I feel like the soft there's something with the software like this is a great piece of Hardware it feels good in your hands I like the Dome switch buttons so it it's you know people didn't like these sticks um I've mentioned retro Breeze in this video already he hated these sticks and they are there they're a bit weird but overall just a really good device you know you're getting a big screen for a good price this device is $79 on Go Game Geek and I think with minui this is going to be a really good Contender for the RG 35xx you know if you don't mind the size this is still very pocketable um if you go back to my pocketability test this slipped into my pocket really nicely so you're not losing too much on pocketability but you're gaining that massive screen so this is actually the sleeper alternative um in this video to All um compared to all these devices and then another device that I just have to mention because I picked this up recently um because I I'm getting back into like Game Boy games and all that sort of thing like older games this is one of the sort of quintessential old game emulators on the markets um I don't like the fact that this this bottom is sharp it really kind of weighs on you after a while if you've been playing it for a while I think they could have done without these um switch sticks on here because this is a Game Boy Advance and Game Boy Game Boy Color emulator and so again if that is the those are the systems you want to play it's a little bit more money so this one is $99 so I kind of would lean more towards uh the the Mio Mini Plus but this is a really nice device with a 720p Square screen it is just a fantastic device controls are pretty good d-pads A little bit sharp on the edges d-pads definitely better on the M Mini Plus so there's another downside on this one very good uh firmware um jealous comes shipped on the device um front-facing speakers but that's screen just a beautiful beautiful screen so another worthy Contender but a little bit more money sorry this is a very long comparison was supposed to be quick but um the other device so in terms of if you were watching this and you're like why is this guy showing me cheap crap just show me the most premium beautiful thing that I can buy that's going to play these games and that would be the retroid pocket 2s this thing is fantastic it feels great in the hand the controls are good these triggers are actually better than the Retro pocket uh 4 Pro the the joysticks are great it's got way more power you can play PSP games you can use it to stream your games from your PC even though the screen is too small for that but you know it is a fantastic device front-facing speakers this is $99 X shipping so I think in the States this is a good alternative because the shipping is not going to be too bad but if you're in a outling area like myself shipping is ridiculous and input Duties are even worse because they use DHL so this is a great device a premium device but it's going to cost you a pretty penny however yes there are glaring missteps this device is like walking up to a Millionaire's mansion and then inside you see this but if you are looking for a compact horizontal affordable device that emulates all the way up to N64 and some PSP this is the device for you

Channel: Adin Walls

Views: 20,617

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Id: 18Bx8PeBbXY

Length: 30min 21sec (1821 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 11 2024