Anbernic RG556 Review | It's NOT what I expected!

after a successful line of t618 handhelds I kept wondering what Amber would do next would it be more of the same or would they finally move away from their usual design after the announcement of the Retro pocket 4 it felt like we were going to get something any day and in ttic fashion it didn't take them long to announce it their next generation of handhelds is kicking off with a new look and a new chip the 5.56 is a departure from a lot of what amber like usually does and there's a lot to cover so let's dive in and see what amick's new flagship handheld has to offer first as always we need to talk about the price in the specs the RG 556 retails for $174.99 USD plus shipping and it comes in two colors black and clear blue it runs an Android 13 has a uniso t820 octacore CPU with 1 a76 core clocked in at 2.7 GHz 3 a79 course clocked in at 2.3 gz and 4 a55 course clocked in at 2 .1 GHz a Molly g57 quad core GPU clocked in at 850 MHz 8 GB of lpddr4 RAM 128 GB of internal storage and support for up to a 2 TB micr SD card abck also offers the option of getting a 128 GB or 256 GB pre-loaded SD card it comes with a 5.48 in 1080P AMOLED screen a 5,500 millia battery that americ once again claims 8 hours but as usual that's going to vary I've got about 4 and 1/2 hours play time with a variety of PlayStation 2 and GameCube games and well over 8 hours playing easier games on things like Super Nintendo and Playstation 1 it supports CTC charging 1080p video out over USBC it has 2.4 and 5G Wi-Fi Bluetooth 5.0 Hall sticks and triggers active cooling Sixaxis gyro stereo speakers and a 3.5 mm headphone jack the 556 is Amber's most powerful arm Bas to date unfortunately it's not the most powerful in its category thanks to the ret two pocket 4 Pro but comparing it to other options for the price it still holds up to get a better idea of where it stands I ran some benchmarks on the 5.56 retro pocket 3 plus Odin Pro pocket 4 Pro but unfortunately I don't have a base rp4 or an Odin light anymore so I can't Benchmark those myself but to have a better reference point I'm going to be using the geek Ben s and notebook check results for the d900 keep in mind the Oden light and redro pocket 4 use the same d900 chip so performance should be similar all of the CPU and GPU test except for the d900 were done using the lowest and highest performance moth and both vcan and openg GL were tested in the same way the 3 plus and standard mode had a single core score of 474 and a multi-core of 1327 in high performance mode it scored 472 and 1549 the GPU in standard mode using openg GL scored 1080 and in high performance mode we got 1144 for Vulcan we got 1040 and 1071 the 556 in autom mode had a single core score of 862 and a multi of 246 2 in high performance mode it's scored 868 and 2477 for the GPU in standard mode using open go it's scored 2210 and high performance mode 2258 for Vulcan we got 2243 and 2253 the z900 has a single core score of 887 and a multi of 2279 for the GPU using openg it scores an average of 2340 and for Vulcan it scores an average of 2326 the odm pro in standard mode had a single core score of 562 and a multi of 1837 in high performance mode it scores 574 and 2062 for the GPU in standard mode using openg GL it scores 1831 and high performance mode 2432 for Vulcan we get 1746 and 2367 just goes to show how much of a difference Snapdragon drivers can make finally the 4 Pro in standard mode had a single core score of 804 and a multi-core of 3267 high performance mode is scored 1127 and 3536 for the G GPU in standard mode using openg GL it scores 4272 in high performance mode 4712 for Vulcan we get 4375 and 4687 for the 5.56 I also ran a 20-minute 3D Mark wilife stress test using high performance mode and got a score of 2019 99.5% stability lost 8% battery and the fan never turned on so if You' like to sit down for long play sessions you don't have to worry about performance drops the ta20 and the 556 is the solid jump from the previous generation of 618 devices and it should be able to go Toe totoe with the d900 and both the Odin light and rp4 the Odin Pro gets seriously outdone in pure CPU power it scores closer to the 618 but the Snapdragon drivers make up a lot of ground keeping it relevant for its new lower price of 199 of course that's only if you ignore the elephant in the room the 4 Pro outclasses every device in its category but many times we've seen pure power isn't everything and the t820 does more than enough to hold its own so let's see what else the 556 has to offer am bernick said the black United for review but they haven't seen this video and all opinions are my own with that being said let's get into how the handheld feels my initial impression was that it looked weird and very different from Amber's usual candy bar style but as soon as I picked it up and held it the layout and shape made sense the big grips on the back remind me of the grips on the steam deck and I'm glad they stick out of the bottom because it gives your fingers something to grip pair that off with the layout and you've got a great combination from a pure economic standpoint in my opinion this beats everything in its size but it's not all sunshine and rainbows the materials don't feel as premium as what we've seen from arnick and other companies and some details in the build quality keeping from having that premium feel I wouldn't call a cheap feeling but it's not the best we've seen the black shell also smudges after playing for a few hours because even though it has a matte color it feels very smooth almost like a glossy shell the sticks are the usual switch style hot sticks we've seen from amernick and this is an I hope they improve on this year these unfortunately have a heavy Cardinal snap and paired off with their small size it makes it hard to play games that need Precision aiming luckily they aren't to reset so you can use some caps on them to add some height this isn't the first time we see this issue with Amber Nick Hol sticks and I hope just like with the 505 we had an update to address it they have a white LED ring around them that can be said to breathe or stay on as well as a brightness slider at this time the color can't be changed and I don't know if this is something that can be updated I had a weird bug with the LED controls where the text would disappear it didn't happen every time but it's still worth mentioning the d-pad is different than what we've seen from them it's bigger a little closer to what you would find on a regular controller and it's glossy it feels looser than what I'm used to from this company but it's still easy to hit the directions you intend so it's great for Platformers in fighting games I usually do two tests on d-pads using a gam pad Tester the first is holding down a direction and pushing side to side and the second is rapid movement from one side to another both times I'm trying to see how easy it is to hit false diagonals in both cases it passed another thing I appreciate is the position most of the time I like having the d-pad above the analog sticks because usually the d-pad gets put in an uncomfortable position but because this has those big grips and the d-pad is offset from the sticks it's actually not bad for games that primarily use it the face buttons are glossy a little smaller than what you would expect but it's not really a problem the thing I don't really like about them is that they feel loose in the Shell now to be fair this is a review unit so things might change and it hasn't been a problem games but it's still something to point out since I've never had this issue with an abck device the shoulder buttons are thankfully stacked L1 and R1 are both very clicky and we finally have analog triggers from amernick I'm happy to say they did a good job with these they're a little stiffer than what I would like but they don't grind and I had no issues using them other than that we have our amernick launcher and homeback button on the bottom left starting select on the bottom right two downfacing speakers SD card slot USBC port and headphone ja at the bottom and unfortunately when I tried using headphones I could hear a subtle ping sound in the background I can't confirm if this is a widespread issue or just my device but I'll update as more people start getting theirs on the back we have two intake vents at the top we have an exhaust vent charging LED volume locker and power buttons the ergonomics are great but there are some areas that could have been better up next let's take a look at the fan and see what kind of cooling setup Amber neck is using we have four options for fan control off auto cool and strong boat before I talk about my experience using them let me show you what they sound like and while I record the fan noise I'm going to be pressing the buttons on my Xbox controller to have some enviate noise to compare with first with the fan off next up in cool mode and finally in strong mode the fan is a little loud but I never actually heard it get up to full speed I just set it to Auto and for the most part the fan was off it was only in demanding games that it would actually come on and usually for short bursts but those bursts were noticeable so I hope abck doesn't update to give us a quiet mode because I don't think we need that much power out of the fan to keep this chip from throttling but for now let's take a look at the fan and how epic is keeping temperatures down in order to get inside we need to remove seven hexagonal screws from the back and you surprise you to take the back cover off a good place to start is at the bottom of the triggers and work your way around once you have that off we need to remove five more fail of head screws to expose the internals once we get inside we can see the size of a fan and what I consider to be the best active coolant implementation I've seen from amernick in my opinion they did a great job here and it's something you can feel in DayDay use because the handheld never felt hot even under heavy loads while we're in here we can also see a good size battery that could have potentially been bigger but in everyday use the battery life was never really an issue so I can't really complain other than that we have easy access to the hot triggers in case repairs are ever necessary but unfortunately I can't say the same for the analog sticks since we need to remove the main board and daugh board to have access to them these are H sticks so I don't expect users to have to replace them anytime soon but it's still annoying to have to remove some many components to access them I'm not going to be doing that today so for now let's take a look at the screen the screen is without a doubt the highlight of this handheld it's amazing that we got a 1080p amulet screen in this price range and some of the shortcomings of the rest of the components make sense to keep the price down it has pretty good brightness range and can get decently dark for those who like to play in bed at night and can also get bright enough to play Outdoors the colors look great and everything looks nice and sharp because of the high resolution for the size if you're playing games that don't use the whole screen it's easy to lose where the best will start because everything just Blends together visually it's just a great experience and if you're set up for local streaming with your PC or console you can stream 1080p content and it looks awesome this screen seriously makes up for a lot of the other shortcomings the 5.56 has two downfacing stereo speakers but before we talk about them let's take a listen and keep in mind this might be loud so please adjust your volume accordingly who am I I like unique maybe I'm not here at all but the F us find is with life the [Applause] break the two down facing speakers are okay they get fairly loud but start to distort as you get towards the upper limit they also have no base but I suppose you're not really going to be using this as a music player it's unfortunate that they're down facing because I think they could have made room for them in the front it didn't really bother me when I was playing but it would have been better especially since I'm having issues with headphones luckily Bluetooth headphones work and I didn't notice any lag using them but this is an area that could be improved the 5.56 is running on Android 13 so if you have an Android phone you're going to feel right at home as usual with these handhelds we have a few extra features to make the experience more console like most of these are going to be in the drop- down menu here we can find the fan settings that can be adjusted just by tapping you can also toggle the CPU mode from Auto to high change the controller settings from NS to Xbox mode and this last one is important because it doesn't just affect abxy it also changes how the triggers are identified for analog input you have to use Xbox mode luckily the triggers are recognizing games so as long as the game supports game pads you're going to be able to use them but if the game specifically needs an Xbox controller it's not going to work because the system doesn't register like an Xbox controller this is unfortunate for games like Call of Duty and mobile but gamma already added this feature to the 45 line and both Ayn and red to did it too so I'm hoping it makes it way here too it also has a key mapping function that you can enable by holding down the tab until the mapper shows up from there you just select the buttons you want to use and place them over the touch area on the screen for camera control you're going to want to set the right stick using the gas pedal icon there's also preconfigured option options for a lot of popular games like genchi and impact that you can just select and everything gets laid out for you but for some reason Call of Duty isn't one of them once you have everything where you want you just tap switch close the key mapper and you're ready to start playing the key mapper is okay it's good that it's here but it's not as user friendly as I would have liked it to be and finally we have amberx launcher that can be quickly accessed by pressing the button on the bottom left this is a simple launcher that tries to give Android more of an emulation station feel and if you're looking looking for something that just works out of the box this isn't a bad option because it's preconfigured unfortunately it seems like it's set up to work with the pre-installed emulators and I changed all of them so I can't really use this it's easy enough to use and understand but the pre-installed emulators are older and you leave a lot of performance on the table if you stick with those while I'm a fan of Android I can understand why some people don't like it but I think the amount of support for it makes it a great choice because of how versatile it is the 556 supports 1080p video out over USBC and I think this is the first time we get this outside of the wind 600 one neat feature is that when you plug it in you get an option to go into a desktop mode and use the screen as a mouse I'm not sure how many people will actually use this or how helpful it is but it's there in a technical sense docking it works and if you're using an Xbox controller and mostly want to use retroarch it's kind of plug-and-play if you bu the built-in controls using the Xbox profile everything should carry over and the controller gets picked up right away also I didn't see any input like we're talking about so noain plates there however I did get some weird slowdowns when playing A Link to the Past using a Shader and if you want to use any of the higher end emulators you're going to have to remap everything because they won't switch over automatically another issue is that the screen stays on the whole time and I couldn't find a way to turn it off while I was playing so at this time just like with other Android handhelds the docking experience still needs work I don't usually talk about streaming because I don't really use Game Pass or any services like that my backlog is big enough as it is but I've seen a lot of people say this could be a good streaming handheld and for the most part I agree Zoo did test out game pass so if you're wondering all the buttons work for me whenever I do stream I stick to local streaming using Moonlight and PS play and for the most part it's been a really good experience games look great on this olded screen and the ergonomics makes it really easy to sit for Long play sessions the Wi-Fi reception has been solid I haven't really had any major issues on that end where things get less an ideal is with the analog sticks the heavy snapping makes it hard to get more precise movement and while it didn't keep me from enjoying the experience I couldn't help but feel that it could be better unfortunately because the controls don't get recognized as an Xbox controller The Experience isn't as good as it could be but that's sad to say it's bad we still have a decent chip that can put out solid performance the more demanding games like genchi and impact Runner that makes up low and medium settings but can still hold the steady 60 FPS same goes for Call of Duty mobile it's just unfortunate that we have to use a screen mapping tool or connect an Xbox controller to use the built-in controls and that the sticks make it hard to get position aiming I was disappointed because I've been playing this game a lot and I was looking forward to sink in a few hours playing this for the most part I think you're going to be able to enjoy your favorite Android games unless it's a shooter but hopefully ionic up to a control suit because it's the only thing hurting the overall experience and it's 100% something that can be fixed with an update since they've done it before with the 505 finally getting into emulation we're going to start off with the Sega Saturn but I won't cover any other systems from the Dreamcast on down because you're going to be able to run all of those at 1080p without any issues as long as the games are compatible the Saturn performance is solid but since it's usually harder to run I wanted to include it luck with other handhelds I've tested I had issues with retro not wanting to load my games but the yava San shirro 2 emulator that comes pre-loaded worked basically if the game loaded it ran at 1080P and the only game that didn't work was Duke Nukem 3D but that's probably a user error I remember I can't test every single game so I don't know if your favorite Sega Saturn game is going to work but chances are if it's compatible it [Music] will ppss PP was the only emulator that gave me trouble when I wanted to update it the pre-installed version is 1.11 and the current version is 1.17 since that one supports CHD files I wanted to update but when I downloaded the Play Store version I couldn't give it storage access the problem was Android 13 block blocked the notifications to allow storage access on the new build and you can't actually update the version that comes pre-installed the easiest solution I found was to download 1.11 from the PPSSPP website and give that version storage access once I did that I just downloaded version 1.17 updated and I was good to go just to be clear this is the only app that did this and it seems to be an Android 13 issue I emailed that ppss be Dev to let him know and I hope it gets solved in the next update as far as performance almost every game at 1080p so 4X resolution the only game that I dropped to 3x was God of War change of Olympus and that's only because I was getting dips in some [Music] [Applause] areas 3DS was fine I was able to play most games at a 2X resolution but I did have to alternate between the mainlight Citra nightly emulator and Citra MMJ as well as having to switch between Vulcan and openl it would have been great to be able to keep everything in one place but it's not a huge deal and Citra MMJ still has some features that the main line doesn't have like free screen sizing and fast forward Citra has been getting a lot of attention lately and I'm sure performance in compatibility will improve for now you can play a large amount of the library but some games like Monster Hunter 4D still don't work cold as I don't mind you giving me that treatment but you really should try to warm up to everyone else by the way you're heading out yeah VA is a system that I've never featured before because the emulator was in very early development so it didn't seem like it was worth it just to be clear VA 3K is still in the early stages so don't expect a large part of the library to work but you can get some pretty big games like Persona 4 and Borderland 2 to run out of 2x resolution with a steady 30fps some other games like Gravity Rush run fine but have graphical issues so you're going to have to check the compatibility list to see if your favorite games are currently playable [Applause] [Music] [Applause] gameu was a pretty good experience just remember to put the controls in Xbox mode so that you can use the analog triggers I used the latest de build from the App Store and most games ran out a 2X resolution with some minor slowdowns but nothing I would consider unplayable I had to do things like switch from open jail to Vulcan on some games and turn some hacks on but I was very happy to see that almost every game I tried worked without having to make any big compromises but keep in mind I'm saying most because some games like Need For Speed Most Wanted just wouldn't run out of playable Speed without Sting the CPU clock to 60 and when you do that the game runs at 30 FPS so it's not the smoothest experience but that's one of the few games that actually gave me a hard time for the most part GameCube was a very enjoyable experience [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] just like with Gamecube Wii was better than I expected as I've said before my biggest issue with wi emulation is finding the right configuration for the game pad but if you run games that support the Classic Controller or take the time to get the bindings just right you can get a surprising amount of we games to [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] work [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] w [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] a362 isn't being developed anymore and we don't have a better option yet so don't expect any Android or arm Linux handheld to do perfect PS2 that being said the 556 can play a large chunk of the library at two even 3x resolution on some titles I'm using nether sx2 classic which is based on ather sx2 3668 because it's compatible with more games I was able to play a lot of the big titles without any major compromises the only game I actually used to mouth underclock on was jacket Dexter but even that game ran mostly at 60 without it as far as what version of ather you should use you have a couple choices 3668 and 4248 3668 is the last official build without ads and is the most compatible 4248 is the final release but contains ads nether 1.7 is a patch version that removes the ads and makes it compatible with launchers if you want to play games that use the snow blind engine like champions of norat and balers gate dark Alliance 4248 and nether 1.7 to work best one of my favorites [Music] [Music] come [Music] on [Music] let's go kick some big bird but [Music] [Music] get [Music] [Music] switch emulation needs to be treated as a bonus because you're not going to get a lot of the big titles to work but a lot of indie games and some lighter 2D games will run you're going to have to use a sub1x resolution for a lot of these games but with a new FSR feature it's not too bad Yu is getting better every day so who knows how much better things you get but this isn't a handheld I would ever pick up for switch [Applause] [Music] specifically insufficient [Applause] [Music] [Applause] L the five 56 is a good step forward for amernick it's unfortunately held back by some of the components but after spending some time with it I'm very surprised by how much I enjoyed using it and I've been picking it up a lot more than I expected it has its issues for starters the software experience could be better the sticks need to be fixed it's not the most powerful option in its price range and the materials aren't the best we've seen from emck but the ergonomics in the screen are some of the best in any handheld games look great on it and nothing in its category beats it in that regard that goes a long way towards making a competitor it feels like it's one good software update away from being great from what I understand gamma OS is being worked on for it so it's only going to get better depending on what aspects of a handheld you value more this might be a great fit for you more options is always a good thing and I'm always happy to see companies compete with each other because usually that means we get better stuff 2024 is going to be an awesome year for handhelds that's going to wrap it up I hope this video was informative and that you enjoyed it there's three of us in the channel so every video is a little different but we do our best to to bring you quality content if you want to check out more of our videos we each have a playlist on the channel and if you want to hang out with us you can always find us on Discord and we go live on here all the time if you haven't already don't forget to subscribe it really helps the channel grow and helps us bring you more videos like this thanks for hanging out I'll see you on the next one

Channel: Retro Handhelds

Views: 20,004

Keywords: anbernic, powkiddy, aethersx2, pimax, miyoo mini plus, rg35xx, powkiddy v90, miyoo mini, eta prime, anbernic rg35xx, mr sujano, miyoo mini plus vs rg35xx, vita3k android, miyoo mini plus onion os, techdweeb, ps vita 2023, miyoo mini plus review, wicked gamer & collector, asus rog ally, ayn loki, anbernic rg35xx review, rg35xx batocera, rg35xx cfw, garlicos rg35xx, garlicos, garlic os install, anbernic rg405m, retroid pocket flip, rg405m, rg505, retro news roundup, retroid pocket 3

Id: eYDWtzKX4dk

Length: 28min 14sec (1694 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 18 2024