THIS Is The One To Get! // RG556 Review

the RG 556 is the latest handheld from Amber lick and this thing is really unique it's a little bit cool a little bit awkward a little bit weird and a little bit amazing just like me and also just like me it has a few shortcomings that might be a deal breaker for some people like the girls I tried to talk to in the grocery store but this has some seriously redeeming features that make it stand out from the crowd and might be the one thing that makes this thing the thing that you've been waiting for for like me amberi is known for making some interesting design choices from time to time sometimes they're home runs and sometimes they're just weird when I first saw the RG 556 I was pretty sure I'd hate it I tend to prefer small Sleek little streamlined devices without a bunch of protrusions and humps and handles all sticking out willy-nilly it also feels like too little too late hitting the market after the retroid pocket 4 at about the same price but offering less performance I didn't know how it would actually feel or how it would actually perform but I kind of knew that I wouldn't like it and then when I when I did get it in my hands for the first time and I held it in my hands and stared into that giant OLED screen Against All Odds I fell in love this thing is ugly it looks awkward it's not the most powerful but none of that matters because there are things about this device that make it great greater than it should be on paper and I'm going to say something kind of controversial right now are you ready well I hope so because here it comes I like this thing more than the retroid pocket 4 it's that good are you intrigued no well what about now very often a device can look awkward but you get it in your hand hands and all of a sudden you can't remember why it ever looked awkward because it feels so good that's this thing I love having my hands on it if you know what I mean yeah you do the grip shape has these big humps at the bottom to squeeze and this little lip to rest those fies and provide support except amberli took it one step further and extended the grips down below the device that's what makes it look awkward but that's an awesome Choice here for Pure Comfort not only that but the plastic is smooth and while that lens itself to getting smudgy oh my God the smudges on this thing you wouldn't believe it there is also no denying that it feels silky smooth in your hands this is one of if not the most comfortable handhelds that I've ever touched and that sang a lot because I've touched a lot of them the size is also a big part of why it's so comfortable this thing is big bad I've grown to really appreciate gaming on a nice big device for me it's like it's either got to be be a big device that isn't portable but is super comfortable to game on something that I'm going to grab around the house or keep in my tech purse or it's got to be super portable teeny tiny live in my pocket size like the Miu mini hello oh my God shut up I told you not to talk to me I just want to be here for we've seen lots of devices with the older t618 processor over the last year or so but now on the RG 556 we're on the newer uniso t820 I don't want to get too technical on you but according to my calculations the t820 is precisely 22 more now that's a number it's not as performant as the d1100 in the retroid pocket 4 Pro and I don't have a non-pro rp4 but I don't think it would even be the d900 that's in that thing but it's in the same ballpark it'll play lots of the same stuff and it's still a decent improvement over the t618 and we also get some other specs here they are and no I'm not going to read them to you because I'm not your mother you can read your own specs or ask your mother to read them to you when she gets home for my place the price will depend on where you buy it from but from the official store on AliExpress you can grab this for 175 bucks during the pre-sale period And I think the price is going to increase by like 10 bucks after that there's a link to this in the description below if you want one so right now this is sort of sitting right between the retroid pocket 4 nonpr and the rp4 pro that's where it is price-wise and real quick I I just want to acknowledge this this is the carrying case that they're selling with this thing and no your eyes do not deceive you apparently amberl handheld cases are now being designed by Gucci you'll look pretty freaking cool carrying around your retro emulation toy in a Gucci bag Scumbag Steve would love this thing the controls on the RG 556 are great for the most part except for the sticks the d-pad is great amberli departed from their usual d-pad material and went for a glossy smooth feeling d-pad it reminds me of the d-pad on the steam deck I really love the way this feels there are some slight false diagonals but nothing terrible no problem pulling off special moves in fighting games the abxy are also good they have the same glossy plastic of the d-pad and they also feel really good rubber membrane on these no complaints for me the triggers are amazing aming these are hall effect triggers and they have a good range of motion great responsiveness throughout the entire range and the thumb sticks suck I'm I'm sorry but these are just terrible they are hall effect but that doesn't tell you much because these are not good they have cardinal direction snapping low Precision jerky movement I mean they work fine for most retro games it's not a deal breaker but these sticks are one thing that feels really last gen about this device hope hopefully Amber lick improves their sticks at some point oh and I just remembered click the Subscribe button glad I remembered that and now we come to the screen man what a freaking screen the first time that you power it up and you see that amberl logo pure stark white and pure black and then you're taken to the bright and beautiful in her face it's kind of magical the magic of OLED where the bright color pop out of a sea of Inky Blackness the screen on the 556 is among if not the best screens that I've seen on a handheld definitely the best that I've seen on a sub $200 handheld it's 5.5 in which is Big without being huge that's what she said it's super bright super crisp super clear perfect viewing angles it's not going to come across on camera filming screens never looks as good as they do in real life and when you film OLED screens to get this kind of banding effect that you do not see with your naked eye so you'll just have to trust me it's an absolutely gorgeous screen every game you play will look incredible even something simple and older like Contra the bright colorful pixel Sprites and Landscapes just pop off the screen and the sky is just pure dark Blackness it's kind of crazy that we're getting a screen this good on a device that costs less than $200 oh and here's a thing I went into this expecting to see that same dumb sharpening filter that amberli uses on all their Android devices this was something that drove me nuts on the RG 405m and the 405 V and the 505 and there were early reports that they were going to get get the same thing here but I was worried for nothing there is no sharpening filter here the screen is sharp as it should be but it doesn't have that cheesy filter that amberli has used in the past maybe they've learned from their mistakes one can only hope the system that we have on here is a very unremarkable normal Android build amberli has their own game launcher thing it's all right it works well enough and if you don't want to have to set anything up then you can use this and get by just fine but immediately I set mine up to use Nova Launcher as the default home app and my Retro Gaming front end is dig I made a guide of how I set up my Android emulation devices check that out link below if you want to know how I did this way better and more fun to use than D show in my opinion but use whatever you like I'm not here to yuck your yum as my mom would say in the Quick Settings we can turn off the LEDs around the sticks and we can enable High mode which is like a Max performance mode and also change the fan speed speaking of which the fan is way quieter here than on the rp4 pro the rp4 f fan is super loud and high pitched and yucky and this fan is less loud and less high-pitched and almost yummy and you can turn it off on the RG 556 unlike the rp4 pro the only extra settings that we have are amberli key mapper which will let you map onscreen touch controls to the physical controls and that works okay for basic stuff but it's not great the aiming controls kind of suck and there's no real options to tweak the stick movement or the sensitivity it's probably fine for simple games but don't expect to play anything that requires precision and then we have docked mode the USBC port on the bottom of this thing is a full featured USBC so we get full 1080p display port video out charging and an OTG connection for peripherals plus you can connect up multiple bluetooth controllers so you can essentially use this thing as a Home console the rp4 pro does this too but the actual quality the video is much better on the RG 556 for whatever reason when it comes to Performance obviously all the easy stuff is going to run fine however I will say that even the easy stuff is amazing to play on this device and it's because of this big beautiful OLED screen that makes pixel art games look the best that they've ever looked and also the super comfortable controls obviously the easy stuff like PS1 and Nintendo 64 is going to run great even upscaled you're also going to get perfect Dreamcast and Sega Saturn which you can upscale to 1080p without issue and for higher end emulation let's get this out of the way if you're looking for Pure Performance this isn't the device to get it has good performance much better than Amber Lick's last generation offerings but it's not going to impress you if raw horsepower is your goal I think that there are really good reasons to get this thing even considering that it's not the top of the performance tier but I want want to be realistic for you here because I care about you clicking the Thumbs Up Button PSP is going to be no problem most games can be upscale to the native device resolution and the hardest to run games can be upscaled to at least 2x resolution or Beyond 3DS is pretty good easier to run games can run at 3x or 2x resolution and the harder games usually run fine at 1X there will probably be a few really hard to run 3DS games that don't run well but everything that I tested did work with at least 1 x resolution GameCube and Wii and PS2 are good they're not perfect there there will be games that don't run well even at 1X resolution and even if you tweak the settings but there is a lot more here that's playable compared to the last gen t618 devices there are some pretty demanding games that run great even at 2x resolution if you are okay with the occasional Stutter from Shader compilation or going in and tweaking the underclocking settings then you're going to get even more GameCube and PS2 to be playable but you'll have to accept that you won't be playing everything compared to the rp4 pro it's a a bit less performant but it's not like these two devices are Worlds Apart in terms of performance realistically everyone knows if you want perfect GameCube and Wii and PS2 you you need an Odin too but at less than $200 this RG 556 is doing really well in my opinion and for switch it's the usual story as simple games will probably run okay some will run with a bit of slowdown but they'll still be playable but most of the demanding stuff isn't going to run well and there will be glitches and crashes and games that just don't work switch emulation is early in development and it'll get better and better as time goes on but for now I don't recommend getting this for switch because you'll be disappointed if you do I know that lots of people are going to scoff at the fact that this doesn't perform as well as the rp4 or the rp4 pro and I get that performance is a huge deal to lots of people and it is to me too but the deeper I get into this hobby the more I'm learning that for me performance isn't the end goal the actual experience of gaming on a device is more important than how many games it plays for me I would rather have a device that does not do all the highest end stuff but play all the low-end stuff in a super enjoyable way rather than not that and that's what this thing does well the actual experience of gaming for all the games that you're going to play on it the size the comfort in your hands the tight controls except for the thumb sticks and that big freaking beautiful OLED screen that makes your games look better than they ever have if you're here to game to actually play retro games and enjoy the experience then the RG 556 is probably going to serve you better than an rp4 Pro or non-pro like I said at the start I did not expect to like this thing at all and instead of just liking it I came away from this review freaking loving it there are some downsides like the thumb sticks and their performance and the look of the thing God I hate the look of it but I would much rather pick this up to actually game on than an rp4 Pro even though the rp4 pro can play a bit more stuff and has better thumb sticks and looks cooler but it it's a trade-off right it's always a trade-off no devices perfect except for the Miu mini a thanks Tech wee shut up if you want an RG 556 for yourself there's a link to where you can buy this from amberli on AliExpress in the description below and that brings us to the end thanks for watching it stuff if you like this video then maybe check out this video my review of the RG Arc which is another unique amberli device I actually ended up liking that one too there's a link on the screen right now and down in the description below and can go watch that now because we are done I'm Tech weeb thanks for watching bye-bye

Channel: TechDweeb

Views: 57,653

Keywords: techdweeb, tech, dweeb

Id: IUOMyTS1s1s

Length: 15min 17sec (917 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 16 2024