You'll Regret Picking the Wrong One! Anbernic RG353V vs. RG353VS

at first glance these two handheld devices look almost indistinguishable aside from the physical color of their shells would you be surprised to hear that they actually aren't the same released simultaneously manufactured by the same company and even powered by the same CPU inside yet one cost up to $40 more than the other and no one is not some sort of limited collector's version these are the am bernick RG 353 V and 353 vs so what sets them apart and which one is better I'm Steve from restalgia and let's talk about [Music] it welcome back to the channel if this is your first time here be sure to go down below the video subscribe to the channel and hit that Bell icon so you don't miss any of my upcoming videos and I would like to thank lit nxtcomics and if they strike a chord of familiarity it's because Amber bernick graced us with the RG 351 v a few years ago it was a personal favorite device that I've had the opportunity to review on my channel it had that iconic game boyes form factor vibrant display impeccable controls and most importantly some really great gaming performance now these two devices are its updated and refined versions but it still leaves us with some questions why two of them and how do they differ well first let's unbox and explore a bit the boxes for both devices are very similar aside from the model number location and the color the packaging am bernick uses is fairly standard across many of their devices simple and easy to understand regardless of which device you've purchased you will get the handheld itself inside along with a single USB type-c cable a tempered glass screen protector along with glass wipes for the application process and a quick start guide in manual holding the consoles themselves feel quite premium the weight is just right the controls are spoton and they've refined the design notably with a second analog stick up front and a repositioned speaker looking around the device we have the volume rocker on the left side and on the right side of the device we have two TF slots one for the OS and the other for storage a reset button and our power button as well on the bottom we simply have one USBC type charging port and on the top we have a USBC OTG Port used for plugging in additional accessories and a mini HDMI port as well as a 3.5 mm headphone jack both devices look identical in every way except for the sticker on the back that simply displays a different model number but the real difference is they're going to be under the hood now both devices flaunt a 3.5 in IPS screen with a resolution of 640x 480 however on the 353 V the screen is also a touchcreen they both have the same s so running The RK 3566 quad core cortex a55 CPU and that's clocked in at 1.8 GHz coupled with a Mali g52 mp2 GPU the 353 vs comes with 1 gig of lpddr4 RAM and the 353 V comes with 2 gigs of lpddr4 RAM both devices come with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi support as well as a 3500 mAh battery for about 6 hours of continuous gameplay but the largest differentiating factor between the two models is that the 353 vs runs on a single Linux based operating system where the 353 V actually offers a dual boot system allowing for Linux or Android 11 this dual boot system can take advantage of the touchscreen feature along with other benefits such as improved emulation on certain consoles which we will get into in a little bit in hand these devices feel compact but super comfortable they are large enough to fit nicely in your hands allowing for a comfortable placement of all of your fingers the device is made from a premium plastic material that although is smooth it's not slippery and it actually gives you great grip am bernick also placed three notches below the rear shoulder buttons for additional grip the d-pad is excellent and responsive and the action buttons feel great as well the rear shoulder buttons are well placed and they've made the L1 and R1 buttons about 50% wider than the L2 and R2 buttons just to make it easier to feel the difference between them with your fingertips the additional analog stick added to the front is great because it improved and increases game compatibility for consoles like N64 and PS1 an example of this would be that it is now possible to play games like AP Escape for the PlayStation 1 finally because the speaker is moved to the center of the two analog sticks you no longer have to worry about your p Tom covering the speaker when the device was just resting in your natural grip this is actually a great quality of life chain now moving into gameplay and emulation although the 353 V does have an additional gig of RAM performance across both devices is essentially identical with a few notable exceptions now let's start with all of our favorite 8 and 16bit retro consoles like Nintendo Super Nintendo Sega Genesis and even a bunch of arcade titles all of these games are going to run great on both devices and because they both natively will boot into that custom Linux OS there's not going to be any performance differences between either handheld load time frame rates button inputs they all feel identical across the board even Nintendo 64 PS1 PSP and some Dreamcast titles run fairly well on this build but these consoles is where we start seeing the real benefits of the RG 353 V device over its counterpart because the 353 V has the ability to boot into the Android 11 operating system you get the benefit of having access to a bunch of Standalone emulators to run those more advanced consoles to access Android on the 353 V all you need to do is make sure your device is fully powered off then you remove the SD card from the tf1 slot and that's pretty much it generally speaking performance is much better for the more advanced consoles like N64 PSP Dreamcast and even Nintendo DS through the Android side of things you even have access to dolphin and Aether sx2 emulators to run Gamecube or PS2 games although I should mention don't get too excited because I couldn't get a single game to work that I tested that was even remotely playable so if you are hoping to play games like God of War or Super Smash Bros melee on this device you should probably consider looking elsewhere the Linux OS is a very clean custom emulation station style front end navigation is super clean and Visually pleasing access to to the menus and settings are very easy to find and overall things are super straightforward and there are actually a number of ways that you can adjust the UI to your liking including creating game collections or actually changing the theme Al together the Android side of things is actually exactly what you would expect a very plain and boring Android menu the device does come pre-loaded with a cool front end that you can actually activate by swiping down on the menu and then selecting this R looking icon once you do that the front end Bo boots up and it does give you a fairly simple and easy to use UI to select whatever console or game you would like but I will admit the UI on Android is fairly lackluster and not nearly as nice as the stock display through the Linux build but being on Android you can actually download and install some of your other favorite Android emulation front ends if you'd like just as an aside you will have to do much more tweaking and tinkering on the Android side of things whereas on the Linux OS side it's much more pickup and play now I do know that there are several custom operating systems available for this device however in this video I wanted to focus on the outof the-box experience let me know if you'd like me to do a deep dive into custom OS comparisons regardless of which device you go with there are a few different storage options essentially the more storage you buy the more games come preloaded on that second SD card and in my case I have the 128 GB storage option and have thousands and thousands of games to choose from transferring your own games is also a breeze you simply drag and drop them on the SD card now pricing is sitting at around $120 for the 353 vs and between 140 to 165 for the lower storage amount of the 353 V and that's depending of course on where you buy it from and just like with the 351 V I really do like these handhelds I love the classic vertical Game Boy form factor and the screams are bright and they're vibrant and they make classic games look incredible but does it even make sense to buy one of these things if you have the older version and if you don't which one of these two versions should you even consider well I would actually say even though these newer versions are more powerful and have some upgrades and improvements if you're just going to be playing 8 or 16bit games then there really is no need to purchase either of these two units if you don't have one though and you were considering between the two options available I would probably lean towards the 353 V simply because you have the ability to enjoy better emulation through Android on select console there are many different handhelds available in the market that are a lower price point and can handle most of your favorite classic console games like the Miu Mini Plus for example which makes the 353 vs a harder device to recommend ultimately you can decide for yourself if one of these devices is actually right for you that is pretty much all I've got for you guys in this video as always I will leave some links in the video description down below so you can learn a little bit more about these products or you can pick one up for yourself let me know in the comment section if you have the original RG 351 V and if you think it's worthwhile to upgrade to one of these devices remember to subscribe to the channel for more videos thank you so very much for watching and I'll speak to you guys again real [Music] soon

Channel: Restalgia

Views: 175,047

Keywords: Restalgia, Anbernic RG353V, Anbernic 353VS, Handheld gaming, Emulation performance, EmulationStation, Unboxing Anbernic devices, rg353v unboxing, rg353vs unboxing, rg353v review, rg353vs review, RG353V vs. 353VS comparison, rg353v vs 353vsvs, rg353v vs 351v, Best handhelds for retro gaming, Emulation on Linux vs. Android, rg353v games, rg353v gameplay, rg353v performance, rg353vs n64, rg353v psp, rg353v, rg353v vs miyoo mini plus

Id: UUa9xrvk4EY

Length: 10min 16sec (616 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 18 2023