ANBERNIC CONSOLES

ANBERNIC CONSOLES

Anbernic was founded in 2017 and and are in the business of making Linux, Android and Windows handheld consoles, their first handheld was the Retro Game (RG) which was released in the same year. Anbernics first notable handheld was the RG351P released in 2020 with a Rockchip RK3326 SoC 4*1.5 GHz Cortex A35 CPU, not very powerful when compared to todays processors when you consider the latest CPUs being used are the SnapDragon Elite, but you must take into account that the emulators available at the time the 1.5 GHZ processor was being used it was more than enough. Unfortunately I don't have a Retro Game (RG) in my collection.

Anbernic have a very large range of handhelds with varying CPU processing power, varying GPU speeds, varying stick/D-pad layouts (stick above D-pad or stick below D-pad), no sticks, varying triggers (some in-line and some stacked), vertical handhelds and horizontal handhelds, slide open configuration, overall size of handheld, clam shell and now clam shell with dual screens. The dual screen clam shell is not the first to market, the AYN Thor is available and then of course there was the second screen add on from Retroid.

Handhelds tend to be made from varying materials either for cosmetic reasons or for stability reasons, some with plastic bodies, some with metal bodies, some with complete glass fronts. Modding opportunities such as stick replacements, 3D printed cases, 3D printed grips can be useful/cosmetic things people can apply to their handhelds also.

Anbernic are in quite a competitive market and compete with many other makers of handhelds, Powkiddy, AYANEO, AYN, GPD and Switch (I know not an emulation handheld but a handheld non the less), etc all of which seem to aim at different markets that require an Android, Linux, Windows or Switches own operating system.

There is always a fear of flooding the market with handhelds and Anbernic are a bit prone to doing this, releasing a handheld and then a month or so later releasing their next and then a couple of months down the line releasing another that is just a slight upgrade of the first (a repeating pattern). In the eight years since the founding of Anbernic they have released approx 30 handhelds, which to me seems to be a bit too many, however the collector in me has to say "YEAH". Anbernic are not the only producers that are prone to flooding the market it seems to be a side affect of the handhled market.

Some people have preferences for certain operating systems on an Anbernic handheld, mine is Android as set-up and configuring seems the easiest to me.

Which of Anbernics handhelds has the most powerful CPU at the moment? At present they do not have a handheld with the most upto date CPU being used in handhelds, SnapDragon Elite. I would write a list of Anbernics consoles but due to the 30 or so released to date it would be a rather long list, so all I can suggest it visiting my handheld consoles links page. At the moment SnapDragon processors seem to have become a necessity to run such emulators as those for the PlayStation 3 so this may be a little to far out of Anbernics reach at the moment.

Below are three of Anbernics handhelds, taken at random, listing their specifications:

	RG351P	RG505	RG477M
CPU	Rockchip RK3326	Unisoc T618	Dimensity 8300
GPU	Arm Mali G31	Arm Mali G52	Arm MaliG615
OS	Linux	Android 12	Android 14
Battery	3500mAh	5000mAh	5300mAh
Controls	Dual Analogue	No Analogue	Dual Analogue
Screen	3.5" IPS	4.95" OLED	4.7" LTPS
Resolution	480 x 320	960 x 544	1280 x 960
RAM	1GB DDR3L	4GB DDR4X	12GB LPDDR5
Storage		128GB	256GB
Ex Storage	microSD	microSD	microSD
Wi-Fi	N/A	2.4	6E
Bluetooth	N/A	5	5.3

Apart from the three main operating systems there are also third party OSs available too, such as Knulli, GammaOS etc there is also the option of streaming software which would enable you to play XBox, PlayStation and PC games on your handheld. The main benefit is probably playing AAA games in the palm of your hand unfortunately to be able to do this an internet connection is needed there are other downsides to streaming such as quality of streaming, lag, set-up, software available.

The latest iteration of Anbernic handhelds is the, soon to be released, dual screen and this dual screen is priced at under $100.00 which should mean it will be under £100.00. Dual screens seem to be very popular among all handheld producers.

There are emulators for most handheld consoles of the 80s through to present day such as PlayStation 3 which is where most machines top out.

List of some consoles emulated:

Lynx

Game Gear

Nintendo 64

SNES

NES

Game Boy

Game Boy Color

Game Boy Advance

Nintendo DS

Nintendo 3DS

Wii

WiiU

GameCube

Mega Drive

Master System

PlayStation 1

PlayStation 2

PlayStation 3

There is all this talk of consoles that can be emulated but there are many computers that can be emulated, here are some:

Commodore 64

Amiga

Atari ST

ZX Spectrum

Amstrad CPC

PC (streamed)

There are many handhelds other than Android or Linux such as Windows PCs like the MSI Claw, Lenovo Legion Go, also SteamDeck which uses SteamOS, there are also dedicated streaming handhelds such as Abxylute all of which are possibly aimed at a different market to the Anbernic machines.

Michael