General Information
Anbernic is a name you can trust in the retro-handheld scene and having recently reviewed their RG405V, I have high hopes for their latest pocketable nostalgia machine, the RG28XX!
First Impressions Are Great
Right off the bat, you'll notice that the RG28XX is miniscule. With a svelt 12.5cm length, 5.65cm width and just 1.65cm thick, this thing is only slightly bigger than the 10/5/1.7cm Game Boy Micro. It manages to pack in 4 face buttons, four shoulder buttons, a D-pad, start and select buttons, a volume rocker, power and reset buttons, a dedicated menu button and not one but TWO micro SD card slots!
Let us not forget the headphone jack, power/OTG USB-C connector and the almighty micro HDMI out socket. To give you some clue: YES this can be consolized, plugged into your TV with the same cables as a Nintendo switch and using the OTG USB-C to USB-A or a wireless dongle, and a micro HDMI to HDMI connector you can play games on your TV in no time, though sadly neither of those connectors come with the unit itself.
Picking it up and palming it in my meaty hands is obscene. The RG28XX is so small it reminds me of a Nokia 3210 back in the day, but it's such a powerhouse it would put playing just Snake or Mine Sweeper to shame! The RG28XX packs a quad-core ARM H700 Cortex-A53 CPU clocked at 1.5GHz, pairs it with a dual-core Mali-G31 MP2 GPU and bolsters it with 1GB of LPDDR4 memory.
The twin micro SD card slots allow for two up to 512GB sized cards to be jammed in to keep you going for a long time. Speaking of which the 3100 mAh battery lasted a good 6+ hours during my testing period, this was perfect for a full day of travelling playing games and listening to music. You may see better results, achieving up to 8hrs, by turning down the volume, decreasing the brightness and running less strenuous games on it.
The 2.8" IPS display is fantastically sharp, extremely clear from 99% of angles, and pumps out 640 x 480 resolution for all games. But this means HD gaming is not possible even when connected to the HDMI socket. It's limited to 720p with PCM at 16:9 and it looks ok-ish on my 65" OLED. But its really obviously pixelated displaying such a low resolution on a large screen.
The screen is certainly small, and not quite the ideal size for home or arcade console emulation as opposed to handheld console emulation but it is perfectly serviceable. Watching movies on it is possible too though I found it airing on the side of too small to watch fast paced movies comfortably.
Retroarch Under The Hood is Rock-Solid
Given the specs what can we expect to play on it, you may well ask. Well, I was quite shocked to see Naoimi and Atomis Wave represented on the main game selection screen, as well as PSP and even Virtual Boy!
The complete list of console emulators included are as follows: PSP, OpenBOR, DC, PlayStation, CPS1, CPS2, CPS3, NeoGeo, FBNeo, MAME, PICO, Pokewalker, Atario 2600, Virtual Boy, Game and Watch, GBA, NES, SNES, Mega Drive, Sega CD, Sega 32X, Master System, Game Gear, GB, GBC, PC Engine, PC Engine CD, NeoGeo Pocket, Wonder Swan, MSX, Atomis Wave, and Naomi!
In addition to these, you have PORTS, APPS, Home Brew, and Vertical Arcade categories for even more entertainment. The latter means you can play retro arcade shoot-em-ups in portrait orientation for even better authenticity!
The backend of this Linux system uses Retroarch 1.10.3 and identifies the CPU as a quad-core Neon ASIMD, with ARM v8 architecture and Linux 4.9 frontend OS.
The cores within actually include N64 cores and more so if you come across any games that stutter hit Y before loading the game, select an alternative core and try it again. I had particular troubles with Gran Turismo on PS1 where the game would fail to load at all with pcsx_rearmed_libretro.so, and loading with swanstation_libretro.so allowed it to load but it stuttered heavily in multiple areas of the track. I finally found that pcsx_rearmed_rumble_peops_libretro.so was far and away the best core to use for this game, with no lag, no stutter, and flawless framerates.
Flycast works fantastically for Dreamcast and Naomi games, with Crazy Taxi, Virtual Tennis, Marvel Vs Capcom 2, and Toy Fighter working brilliantly with very few hiccups, just the occasional crackly audio here and there, and a little ghosting in places.
N64 core Mupen64plus would let the majority of games work, but it has a weird black-and-white border, though the default core, in this case, Parallel, wouldn't load certain games at all for whatever reason. N64 emulation is not mentioned in the manual for this device either, perhaps it's too hit and miss, but honestly, it's proven more hit than miss for me.
Overall the D-Pad performs wonderfully. It's not mushy, and it's not clicky; but it is raised enough to have a nice action when slinging fireballs, running around in circles in Crash Bandicoot or throwing handstand spreadies in Wave Race 64.
The triggers are easily accessible, and decently placed for the scale of the unit, and they click satisfyingly when pressed. The triggers themselves are assembled in such a way that if you shake the device it makes a rattling sound, which isn't an issue, just odd build quality.
A Couple of Odd Choices
First up, why is there no WIFI? This means you can't update the thing without chucking the SD card in your PC. And what if you don't have a PC or a phone that supports micro SD? You also cannot use netplay, or play content or media off a network share, which is kind of limiting.
Secondly, you cannot simply use a USB-C to USB-A cable to drag and drop ROMs. This would have been ideal given the fact there is no Micro SD card adaptor included in the box. As it stands, you would need to buy one to add more games to it.
The buttons are tiny, which is thanks to the small-sized form factor that Anbernic has swung for in this model. However, the ABXY buttons are so small and so closely bunched together that it's not a flawless experience, at least not for my giant hands. I found that I was constantly hitting two or even three buttons at a time when flustered in-game, which was more than a little annoying. Perhaps its a learning curve I need to master with a smaller device.
Additionally, the buttons are smaller than those used on the Nintendo Switch. They're so tightly placed that holding Y to run and tapping B to jump is a struggle. I always complain about the Nintendo Switch's tiny buttons on the Joy-Cons, but the RG28XX takes first place now with buttons perfectly suited for very small thumbs.
Then, there is no Bluetooth to connect controllers. This would have been useful when playing with HDMI output rather than connecting an OTG adaptor, then a hub and then several wired controllers or several dongles for wireless controllers.
The SD card slots are not spring-loaded. Good luck getting them out once they're in! I had to use tweezers to get the micro SD cards out to load them up with more content, because there was no way on earth i could grip with my nails.
Lastly, no OGT adaptor, micro-HDMI adaptor or microSD adaptor are supplied. You could argue that if you want to use those features you can buy the adaptors yourself, but honestly they cost pennies off most online retailers and could have been included at minor expense to Anbernic to really ramp up the "out-the-box" ability of the RG28XX.
I don't actually own an OTG cable, and I can imagine that many people don't own an HDMI mini to HDMI connector.
Is The Anbernic RG28XX Worth Your Time?
The Anbernic RG28XX is a stellar miniature device with a lot of pros and a couple of niggly cons that probably just stem from my expectations, versus reality and reasonability.
Through swapping cores and adding my own ROMs to the memory card I managed to get N64 working servicably and by fiddling with cores here and there I managed to increase the stock frame rates and compatibility, so it's really no chore!
If you are in the market for a Game Boy Micro-sized, pocketable portable powerhouse to play Atari to Dreamcast on, then this is worth a look for sure. Personally, I would opt for a larger-screened device such as the RV405V or even the RG556 which have bigger screens, wifi, runs Android instead of Linux, and can emulate PS2, Vita, and 3DS as well as GC and Android mobile gaming as well as streaming games through services such as PS4/PS5 or Xbox through Remote Play apps, but it will cost you substantially more than this does.
At $47.99 from Anbernic's official store with an additional 10% off when you sign up it's a bit of a steal!
