Anbernic RG35XX H Review – Great budget retro gaming handheld

We are a little late on the Anbernic RG35XX H review, better late than never! Let’s find out if the horizontal version of the RG35XX Plus is worthy of your consideration.

Anbernic RG35XX H review video

Unboxing the Anbernic RG35XX H

We start the Anbernic RG35XX H review with an unboxing. The box opens to reveal the Anbernic RG35XX H handheld itself, we will check it out in more detail in a moment.

Underneath is a box containing a USB Type-C cable, use this one for charging. There is a user guide which is in English and Chinese. And last but not least there is a screen protector and wipes for when applying it.

Anbernic RG35XX H Overview

Next in our Anbernic RG35XX H review we take a closer look at the handheld. The Anbernic RG35XX H measures around 5.7 x 2.7 x 0.6 inches (14.5 x 6.9 x 1.6 cm) and weighs only 180g. The classic gaming handheld is available in three colours, Transparent White and Purple, and Black.

We have a 3.5 inch IPS display with a 640×480 resolution which is great for retro gaming. On the left side of the display we have a SELECT button, analogue stick and D-Pad. And on the right, START, four gaming buttons and the second analogue stick.

On the left side we have volume buttons, and on the right are power and reset buttons.

Along the top are trigger and shoulder buttons, a 3.5mm headphone jack, a USB Type-C port for peripherals, a HDMI port for video output to a monitor or TV, a second USB Type-C port for charging and a Function button to bring up the in emulator menus.

On the bottom of the portable retro gaming console are two micro SD card slots. There will be a 64GB card in the first slot which contains the OS and files. You can use the second slot to expand the storage if required.

Anbernic RG35XX H Technical Specifications

As part of this Anbernic RG35XX H review we take a brief look at the technical specifications.

CPU	H700 quad-core ARM Cortex-A53, 1.5GHz frequency
GPU	Dual- core G31 MP2
RAM	1GB LPDDR4
STORAGE	64GB Micro SD Card, second slot up to 512GB
COMMUNICATIONS	WiFi 5, Bluetooth 4.2
BATTERY	3300mAh Li-polymer
OS	Linux
CASE COLOURS	Transparent White, Transparent Purple, Black
SIZE	5.7 x 2.7 x 0.6 inches  (14.5 x 6.9 x 1.6 cm)
WEIGHT	180g

Anbernic RG35XX H OS overview

Before checking out the emulators in this Anbernic RG35XX H review, let’s first take a brief look at the OS and menu software to see how it is. It is essentially the same menu used in the RG35XX Plus mobile gaming handheld, it’s basic but functional.

You have the Game icon which will list the systems for games found on the micro SD card. There’s plenty of systems to choose from including Arcade, PC Engine, Master System, Mega Drive through to PS1 and PSP. Pick a system, browse the games list and load them from there.

The second menu is RetroArch which has a few more systems in addition to the Games menu option, including Atari, Piico8 and WonderSwan systems. 

Further along the menu we have the settings option where you can configure various settings from screen brightness, to language and WiFi settings.

While the interface is basic in appearance, it has just about everything you need within a few button presses,  it makes it easy to navigate and use straight from the go with no complications.

Emulation Performance

I thought we would do something a little different in this Anbernic RG35XX H review. We know from the Anbernic RG35XX Plus what the processor’s performance is like, check out our video where we show 20-30 seconds of gameplay from some of the supported systems with the game audio. We will also play some on our DroiX portable monitor to show the video output.

Essentially all the classic 8bit and 16bit systems will work great. And for the more demanding ones like Dreamcast, PS1 and PSP we will cover them in a little more detail below

DeSmuME emulator

You should get decent performance from DeSmuME. I tried a few of my usual go to games and had no issues. But do keep in mind that there’s no touchscreen for input. You will have to use the analogues instead to move the on-screen cursor, it can be fiddly to use on games that demand touch input.

PlayStation 1

Overall PS1 games are very playable on this handheld. We tried our usual test games of Crash Bandicoot and Gran Turismo 2 and did not have any performance issues while playing. If you are coming from an older vintage gaming handheld and saw games not quite running full speed then they should work fine on this.

Dreamcast

We had a similar experience with Dreamcast. our go to games, Sonic Adventure 2 and Crazy Taxi worked overall very well. They were not quite perfect with some occasional drops in FPS but nothing too bad. Not every game will work as well, but there’s definitely enough to keep you satisfied.

PSP

PSP emulation is done by the excellent PPSSPP emulator. Yes there are games that are playable, mainly the low demanding ones. But a large number are not playable. Tekken 6 was running around the 70% speed area, and God of War dropped to as low as 20 FPS. You can improve with frame skipping, though for some games this won’t be enough.

Final Thoughts

Time to sum up our thoughts in our Anbernic RG35XX H review. As we mentioned in our Anbernic RG35XX Plus review, the H700 processor is a nice upgrade from the one used in the original RG35XX classic gaming handheld. While it is not a massive increase in performance, there’s enough that with some of the higher end systems you can see games running a bit smoother than before. This won’t magically make every game work, but you will see a good  number of more playable ones on PS1 and Dreamcast. For PSP you will still have many unplayable games, look elsewhere if this is what you want to play.

Custom firmwares are popular but unfortunately there’s none that are quite ready to use as a daily driver. There are GarlicOS and Koriki ports but they are not 100% finished just yet, here and here are the links..

Compared with the vertical orientation RG35XX Plus, the H model is a decent option if you want a horizontal portable retro gaming console that doesn’t break the bank. We get many people asking why they don’t make a handheld in vertical or horizontal orientations, so now you have your choice.

Unfortunately we are not selling this Anbernic model at DroiX as it has been available for a couple of months now. But you can buy the RG35XX Plus here.

That wraps up our RG35XX H review, we hope you have found it useful. If you have any questions please feel free to ask in the comments. Thanks!