ANBERNIC RG351M

Build quality of device is great. Easy to handle and play. Metal case is very delightful in everyday usage. Great community on Reddit and in internet in general. At least three different UI shells available (all based on linux, so it is more UI stack than different OS). What is bad: wireless adapter (wifi) is external and works only when battery 60%+ or device connected to charger. Battery in general is ok, but device level support of battery (charging level or stable work if battery is less then 30%) is awful.

Loving this, my first retro handheld - far better than was expecting, should have bought in years ago!!

The RG351M is a great, low-priced retro handheld for just about everything up to the PS1 (and slightly beyond, if you don't mind performance taking a bit of a hit). It works great right out of the box, and some very, very simple tweaks to the OS allow you to customise it to your heart's content. I highly recommend exploring 351Elec as the OS, and integrating both Screenscraper (for things like boxart and game videos) and RetroAchievements (if you want to add some additional challenge to your gaming).

For the price, this also feels incredibly premium. Buttons are responsive and provide good feedback, and the sticks work well. The d-pad is the only downside, with diagonal movements almost impossible to pull off effectively - hopefully something Anbernic can address in a future iteration.

Generally, I couldn't be happier with it.

A fantastic device from a fantastic company. I've bought a few items from Droix and their customer service is fantastic. On occasions I've had to send devices back which were exchanged with no quibble.

You can get different firmwares for the RG351m. The firmware I use is called ArkOS. The device feels premium in the hand.

Was going on a week long trip later this month and did some research on emulation devices. Since I love the Gameboy Advance, and the RG351M is especially good at playing GBA titles, among others, this was the one I went with. I liked the WiFi being built into the device as well as the affordable price point.

Things were fine at first when it arrived. I liked the build quality of it and the way it felt to hold. Good stuff. I didn't load a huge library of games on it. It ended up freezing on me a few times. On the 4th day of use, it froze again and corrupted some files. While I was troubleshooting that issue, the display/screen just stopped working entirely. I confirmed it was a hardware issue and not software through multiple methods.

I will say that Droix did offer to replace the device for me when I complained, but the fundamental issue is that these devices vary wildly in build quality and are ultimately unreliable. What if the next device crapped out on me while I was on my week long trip out of the country? Every time I use the thing, I'd be worried that it would freeze on me and I'd be forced to hard shutdown the thing. I didn't have the illusion that there wouldn't be any issues ever, but to have it totally **** out like that after only 4 days of casual use was pretty disappointing. I wasn't even doing anything complex when it last froze on me. It's ridiculous.

I wanted to like this device. You might get luckier than I was if you decide to go with one of these. Just keep that in mind, that your mileage may vary.