ANBERNIC RG351M

Loving playing with this machine. Have put 351elec on it from the start and put the supplied SDs to one side in case they are ever useful. Pretty much flawless, the odd crash here and there but usually choosing a different emulator core fixes that. Main issue is that the supplied WIFI dongle gets quite hot in use and actually crashes the machine if the battery goes below about 40%. I've got a feeling it may be drawing too much juice so perhaps I need to contact Droix about it... Otherwise very happy. Love the build quality and the electric blue colour and getting RSI playing too much tetris!

The device itself is sturdy, solid and adequately capable for my needs. Things get a bit choppy if you stray into PSP territory, but given the age of the chip now it's hardly surprising.

The way it arrived however was pretty shocking - the box was split almost in two, with the contents rattling around freely. The device was covered in a fine layer of dust and dirt, but thankfully seems to have survived unscathed.

Device, great (when you swap the firmware out anyway). The way my product was treated, very poor.

I love it. Moved to beta 351Elec, and played a ton of GBA/SNES, and a bit of THPS2. Buttons are great, battery's decent, screen is lovely. Going to be using this little device for a while.

RG351M Handheld Retro Gaming Console by ANBERNIC

It looks pretty good and it works well as an emulator up to PS1 and a bit above. The screen is very nice and it suits 4:3 games great and it's not bad at all for 3:2 games (with tiny black borders top and bottom). The build quality is quite exquisite, buttons are nice and it does look like a premium device.

A few negatives:

- expensive; The chipset (SOC) it's quite old and the performance is not up to par with the price. You're paying mostly for the premium build;
- no wi-fi/BT built in; Yes, it comes with a dongle but it's so bulky with the extra adapter you can only use it for short tasks;
- it's heavy; the aluminium shell, whilst premium, makes the device quite heavy and slightly uncomfortable for long sessions;
- it's prone to scratches; especially with the dark colours, any scratch or nick will be very visible. Better not drop it on a hard surface;
- creates annoying condensation; the case being metal, gets quite cold when not in use and when picking the device up with warm hands, creates immediate condensation where you touch it. The dark colours are also very prone to fingerprints;
- on my unit, the D-Pad registers fake inputs; mostly noticeable when playing games like Tetris with a hard-drop option (or at high speeds). I noticed my unit sometimes registers UP when pressing Left and Right or Left/Right when pressing down. This behaviour can make games like Tetris unplayable but it can be fixed using the tape mod (apply some tape over the D-Pad contacts to avoid registering wrong inputs);
- my unit seems to have a small issue where the bottom part of the screen is not glued well and it's a bit raised and moves down under slight presses. I believe this can be fixed easily but I haven't looked into it.

It might seem that the cons outweigh the pros but to be honest, I quite like it and I was aware about some of the negatives before buying. It looks great and it works well if manage your expectations on how far can you push it.

I recommend changing the microSD as soon as possible to something reliable (Samsung, Sandisk, Lexar etc.) and changing the stock OS with 341Elec or ArkOS - the experience will be much improved. There are great tutorials on Youtube on how to do it (RetroGameCorps have very detailed ones).

Happy gaming!

RG351M Handheld Retro Gaming Console by ANBERNIC