The newest addition to Anbernic's line of retro gaming handhelds is the RG-ARC which bears a form factor akin to the Sega Saturn controller. The company has announced that the device, which is currently under pre-orders, will ship this November 20th.

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It's worth noting that there are two variants of the RG-ARC: the single, Linux-based OS RG ARC-S which starts at $70 and the dual Android and Linux OS RG ARC-D which starts at $90. Both models pack the same RK3566 chip and form factor but differs in that the RG ARC-D has a touchscreen and 2GB RAM while the RG ARC-S has no touchscreen and only 1GB of RAM. More details about the differences between the models can be found on the official product page.

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[CyKoDeLiC]

meh.

 

[eyeliner]

More eWaste... Just bite the bullet and get a real portable: Steam Deck, Lenovoegion or Rog Ally.

Ambernic is just offloading trash overseas.

 

[supershadow64ds]

I'd definitely like to see how the "ports" works to be honest. A cheap lil device that I can play classic Linux games and in a neat form factor? Sounds like fun.

Though that D-Pad looks super uncomfortable.

 

[RAHelllord]

Well considering most portables in that category have been mimicking Nintendo consoles exclusively I guess this one is aimed at the handful of people that prefer Sega consoles.

Though this should at least make emulating the few six button enabled games for the genesis / mega drive and Saturn games more comfortable to play than with the regular diamond button layout.

More eWaste... Just bite the bullet and get a real portable: Steam Deck, Lenovoegion or Rog Ally.

Ambernic is just offloading trash overseas.

Those 3 are complete overkill for retro games, and neither of them has six face buttons to feel like the Sega consoles. This thing will fit into a pocket of a jacket, the steam deck won't.

 

[James_]

More eWaste... Just bite the bullet and get a real portable: Steam Deck, Lenovoegion or Rog Ally.

Me when I miss the entire point of a 'retro' gaming handheld:

 

[fvig2001]

How good is Saturn emulation at this point using the chip they are using?

 

[ldeveraux]

They keep pumping these 'new' handhelds out, I'll keep sticking with my PocketGo 2 v2

 

[Deleted member 194275]

More eWaste... Just bite the bullet and get a real portable: Steam Deck, Lenovoegion or Rog Ally.

Ambernic is just offloading trash overseas.

Those are not as portable (you need a backpack with decent empty space to fit those), and battery will last less than 2 hours.

Anbernic ones fit on your pocket and will play for 6 hours or so. Also anbernic has objectively better OS for retro gaming out of the box.

 

[SDA]

Wonder if you can actually make a controller out of this handheld to connect it to your Sega Saturn and play with it?

Okay I'll stop.

 

[Marc_LFD]

I bought this for like $10 and I'm happy with it, I ain't buying any other retro handheld as this is just to play here and there.



All these handhelds do feel kinda pointless.

 

[chrisrlink]

hopefullly saturn bin/cue's are playable or other extra buttons are uneeded I might order the $90 for the fact it has more ram thus (might) be able to play saturn games, tapped out this month cause of starfield

 

[Nakamichi]

gotta admit... thats legitimately cool.
i may buy this, just for the controls alone.
... lets hope it actually runs saturn well

 

[HarveyHouston]

meh.

My thoughts exactly.

 

[SonyUSA]

Pretty sure the voice in the video is the same as the scam call frog

They forgot to mute the source video audio halfway through too lol

 

[IceBlueLugia]

Is that even powerful enough to emulate Saturn? If it's just good for Genesis then it's hard to really justify buying a whole handheld for it when the diamond layout with L and R still works okay in most cases for Genesis games and is a lot more practical for every other video game system

 

[lordelan]

More eWaste... Just bite the bullet and get a real portable: Steam Deck, Lenovoegion or Rog Ally.

Ambernic is just offloading trash overseas.

Complete nonsense. I've got a Steam Deck and it's amazing but how in the world would I carry that with me all the time? It's chunky as f*ck.

Therefore I got myself an Anbernic RG405M for retro gaming and it's amazing. I can't allow a bad word about it. Also the battery lasts 20 freakin' hours. Nothing beats that. A Nokia 3210 maybe. But nothing else.

 

[B-alpha]

This should answer most of the questions regarding batter life and how good it is for Saturn emulation

 

[Veho]

Okay so apparently the D-pad is

Hadoukenable
Shoryukenable


And that's where the praise ends. It's a typical Anbernic device, solid build but severely overpriced. I don't see why people are calling this "affordable" when it struggles to run Dreamcast.

Just bite the bullet and get a real portable: Steam Deck, Lenovoegion or Rog Ally.

Steam Deck is fine but the other two are like $1000, not really an alternative for a $80 device. That's not just biting the bullet, that's biting the entire magazine.

 

[Ducolamia]

I'm torn. On one hand, this fulfills a specific niche and I could definitely see a purpose for those who really want it.
At the same time, I love my Steam Deck and Miyoo Mini+ so much it's hard-pressed for me to switch to something like this. The Steam Deck being bulky is a downside but I can't say I'd give it up just for this.