The system is good!The downfall was there wasn’t a single Mario game or Pokemon! But it is good!

I gotta say the nostalgia is hitting me strong with this Anbernic RG34XX handheld retro console because it reminds me of one of my favourite handheld consoles of all time: the Gameboy Advance back in 2001. It looks almost identical to it and better in every single way. The screen has a super bright LCD with a higher resolution (720x480, 3:2 ratio), a chipset (H700 in all XX series lineup) that can run pretty much every old school consoles up to PS1 era. The stereo speakers do a good job that I could not say it is better than the OG GBA but it is on par with my Miyoo A30 and RP 2S. The battery life is a lot longer than the original GBA if you only run the non process intensive games. The control feels almost identical with the OG GBA that I remember, which is pretty mushy feeling and doesn't work well in some fighting games or action games, this control could be a deal breaker for some people. Overall, it is a great nostagia handheld that satisfied my craving for the old school consoles collection!

Good packaging and content: The console itself, a screen protector, an SD Card (contains the games), a USB cable for charging.Once bootup, you have a very nice quality screen with selection from games, music, videos. You can store your videos/music on an SD card and just load it up.I tried a few MAME games and everything works fine. It also contains some Emulators, have at it.The console feels sturdy and great.All in all, pretty good item!

Very cool little handheld. I've been meaning to get one of these for my sons, for a while.It has a lot of games. Some system categories you go into (a specific arcade design or a specific console) there are 1400 games. Some categories a handful of games, some categories 400 games, etc ... There is a search function in case you want to find a specific game in ANY category by typing a few letters. It's very handy.I will add some more names of some preferred games when my review gets through. For now, I took a picture of some games from the Dreamcast section, some from the PlayStation section. And some from a couple of arcade sections. Crash Bandicoot N Sane Trilogy, Crash Bandicoot Nitro Kar, and Crash Team Racing come to mind. There is also Tekken 3, Tekken 5 and Tekken 6 if you like. Ridge Racer, Bomberman, Twisted Metal and a whole host of cool games. God of War. Several Mega Man games. Grand Theft Auto, and Castelvania. Dino Crisis 2. Gran Turismo. A few Residents Evil games. Silent Hill. Sid Meier's Civilization II. SIM City 2000. Soul Caliber, Spiderman games, Syphon Filter and even some original Tenchu Stealth Assassins games. There are X-Men games, Marvel vs. Capcom, Wrestling games, a lot of baseball games, Terminator, The Simpsons games, Star Wars, Superman, Star Trek, Sports Trivia, Sonic the Hedgehog games, and even Wheel of Fortune.The games are a lot of fun. My sons are loving it. I'm enjoying Virtua Tennis. The more advanced one for Dreamcast. I was hoping the Dreamcast section would have some pretty specific but obscure games like Aerowings, however the titles I had in mind weren't there. Oh well. It happens.The L2 And R2 buttons are not conveniently located. You can see in my photos. But I haven't come across any games that require those yet. I tried using them just for fun and I could definitely see getting accustomed to their location, and it not being a problem. They mostly just use L and R which are convenient and comfortable. The volume thumb activation is like a rocker slider. It's pretty cool. I usually find that we can leave it low, around level 1-4. Don't really need it louder.There is a mini HDMI port to connect to TV. very cool. Anbernic makes a lot of awesome devices with 1 joystick added, 2 joysticks added, etc ... But there is something classic about just playing with the D-pad. They also make a lot of different shapes and colors. The shape of this one is comfortable, but I do wish we happened to get the selection of the black, green or even red. Not a huge fan of the purple, but I'm sure someone out there is.Tl;Dr - Overall, awesome handheld. The screen is certainly vibrant enough to do the games justice. Crisp and clean. No issues. Everything is working perfectly and there are a ton of games. Especially in some of the arcade sections like "MAME" and in the PlayStation section.

I’ll note that I have a modded Gameboy Advance (one original, one SP, actually), and was really looking forward to finally having an emulation device with the CORRECT screen for GBA — the same aspect ratio and integer pixel scaling to match the GBA specifically, which is an all time favourite gaming console — not just among handhelds, either. Maybe I’m being harsh on this, but I don’t think I can put 2.5 stars, and that’s what this feels like — a massive disappointment.The problem with copying the original model so closely is that… they overlooked some extremely basic ergonomic / design stuff so it would be more “correct” to the original design. Which is ridiculous, because there are more buttons on this thing, and they aren’t placed in sensible spots. Why? Because the original didn’t have that particular button at all — or didn’t have that button in that location.Worst offender for this is the reset button on the top. It’s extremely close to the L1 bumper trigger, and it’s way too easy to accidentally bump the reset button if you’re picking up the console or trying to push other buttons with adult sized hands. This is awful. Not least because every other handheld like this I’ve used would typically put a power button there to tap, to put the console to sleep if you bump it by mistake.So why not just swap the power and reset button locations? I don’t think anyone would’ve cared. I’m not likely to ever bump the power button on the bottom, as it is recessed into the shell. But no, the reset is right there, where I can accidentally press it and screw everything up. It’s super awkward to use any of the standardized emulator shortcuts too — like pressing the Menu button (the top — on the OTHER side of the reset button) and hitting the appropriate shoulder trigger to save, fast forward, etc.The additional “X / Y” buttons above the regular A + B are not comfortable to use. I get why they did this — it mimics the alignment of the original buttons. It’s a bonus, so maybe I’m nitpicking — but it’s hard to let slide. Wish the screen got a lot dimmer too, but it is what it is.They got so much right that it’s frustrating. They were so close to getting it right, and cut corners at the end. The little rocker switch for the “volume” is brilliant — I’m sure the modding community can make good use of that. But I can’t get behind a device where I might accidentally reset it, just from holding the dang thing. And I own a friggin PowKiddy, so I can accept silly design errors and QC faults, if the price is right. It sucks since Anbernic knows how to build something better… and they didn’t.Granted, I had significant quality control issues with mine — for some reason, the sensor for the L1 button was automatically pressing and releasing very quickly — sort of like mashing a button that the “turbo” modes simulate? — but it wasn’t set to do that in the software. (I think the B button was doing something similar, but not as consistently.) None of my other Anbernic handhelds have this issue. Plastic shell also feels exceedingly cheap — the transparent ones might feel way better in the hand, with a nicer matte texture.A bit more time in the design / testing phase, or a moderately iterated V2 would probably sort out the annoyances for me. On one hand, I’m glad Anbernic doesn’t generally do what Miyoo does and completely botch the first version of the device in a bunch of ways, only to fix the issues in repeated versions. (They fixed the awful 35xxSP buttons shortly after launch, but mostly, you get what you get.) But that also means they likely won’t get this right in a later batch. I’m glad people are enjoying it, but it’s not for me.Fingers crossed they’ll do some kind of “in the spirit of” redux for an SP clamshell reboot. The 35xxSP didn’t do it for me, as the v1 clicky buttons sucked. And having it look so much like an SP, I wanted a 3:2 inch screen. The thickness made it more comfortable for adult hands, but it was a bit chonky. Here’s hoping they’ll get it right next time around.