We knew this would happen, but not this soon. ANBERNIC’s upcoming portable gaming PC has leaked and with a new design it looks like it wants a piece of the ever so saturated portable Windows PC pie.
If you have no idea who ANBERNIC are, that’s for good reason. ANBERNIC are renowned for creating some of the best retro handhelds on the market, such as the RG351MP, which we have rated our favourite retro handheld from 2021.
But after testing the brand new RG552 over the coming weeks we are disappointed with what they have produced. Currently, it’s overpriced, it over performs and there’s nothing really “new” about it. But we’ve held off on our review in hopes ANBERNIC’s post sale updates fix some of the problems.
This isn’t a good start to ANBERNIC’s launch of larger handhelds and now with a new leak, it makes us think that they maybe moving too fast for their own good.
How did it leak?
According to popular Chinese handheld reviewer Taki Udon, ANBERNIC are releasing a portable Windows PC which was leaked by “NOir”. Taki revealed this on his YouTube community tab.
As of now this is the only image to leak. Previously when ANBERNIC products have leaked designs like this it typically means that the handheld is likely to release and that it’s possibly in development stages.
This handheld here which currently has no official name seems to be bigger than the RG552 and has a much broader build.
The bottom of the handheld is larger than the top, and the analogue sticks look new and potentially flared like the AYN Odin handheld which is launching very soon.
Overall, appearance wise it doesn’t look too bad but the move from Android to Windows is something ANBERNIC have never done before, and it’s something that needs to be done right in order for customers to enjoy the product.
ANBERNIC rushed the RG552 and it’s still suffering to this day, months after launch so unfortunately we have little hope that they can nail a Windows PC. But we’d like to think they would prove us wrong.
Pricing & Release Date
As of now there is no news regarding pricing or release dates, but it’s very likely that it will be this year. ANBERNIC have to price this competitively, because the Steam Deck is in huge demand right now.
The Steam Deck is packed with technology, features high end specs and has a team of talented individuals working on it consistently, for just $399.
So for ANBERNIC to even make a dent in that, it needs to be far cheaper and with similar specs, but we’re not sure they can pull that off.
More leaks as of 26th March
As promised, we will update this article with any more news and it seems like a few new images have leaked on a Chinese handheld forum showing of an ANBERNIC handheld that is running windows.
This image looks to show a bit more detail, compared to the mockups that we were sent. This shows more buttons on the face, LED’s behind the DPAD giving it a glow in the dark look, a more modern touch, and from what I can tell the right analogue stick looks con-caved, but I may be wrong!
It certainly looks like an ANBERNIC handheld, the plastic “aluminium” look is now becoming their go to shell colour, and the logo on the chin makes it very obvious that it is in-fact an ANBERNIC product, making the rumours true!
And the final image which was leaked on the 26th March is the back of the ANBERNIC Windows handheld. As you can see the stacked shoulder buttons also have some backlighting going on, and the top of the shell seems to curve outwards, making it look like a fairly comfortable handheld, but time will tell!
There’s also extra branding on the back, a lot of ventilation, what looks like a USB port on top, and some extra buttons on the right hand side which we can’t really see.
Overall, it doesn’t look too bad, it has certainly kept its modern look, but as mentioned in our Retrospect podcast we are worried that ANBERNIC might be biting off more than they can chew with this Windows handheld, as their recent RG552 handheld was pretty bad!
We will update this article with more information as soon as we are informed.
A 31 year old British fella that’s had a Gameboy ever since he was a child. Brandon is the founder of RetroDodo and has created a YouTube channel with 260,000 subscribers dedicated to retro gaming products. He now wants to create the No.1 site to showcase the latest retro products from around the globe.
