Out of nowhere ANBERNIC reveals a all new vertical handheld. I say… out of nowhere but in reality we all know they have many more handhelds in the pipeline, and I only just finished the review of the RG40XX H, the horizontal version of this device!
It follows a similar design to their older RG351V, which I absolutely loved and gave it a 9/10 in our review at the time. With this new version it has added a new 4″ IPS display with a “ultra-narrow bezel” and a resolution of 640 x 480.
This is the first time ANBERNIC has marketed an ultra-narrow bezel even if I believe that it could be the same display that’s used in their RG405V (which is admittedly a nice display). The shell seems to be different to the RG351V and possibly taller to to accommodate the unique LED analogue stick that is featured in recent handheld releases, including the ANBERNIC RG CUBE.
This analogue stick is nice, and looks jazzy for sure, but it does sacrifice range of movement, so things like racing games feel a little compact, as stated in many of our reviews. It’s not a deal breaker, but this could meet the same issues, but I may be wrong.
The RG40XX V will come in three different color variants: White, Black Translucent and Indigo. It will feature a 3200MAH Battery, and Linux OS. This is the only information I currently know about this device, no other specifications has been announced, but if it follows the RG40XX H (which is likely) it will feature:
- 1.5GHZ H700 Quad-Core ARM Cortex-153 CPU
- Mali G31 GPU
- 1GB RAM
- Wifi/Bluetooth
- USB-C Charging
With this power it will be able to emulate PS1, N64, Nintendo DS, Mega Drive and Dreamcast games. The video embedded below shows PSP emulation, and just like my RG40XX H it does struggle with large PSP games such as God Of War, but most smaller PSP games should run fine, even if it will look cramped on this small screen.
No pricing has been revealed yet but again, likely following the RG40XX V it will priced around the $69.99 mark and released within the next month or so, but this is me taking a guess, following past ANBERNIC trends.
Overall it looks like a handheld many vertical fans will enjoy, but I keep saying it, and I feel like ANBERNIC are just throwing things onto the market that their customers don’t actually want right now. These new iterations are not enticing customers to upgrade from ANBERNIC handhelds that they bought a year or even two years ago.
And I think ANBERNIC are seeing that in their sales this year. Other manufacturers have slowed down for good reason.
