r/SBCGaming

RG34XXSP Metallic Blue came in.

I swapped out all the buttons to give it a fun look as well. But really that blue is noice af and the star of the show lol

Edit: and the game is Golden Sun for GBA

Heya y'all. I'm currently looking for a new handheld after selling my PS Vita phat. Right now I'm in talks with someone to buy their RG 40XXH for $40. My main factors in buying a handheld are

1.Brightness - I want a vivid and bright screen for my poor eyes

2.Pocketability - I want it to fit my decently sized pockets. Since I wear pretty large pants since I'm tall I think it'll fit?

3. Performance - I want to play up to PS1 and at least some sprinkles of DS (Dawn of Sorrow), Dreamcast (Code Veronica X), and PSP (Vice City Stories) and some Portmaster games like Vjce city, GTA3, Majoras Mask etc

4. Comfort - I want something I can play on comfortably. I have a Powkiddy V90s and as much as I love the thing playing on it is just plain uncomfy

Spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1x_PmVHiQNHyw5t05peEDG1DcCKDCvH_UPd3p7yCw4xg/edit?usp=sharing

I don't usually update this frequently but Anbernic decided to drop prices on some specific variants of some of their devices after my last update. There are some really good prices on devices. Additionally, Saving Mondays credit is currently available for daily redemption during the sale instead of just using it on Mondays for some additional stacking.

As usual, regular sitewide coupons are around row 39 for US customers and on rows 26 and 29 for people not from the US. For more info on Saving Mondays, I post weekly threads on the subject on r/crownpuffdeals.

Ship from US deals (pretax, postcoupon):

$18 K36

$33-34 Grey 35XXSP (Historical Low, Use $4 off 29 saver or add filler to hit $39 to use $5 off 39)

$37 Black 34XX (Historical Low, only 3 in stock as of posting)

$38 White CubeXX (Historical Low)

$42 Blue 40XXV (Historical Low)

$56 34XXSP ($8 off 59 plus 2JVA254L6BJV store coupon code for $5 off)

$85 RGDS

$85 Sundara

$145 Ananda (Historical Low)

Finally as always, in the interest of transparency, I am providing two spreadsheets. The first spreadsheet is the regular spreadsheet with both affiliate and non affiliate links. For each affiliate link, there should be a corresponding non-affiliate link. The second spreadsheet is the first spreadsheet but with all affiliate links completely removed.

Spreadsheet	Link
affiliate and nonaffiliate	https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1x_PmVHiQNHyw5t05peEDG1DcCKDCvH_UPd3p7yCw4xg/edit?usp=sharing
nonaffiliate only	https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1sbdyczU3nlluQfZUdtRFBfDHvzS2VjdVCn7p2U_LYD0/edit?usp=sharing

Haven't seen one in the wild yet so here it is.

Recently sold my other handhelds cause it took me some time to realize these were way overkill and I was fine with emulating most stuff on my pc and phone. I still wanted a gba sp cause my childhood one didnt survive so I got this instead (+ a green rg35xxsp that was too cheap to pass on)

So now I have this for gbc, gba (mainly pokemon romhacks), my phone for DS + psp and I couldnt be happier.

A little teaser of what the Anbernic RG40XXV can do as a pocket retro computer.

Full tutorial guide here if you’d like to try it yourself especially if you’re new to retro computers on handhelds: https://youtu.be/BF2DLt0ZlXA

Amiga, Atari ST/XE, C64, Amstrad CPC and more all on a cheap little handheld I grabbed for around £54.

It’s not a powerhouse, and it’s all plastic, but plays pretty good.

The device, which does bare-metal emulation of the ZX Spectrum 8 bit home micro, has been updated with new firmware.

A major change is the ZX Touch FX system which can apply multiple effects to the screen in real time, completely changing the way a game looks, without any ROM mods.

It works by detecting markers on the screen which can be used to identify on which scene, level, menu or screen the player is. Up to 10 effects can then be applied, which are rendered within a single screen frame.

Effects can be color changes, adding strokes / outlines, adding background images, adding shaders and selectively changing transparency.

Up to 50 markers can be placed per game and can be stored in a single file that can include the game ROM.

GIF image generated by me.

Source: https://zx-touch.com/zx-touch-fx-system/ )

So my primary "retro handheld" of choice is my phone and it's great. For its size, it's a behemoth for emulation (SD8 Gen 3, 16GB RAM), and I've got the entire history of gaming on it from the earliest games all the way to modern stuff.

But the issue is that it's my phone. Nothing ruins immersion like a Slack notification or a bank text when you're deep into Zelda. And it doesn't feel the right form factor for many games. Although with my split controller (GameSir X4A), I can play it in a portrait mode, that's more for vertical arcade games not GBA.

Which is why I decided to buy a Game Boy style handheld. It was either this or the Trimui Brick and I went with the clamshell. But out of the box, I didn't like it at all:

• There was terrible letterboxing going on for anything that wasn't a GBA title
• The most accurate GB LCD shaders didn't work, they looked horribly blurry
• CRT shaders had banding going on and many would just lag
• When I switched to the glcore driver to make use of the slang shaders I was more familiar with, RetroArch just broke and had to be reset completely.
• My bluetooth earbuds would connect but not output any audio

The good:

• The buttons felt pretty good. While the shoulder buttons feel flimsy and awkward, everything else is almost perfect.
• Even the recessed analog sticks I'd assumed would suck were pretty good. The only issue is that the sticks have a convex, slippery surface, so you often end up holding them from under the stick which can't be good for their durability.
• GBA games looked perfect with just a simple color correction + LCD shader preset

I finally realized I'd need to spend time setting up my own presets to maybe match the accurate slang shaders I like. This is a machine that requires tinkering. Here's what I've got for the Game Boy LCD for now and I plan to do the same for the GBC as well as CRT shaders for NES/SNES titles.

tl;dr Temper your expectations folks, don't expect your $70 handheld to be a retro gaming champion like I did. Widescreen F-Zero is only going to work on your phone/Deck/PC, but playing Castlevania 3 on a GBA SP shaped device is still pretty sweet.