Welcome to the latest edition of Retro Handhelds Weekly. This week, we saw a bunch of news in the world of hardware and software. Our writing team continues to be on an absolute tear, and there’s even a surprise or two sprinkled in! So sit back, grab a cup of coffee, and catch up on what’s happened this week in the world of Retro Handhelds.
Table of Contents
Hardware & Industry News
- [UPDATE: Spec Info] Anbernic RG DS Plus Officially Revealed, Equipped with Larger Screens and Built-in Stylus for ‘under $100’: After a first half of the year that was pretty quiet, Anbernic is picking up the pace a bit. The Anbernic RG DS Plus has been officially revealed, giving us a glimpse at what the company’s latest Nintendo DS/DSi clone will offer.
- MSI Claw 8 EX AI+ Gets a New Arc G3 Model in Luminous Blue: At Computex 2026 back in May, MSI announced its latest x86 handheld with the MSI Claw 8 EX AI+. This represented a complete shift in design philosophy, while also coming in as one of the first handhelds to be powered by Intel’s new Arc G3 Extreme processor. We’ve now learned that another configuration of the Claw 8 EX AI+ is on the way, as a listing has appeared on EXCaliberPC (via VideoCardz).
- FunnyPlaying Shows Off Mini Game Boy in the Works: The “Retro Pixel MiniGB” is not only reminiscent of a small Game Boy DMG, but is also capable of playing the same cartridges as well. While everything seems to be scaled down from the face buttons to the D-pad, it sounds like the screen size is going to hopefully remain around a similar size at 2.6″. If this is using a similar FPGA to their older FPGBC, this will be a solid device for both Game Boy and Game Boy Color ROMs.
More Hardware & Industry News
- 8BitDo Announces the Cozy Collection for XBOX
- Anbernic Surprise Drops the RG 35, a Which Appears to be a Rebranded BatleXP G350
- Razer Drops Their Latest Controller: The Prio
- JSAUX Announces First Two VOIDJOY Products
- AYANEO Announces KONKR Pocket Advance Shipping Delays
- ARC X1 Is a New Qualcomm-Powered Handheld With a Custom Version of Android
Apps and Software
- Socket Frontend Now Available for Free: In an update email sent out to all Patreon backers of the Android frontend Socket, the developer Depmots mentioned that they are making the 0.3.2 build free for everyone as a way to say thank you for all of the support they’ve received over the past month!
- Ocarina of Time 3D 4K 5.0: It’s Fantastic: In a world with increasing amounts of excellent dual-screen mods, here we have the opposite in 2011s Ocarina of Time 3D, with a true single screen support mod and an accompanying 4K texture pack to support it. This package also brings fixes to many known issues with the 3DS version of Ocarina of time, making it a near-definitive way to play this version!
- Wave Launcher Drops V1.0: Today marks the V1.0 drop of Wave Launcher, an XMB focused front end that’s been built with a genuine affection for style, and it shows. After months of time, work, and testing for a number of users, it’s finally ready for release.
More Software News
Emulation Corner
Custom Core
Game of the Month
From the Writers
While there’s always a lot of news to cover and talk about, we also try to take a step back and give everyone something a bit different to enjoy. These are the more editorial-styled articles and reviews that you might have missed over the course of this week.
- I Have Android, Armada, and ROCKNIX on My Odin 3, and It’s Just Become My Endgame Handheld
- Razer Prio First Impressions: Pocketable Gaming With a Few Caveats
- EasySMX D10 Review: How Did I Miss This One?
- 8 Games to Grow Your Backlog – September 2026
- Game of the Month: Wake Me Up When Sleptember Ends
- KT-R2 Review: Three Years Makes a Difference
- UGREEN is Getting Into the Smart Home Business
On the YouTubes
RH Partners
Looking for Deals?
The AliExpress Labor Day Sale kicked off on September 1, and there’s still time to take advantage of some discount codes before the sale concludes. Below, you’ll find just a handful of codes, but you can head over to handheld.deals to find even more and see what deals might be worth grabbing.
- RHH2: $2 off $15+
- RHH4: $4 off $30+
- RHH9: $9 off $69+
- RHH15: $15 off $109+
- RHH23: $23 off $169+
- RHH35: $35 off $259+
- RHH55: $55 off $379+
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