With all of the handhelds that have come across my desk over the past year, there’s been something missing. Well, that is, until now. I have plenty of options to play everything and anything that I can think of, but something I struggled to find was a vertical handheld that didn’t leave my wrists feeling like they were on fire.
Much to my surprise, the Anbernic RG406V might be my “end-game” vertical retro handheld, for more reasons than just ergonomics. Unfortunately, I never spent any time with the RG405V, so I’ll leave any written comparisons to Ban or Jalanimal. Stubbs already received his RG406V, and you can check out his thoughts on it in the video above.
Anbernic RG406V: What I like
As soon as I got the RG406V out of the box, I threw in a spare microSD card and immediately fired up Apotris. Over the last month or two, this has become my “testing” game of choice to see how well the D-Pad holds up. It took me about 30 minutes to an hour to acclimate to the way the RG406V feels to hold. But after that, I couldn’t put it down.
Like seriously, I wanted to have this impressions piece written already, but I spent the rest of the night playing Apotris and then actually getting everything set up. Part of the “problem” is that if you have a microSD card loaded with all of your ROMs, you can just start playing because Anbernic pre-installs an array of emulators, removing the need to even get signed in with your Google account.
This is both a good thing and a bad thing, as some of the emulators will probably need to be updated, but it’s not an absolute necessity. It’s not like if you wanted to jump into games on something like the Odin 2 Mini, as you’ll need to find the right emulator version to download, and then make sure any drivers are available for higher-end emulation. Again, Anbernic does a good job at letting you jump right in, without needing to set anything up other than your microSD card.
Okay, so let’s talk about the ergonomics. This is the first time I’ve used a vertical handheld that actually has similar grips to their horizontal counterparts. Even then, as someone with meaty claws, I’m surprised at the fact that I don’t need to readjust how I hold the RG406V. Usually, I end up either using a grip of some sort or I’ll just play until I can’t anymore before picking up something else.
All of the buttons are nice and responsive, and I feel pretty comfortable playing this while my little one is taking a nap without worrying about the clickiness waking him up. I am a little bit concerned about that when using the rear triggers, as they’re “soft clicky,” but as long as I’m not playing an FPS, I’m not overly concerned.
It’s obviously my fault, but I haven’t really tried to “push” the Unisoc T820 to the extreme. I did fire up some MLB 08: The Show on PPSSPP and The Simpsons: Road Rage in AetherSX2 and didn’t find any slowdowns. Obviously, those are pretty easy titles to emulate, even for the T820. On the flip side, it’s not like the T820 is brand new to the scene, as it’s been used in quite a few different handhelds at this point.
Anbernic RG406V: What I don’t
Not to spoil the surprise or anything, but Jalanimal got the best color of the batch. I got the “Beige” RG406V, and while it’s not terrible, I still would’ve preferred the PAL SNES color scheme over this one. The best comparison I can make to this is that my RG406V looks like the “smoker’s white” found on the Ayaneo Pocket Air. It might not have been so noticeable if it weren’t for the white D-Pad, Home/Start/Select buttons, and the joysticks.
Speaking of the joysticks, I can’t help but feel as though these are a bit higher than they need to be. Stubbs points out that Anbernic fixed its cardinal snapping issues from previous devices, but at what cost? Maybe my feelings about ergonomics would be different if I were playing games that rely on thumbsticks as opposed to jumping straight into D-Pad-centric games.
I understand that having Android on a handheld is great, as it makes customization extremely easy. However, I do wish that Anbernic would partner with developers to make either ES-DE or Daijisho the default front end. Out of the box, you’re greeted with a traditional Android home screen, but clicking the button above the microSD card slot takes you into Anbernic’s barebones retro launcher. Technically, it works just fine, but it just…doesn’t look good.
Anbernic RG406V: Conclusion
I have a few other projects in the backlog that need to be written, so I won’t be able to spend too much time with the RG406V for now. However, I already know that every chance I get to use it, I’m going to be grabbing it for the foreseeable future. I’m not sure if there’s another vertical handheld that can dethrone the RG406V for me. The only potential exception would be the Ayaneo Pocket DMG, but we still don’t have an official release date for that just yet.
Stay tuned to both the website and the RH YouTube channel as we’ll have more coverage on the RG406V in the coming days and weeks. Drop us a line in the comments below if you have any questions or want us to try something out!
At the time of this writing, the RG406V is available for pre-order, and you can save $10 using the link below.
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