It was bound to happen eventually. Someone (in this case, it looks to be Anbernic under a pseudonym) was going to challenge the Game Console R36S as the budget emulation king. As much as I may have professed my love for the previous champion, and still think it’s great, there’s no doubting the G350 has it everywhere it counts. Ban’s recent comparison article did a great job explaining the differences between the two devices.
At $37 delivered to my door, I can’t find too much to complain about, but we are a tinkering bunch, and I want to compare all the options out there. So if you’ve just picked up the BatleXP G350 too, let’s take a look at what options the community already has cooking up.
Table of Contents
BatleXP G350 Specs
What You’ll Need
- A trusted brand of micro SD card (64GB – 128GB recommended). Cards that come with these devices are of poor quality and prone to failure. If you ordered a loaded card with your device, back it up and chuck the card. It will eventually fail. Don’t say we didn’t warn you!
- An SD Card reader
- A Windows/MAC/Linux PC
- 7-zip or WinRAR to unpack any downloads
- Image writing software appropriate for your firmware of choice
- Rufus – One-stop shop for formatting and writing your SD images.
- Balena Etcher – Image writing software available for all major Desktop OS’
- Win32DiskImager – An open-source option designed for Windows, but there are many ports.
- MintStick/USB Image Writer – Image writing software that comes baked-in with many popular Linux OS distros.
Firmware Options
Stock OS
The BatleXP custom stock image
The Stock OS experience on the G350 is unique. This is a custom image running Emulation Station and labeled only as BatleXP v 1.0. It’s still currently unclear what firmware was borrowed to do the heavy lifting, but what’s here seems to run quite well.
The menu interface feels fluid and snappy, and performance is on par for this chipset. The included ROM set that came with my unit was the standard “00006Contra5” mishmash of poor labeling and organization. If you’re looking for a decent experience, I think the StockOS is going to be fine for most folks, but ditch the included ROMs.
There is not an official download for a clean stock image at this time, but we should continue to see new files for the device pop their heads up and will add them to this guide as appropriate.
ArkOS
ArkOS initial unpacking on the G350
- Download the latest stable ArkOS image marked for the RG351MP from the project GitHub.
- Head over to the RH Discord and download the rk3326-batlexp-linux.dtb file.
- Unpack the downloaded ArkOS archive using the unzipping program of your choice. DO NOT use the downloaded archive to try and rebuild the image directly. This will not work.
- Take the extracted ArkOS image file, and write it to a Micro-SD card. Note: All data on the SD card will be wiped.
- After the image has been successfully written to the card, drop the downloaded rk3326-batlexp-linux.dtb file into the BOOT partition of the freshly written SD card. Confirm you wish to overwrite the existing file.
- Remove the SD card from your PC and insert it into the TF1 slot of the G350.
- Power the device on, and you should be greeted with a screen letting you know ArkOS is initializing.
- Allow the image to unpack (this can take some time). When complete, the system will boot into ArkOS.
- Remove the SD card from the TF1 slot, place it back in the PC reader, and load all your ROMs and BIOS.
- Get nostalgic and get gaming, or place the newly completed device up on the shelf to admire until the next hardware release comes ;-).
PAN4ELEC
Main menu on Pan4Elec
This firmware is a community/fan mod of the popular AmberElec. Originally released for the R36S line, there is already an early preview release for the G350.
- Head over to the Pan4Elec GitHub and download the latest release image for the G350. Make sure you are grabbing the correct PAN4ELEC-RG351MP.aarch64-20250310-G350.img.gz image.
- Unzip the archive with your favorite unzipping program, and extract the .img file. Remember where you put the extracted file, because we’re going to need it in a second.
- Open up Rufus or whichever image writing program you enjoy the most, and write the .img file to a new micro-SD card (this will wipe any information on the existing disk).
- When the .img has finished writing, remove the micro-SD card from the PC and insert it into the TF1 slot on your handheld.
- After a brief moment, you should be greeted by the initializing screen for Pan4Elec as seen in the image below.
- After the installation process is completed, remove the microSD card from your handheld, place it back in your PC reader, and transfer your ROM and BIOS files to the card.
- Get gaming!
MyMinUI
This is an early fork of the MinUI OS
This is a community fork of the popular MinUI CFW. MyMinUI can be installed on the G350 by using the R36S custom image. This is a little more involved, as you will need ArkOS as a pre-requisite. The instructions below are as written in the Readme.txt that comes with the firmware download.
NOTE: This is still an EARLY way to get MinUI running on the device. If you have your heart set, it will work, but you may be better off waiting a little while for a dedicated release to come along for the G350. This is not an image designed for this device, and as such, there may be issues in places with compatibility such as controls and display. If you run into problems, check out the device channel on the RH Discord.
MyMinUI is built over the latest ArkOS image for R36s available here
At first, you must install ArkOS, and follow the installation instructions provided by the ArkOS support page. If you have a Wi-Fi dongle configured now the network to get is working even in MyMinUI.
Once ArkOS is successfully installed, create the folder <EASYROMS>/roms/MyMinUI in the SD card, all Roms/Bios must be saved here. You don’t have to use the rom/bios folder structure of ArkOS.
- In the release file (i.e. MyMinUI-YYYYMMDDb-0-r36s.zip), there is a folder called “r36s”. Copy that folder as is in the <EASYROMS>/roms/MyMinUI/ created the step above.
- Move (or just copy) the file r36s/EnableMyMinUI.sh to the folder <EASYROMS>/ROMs/tools/.
- Copy also the whole release zip file (leave it zipped) in the <EASYROMS>/roms/MyMinUI.
- Insert the SD card in the TF1 slot and boot the device.
- While in EmulationStation go to Options->Tools then run the tool EnableMyMinUI.sh and wait for the device to reboot. The installation process will start showing the screen “installing MyMinUI…”
- Once the installation process is completed press the PWR button to shut down the device, remove the SD card, and insert it in the pc.
- Now You can fill the bios and roms folders with Your files. Put the sdcard in the device and play your games.
Closing
So there you have the options available for the BatleXP G350. The hottest “don’t call me an Anbernic” new budget device on the scene. As this device is still so new, we will continue adding sections to this guide as new options become available.
Still thinking about picking up the G350? You can purchase one from the link below and help us keep the lights on make sure this guide stays updated!
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