Another week, another round of drama ensues in the world of retro handhelds. This time around, sights are set on Anbernic after it was discovered that the official RG34XXSP listing now shows the handheld as only having 1GB RAM, instead of 2GB that it originally launched with.
In an effort to try and clear up any confusion, someone emailed Anbernic’s support team and received the following response:
Thanks to the good ole’ Wayback Machine, it would appear this change was actually made just this week. The January 19 snapshot still shows “LPDDR4 2GB” listed, but yesterday’s snapshot (1/21) just shows “1GB.”
We don’t know how many people have bought the RG34XXSP in the past week, but we have to imagine that not very many people will actually be affected by this unannounced change. That being said, Anbernic should have at least tossed out a social media post explaining the change, making everyone aware.
Ultimately, having 1GB of RAM versus 2GB isn’t going to negatively affect too many of the games that you’re trying to emulate. Instead, it’ll really be those who picked up the RG34XXSP for the improved performance with PortMaster games who might now look elsewhere.
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- January 19 – 2GB
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- January 21 – 1GB
While this is definitely disappointing to see, it’s likely just the latest casualty of the ongoing global RAM shortage that is affecting the tech world in droves. For Anbernic, we have to imagine that its decision came down to either raising the price on the RG34XXSP, or switching over to just 1GB of RAM.
When you consider how much the sub-$100 budget market has grown in the past few months, it made sense for Anbernic to opt for reducing the RAM. It just would have been nice to have an official announcement, as opposed to someone finding out for themselves then sharing it with everyone else.
That being said, it’s probably safe to assume that it’ll be a little while before the 1GB of RAM version actually starts showing up. Third-party retailers likely have plenty of stock of the 2GB version, that will first need to be depleted before switching to the 1GB models.
We’ve reached out to Anbernic for an official comment and will report back when/if one is provided.
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