Fresh off the heels of the MagicX processor scandal, another controversy has hit our once peaceful tinkering community: Sellers on AliExpress, some with trusted community track records, are selling K36 clone internals masked as genuine (if there is such a thing) R36S consoles.
These misrepresented devices are leaving some folks, especially newbies to the space, feeling deceived and frustrated as they are forced to either accept that they were swindled or deal with the massive headache of returning something to China. We as a community are left not knowing who to trust and having to attempt our own constant vigilance that we’re being sold what we’re told.
Some Background
For anyone who hasn’t been following along with this story, let’s cover the broad strokes. The Game Console R36S is a popular Anbernic 353V clone that has built up a good community reputation and level of support for its solid performance at a super-budget price point that’s often under $30.
It’s a great option for folks who are looking to dip their toes into the hobby pool without a large financial commitment, or as a ready-to-go (it ships with ArkOS) gift for a casual gamer to relive some memories. These factors combined to make it massively popular and the reason you see it advertised on just about every marketplace and social media platform online. Hype may be biggest around hefty spec’d portable PCs, but the R36 ships units.
LtR: R36 v1, R36 revision #?, the K36, and various Ban cheeses
This success of course leads to even more copycats coming along and clone the clone. Enter the K36, which saw release both in an unbranded form and under the Kinhank banner. As I noted in the review, this new copycat sports the same RK3326 processor as the R36, and appears the same on paper, but shipped with a skinned version of EmuElec made to resemble ArkOS.
Anyone who had any time with the Game Console R36S could immediately tell that the K36 performance was not up to snuff. I lack the technical knowledge to comment, but needless to say, something on the K36 board is different enough that devs have been unable to squeeze the same type of performance seen on the R36, let alone install the same CFW.
A (Plastic) Shell Game
Any savvy consumer knows that they can’t buy a 16TB SSD drive as advertised on AliExpress for $8 or whatever too-good-to-be-true price may be listed. Manipulated controller firmware allows the user’s PC to report back the storage as advertised, when in reality all they had was a 16GB micro-SD card in a plastic shell. Technically, they have sold you a working hard drive that reports the storage they claim. So in their eyes, it’s not fraud.
L: Real R: Emuelec Clone. Note the italic X button on the fake.
As can be seen in the above picture, some of the new clone devices are nearly identical, save for a giveaway on the X buttons of the devices where the button looks to be in an italic font. Other clone examples without this giveaway have also appeared. This is a shame not just for enthusiasts in the community, but for scores of newcomers who may have become interested in the hobby and have now been left with a sour taste in their mouths. If even trusted and recommended marketplace sellers are delivering misrepresented products, maybe they won’t bother trying their luck again. This scam to turn a quick buck only hurts profits for everyone in the space in the long run.
This is the same type of thinking going on with the R36 clones. It’s a classic bait-and-switch scam to pass off inferior technology and increase profit margins. Where this especially hurts in this instance is that stores that have been proven and trusted suppliers in the past seem to have been affected by this fake supply as well. Whether this is intentional is impossible to determine, but it at least appears that many sellers were under the impression they were just refreshing their same supply of consoles.
The Current Situation
*Update* – It seems as though there are models going out that have the X button corrected, as well as units that are falsely labeled with an ArkOS distro. You can see examples below of the creators sneakily trying to show the system as legit to an unknowing glance. There are also reports of systems without the noticeably different X button being clones as well. We will continue to try and monitor the insanity as it will no doubt continue to unfold.
Expectation vs Reality – pic c/o AeolusUX
A good resource to try and keep up with the latest in this developing saga is the R36 Community Wiki. Keep an eye here to track any updates regarding confirmed bad units from sellers and who to go with as a safer bet. There is also a great tool available that lets you upload a system file and determine the batch of R36 you have in your hands.
Vendor track records right now
There were first mumblings on the /r/SBCGaming Reddit. Then, users on the RH Discord R36 channel began coming in asking if there was something wrong with their devices, as they were having problems following installation guides for the device and ArkOS. As questions were asked, it quickly became clear that these devices were not as advertised. As it stands at the moment, there are community efforts being made to see what improvements can be implemented to try and salvage the device as is, but from my view, it looks unlikely that it will ever match the device it was cloning.
The only firmware option at the time of writing is for users to install K36 Clean Image. This sadly won’t improve performance, but it will let you use a nicer SD card and load your own ROMs collection. There hasn’t been any indication of an industry mea culpa and returns are always a minefield, so you might just be best off accepting the device for what it is (reasonably capable) and taking the loss.
What Do We Do Now
The situations with the R36/K36 debacle and the MagicX won’t be the last time things like this happen, but I’m hopeful that the market dealers recognize the need for quality assurance if they’re to continue to be successful and trusted vendors.
The bottom line always speaks loudest. In an ideal world, these incidents would ripple out in the industry enough to thwart any future attempts at subversion, but it’s just not likely that will happen. As the popularity of the hobby explodes, so does the number of bad-faith actors looking to cash in.
The best advice I can give to you as the consumer is to do your due diligence to the best of your ability and adopt a wait-and-see approach unless you’re willing to take the risks. If you chase the latest device hype in this space, you are committing to the unknown. Better to let us here at RH absorb the hits to the wallet and let you know when there’s something to watch out for.
There is a need for increased transparency between the consumers, sellers, and the actual companies producing these devices. Whether that will ever happen is anyone’s guess, but in the meantime, just do your due diligence, ask questions, and keep your fingers crossed you get a good one in the mailbox.
Have you had a weird experience with the R36S or other clone consoles? Let us know in the comments below, and chat with us in our Discord!
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