Anbernic RG556 Better than Retroid Pocket 4 Game System?
Yo! What’s up? Just got some fresh deets, on the latest handheld console drop by Anbernic. Here’s the lowdown so far.
New Year, New Vibes
The Anbernic RG556 is a total departure from their usual style. It’s got sick curved grips and legit shoulder and trigger buttons, giving it more of an AYN Odin Pro vibe than their previous handhelds. Peep the pics and vids, and you’ll notice some lit LED lighting around the analog sticks (maybe you’re thinking that they are similar to AYN Odin devices? 😏 Nah).
As for the colors, I know there’s gonna be a transparent blue model (shown below) and a white one, presumably as a testing version intended for programming as a dev-kit, and not intended for sale. I’m guessing there’ll be at least one black model and a couple other rad colors, based on their past releases.
Anbernic RG556 Tech Specs
Based on its name, I’m expecting a 5.5-inch touchscreen, rumored to be an OLED panel. Powering this bad boy is a UniSoc T820 chipset. It’s the upgrade to the well-known T618 SoC, which was used in dope retro gaming handhelds like RG405V, RG505, Retroid Pocket Flip and 3 Plus version.
It’s got an octa-core CPU with three clusters; 1x ARM Cortex-A76 at 2.7GHz, 3x A76 at 2.3GHz, and a low-power core of 4x ARM Cortex-A55 at 2.1GHz. The GPU is an ARM Mali-G57 MC4 with four cores at 850MHz.
The Unisoc T820 supports up to LPDDR4-4X, and I’m expecting the Anbernic RG556 to pack at least 8GB of RAM. And for storage, I’m looking at a minimum of 128GB internal memory with a microSD card slot.
Expected Performance
When it comes to performance, I can compare it to the MediaTek Dimensity 1100, which has similar scores in some benchmarks, although the Dimensity edges out the Unisoc by 10% in certain cases.
I recently reviewed both the Retroid Pocket 4 PRO and Base models, which rocks this chip and scored major points in benchmarks. For all the deets, peep our full review of the Retroid Pocket 4 systems.
As for gaming and emulation, I’m expecting it to hold up just as well as the RP4 Pro device. It can handle games up to the PlayStation Classic and Dreamcast era without breaking a sweat.
For PlayStation 2, instead, most games should run at full speed, and you can even crank up the graphics on some for extra eye candy. Emulators like Citra might have some shader cache hiccups, but once you get into the game, it’ll smooth out.
Vita3K emulator should have some playable games, maybe with a bit of shader cache lag, but overall good to go. And for the Yuzu emulator, we should be able to play some games that don’t demand too much. But don’t expect first-party games to run like a dream, ya feel me?
Expected Release Date and Price
No official release date for the Anbernic RG556 yet, but with Chinese New Year coming up, I’m thinking Anbernic will drop it in early March 2024. Price-wise, it hasn’t been announced, but I’m expecting it to compete with the Retroid Pocket 4 PRO model.
The Anbernic RG556 is shaping up to be a rad handheld that brings a fresh twist to the usual Anbernic game. But we’ll have to wait for the full review and benchmarks once we get our hands on it. Stay tuned, homies! 💪😀🕹️
Reference
- Anbernic RG556 Game Console Updated (In-depth Review)
