This 4:3 device made me rethink what I actually want from a gaming handheld

When I first got into modern emulation handhelds, I always went for horizontal models with a widescreen aspect ratio. Maybe it was just what I came to expect after being conditioned by the PSP and Nintendo Switch, but the squat screens found on most ANBERNIC devices just didn’t appeal to me.

That was, until I reviewed the ANBERNIC RG Slide. That little 4:3 120hz display absolutely blew me away, and although ultimately I was slightly disappointed by the weaker chipset, I knew it was only a matter of time until the company paired it with a little more power.

Fast forward to last week, when I finally got to test the RG 477M. This little metal handheld has exactly what it takes not just to play my favorite retro games, but to make them look better than ever.

Before I get to any of that, I have to talk about the device itself. The M at the end of the name means that it has a metal chassis, in this case an aluminum alloy, which gives it a premium feel. The edges are also nice and rounded, although there is a slight lip where the front and back meet the sides.

The RG 477M has a symmetrical stick layout, which is ideal for the D-pad centric retro games work best on this device. The sticks themselves are a little low on the frame but still feel great, with a wide range of motion. They’re also Hall effect so stick drift should never be an issue.

The D-pad is the real star here, and it’s a joy to use. It feels soft but responsive, and I didn’t experience any false diagonals in testing. ANBERNIC has made dozens of handhelds over the years, and at this point it really knows how to make a D-pad.

The buttons are soft and very quiet, and again they’re great to use. The in-line shoulder buttons are another matter. They use the loudest microswitches I’ve ever tested in a handheld, and I wish they were just slightly longer. My fingers naturally rest on the R2 and L2 buttons, so I had to adjust my grip to reach the R1 and L1 buttons that are more commonly used in retro games.

Apart from that, the bottom-firing stereo speakers are fine, and there’s a headphone jack next to the charging port and microSD card slot on the bottom. There are also two rubber strips on the back for a little extra grip, although they’re located a little too close to the sides to do much. Again, my fingers rested just a little bit too far in, and I don’t have particularly large hands.

I should also note that there’s a full silicone case included in the box, but I didn’t end up using it much. I always use cases on my phones, but never on my handhelds. The low danger of drops just isn’t worth the tradeoff, since you lose that premium metal feeling of the naked device.

I will also say that the colors are not great. My favorite color is brown (I know), but the Chocolate Bronze colorway I tested just didn’t do it for me. It looks better than the silver model based on pictures I’ve seen, but neither is particularly attractive. I hope ANBERNIC puts out a plastic version with a few more color options (and a lower price) in the future.

Still, that metal build gives it a nice heft. It weights in at 355g, which isn’t overly heavy but it’s certainly more than similarly sized handhelds. I never felt tired after long gaming sessions, which I can’t say about larger handhelds, even if they only weigh a little bit more.

But it isn’t the physical design of the RG 477M that makes it so great for retro games. It’s the 4.7-inch 120Hz screen.

I’m now a firm believer that 4:3 is the ideal aspect ratio for retro gaming handhelds, and the resolution of this screen is perfect. It allows for pixel-perfect 4x upscaling for the PlayStation and Nintendo 64 with no black bars. Older NES and Genesis games are also pixel-perfect at 4x, although there are small black bars.

In fact, every retro home console looks incredible on this screen. It’s not as ideal for handheld systems like the Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, or PSP, but it’s still more than servicable. PSP is the only console I wouldn’t play on this because of the large black bars, but there are plenty of 16:9 handhelds to choose from if that’s what you’re after. And most of them are cheaper than the RG 477M.

Then there’s the fact that it’s 120Hz. At first it might seem like this is useless for retro games, since none of them ran above 30 or 60 fps back in the day. However, it enables a unique feature called black frame insertion. This adds a black frame between rendered frames, which helps smooth out animations on modern displays.

It takes a few tweaks in settings (check out the excellent video from Retro Game Corps for more detail), but it looks spectacular. You’ll need to crank up screen brightness once you turn it on, but the RG 477M’s panel is plenty bright to compensate.

If you’re not someone who likes tweaking settings, the good news is that the RG 477M comes mostly pre-configured right out of the box. Emulators for a wide variety of systems were installed and configured, and the RG Launcher is surprisingly solid. I wouldn’t trade it for my favorite, ES DE, but it did make it so that all I needed to do was load up my ROMs and press play.

Well, sort of. Many of the pre-installed emulators were out of date or just worse than alternatives. For example, it has AetherSX2 instead of NetherSX2. The pre-configured version of RetroArch was also in Chinese, which was a bit of a hassle to swap back. I suspect this was because it was a review unit, so hopefully retail units don’t have the same issue. In the end, I reinstalled RetroArch entirely, throwing out each core’s pre-configured settings with the bath water.

I won’t go too deep into it here, but ANBERNIC has pre-loaded its unique AI software, which can provide on-screen translations or help solve puzzles at the push of a button. I’m still testing this feature since it’s capable of so many different things, but honestly you can pretend it doesn’t exist and you won’t be missing out on much when it comes to retro games.

Of course, a 120Hz screen is only useful if the device is powerful enough to push all those frames, which was an issue with the RG Slide. The MediaTek Dimensity 8300 found in the RG 477M is a completely different story. This is the second time that ANBERNIC has used this chipset, with the first being the larger RG 577, and it seems to be a great fit.

We ran the RG 477M through our standard suite of benchmarks, and I’ve included the results below. I’ve compared them to devices around the same price range, including the Retroid Pocket Flip 2 (Snapdragon 865) and ANBERNIC’s own RG Slide (Unisoc T820).

Unsurprisingly, the newer SoC in the RG 477M blew the rest out of the water. It’s still no where near as powerful as more expensive handhelds like the AYANEO Pocket ACE or the AYN Odin 2 lineup, but the extra power really helps when emulating anything up to and including PS2 and GameCube.

On the GPU side, results were significantly better overall, but with a major asterisk. The stress tests we use essentially average the results of 20 loops run back to back, which more or less simulates a long gaming session. However, it also measures the difference between the highest and lowest scores, which it calls stability. And the stability score here was terrible.

Stability scores for the three stress different tests I ran averaged around 50-60%. Compared to the 90-99% I’ve seen on literally every other handheld I’ve tested, including ANBERNIC devices like the RG Slide, this is slightly concerning. I’m not sure whether to chalk it up to drivers or pre-release software, but the good news is that even the lowest scores are well above similarly-priced handhelds.

The other good news here is thermal performance. Temperatures never went above 36 degrees Celcius, and the metal body never felt hot to the touch. Warm, sure, but never hot. My only complaint is that the fan can get pretty loud under stress, and it has a fairly annoying high-pitched sound. Headphones solved this problem in a jiffy.

In any case, the crazy loud shoulder buttons already disqualify this for playing in bed next to your spouse.

In terms of emulation performance, everything I tested was excellent. It was able to upscale everything up to and including PS2 games without breaking a sweat. I wouldn’t recommend this handheld for anything above that, especially Nintendo Switch emulation. The chipset might be powerful enough, but the drivers just aren’t there.

PC emulation is a similar story, although there may be light on the horizon. The team behind GameHub is working on improving drivers for Mali GPUs, although it’s still too early to see significant results. Hopefully in the next few months MediaTek and even Tensor SoCs see significantly better driver support, but it’s worth keeping an eye on.

As for Android games, the RG 477M ran everything I tested with ease. There are a few games that didn’t run, but only because the chipset wasn’t supported. One of those games was Balatro, which would have been glorious on this device.

The RG 477M has a 5,300mAh battery, which isn’t huge but gets the job done. Setting the screen to the maximum 120Hz refresh rate does drain it faster, but I still got a good seven to ten hours of game time in retro games. PS2 games averaged three to four hours. That’s not going to win any awards, but it’s still solid for a device this size.

Thankfully, it also tops off fairly quickly when it runs out of juice. It has a maximum charge speed of 27W, and in my testing it charged from 20% to 100% in about 90 minutes. Typically I only charge these handhelds to 90%, but in this case I forgot. Hopefully my battery forgives me.

So far this console feels like a slam dunk for ANBERNIC, but I still haven’t mentioned the biggest drawback, and that’s the price. Before shipping, the RG 477M starts at $239.99 for the 8+128GB version, jumping up to $289.99 for the 12+256GB version that I tested. The latter is the same price as the base model of the AYN Odin 2 ($299 at Manufacturer site), which has a far more powerful (and compatible) Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset.

It’s also more expensive than the Retroid Flip 2 ($229 at Manufacturer site) I compared it to earlier, although there it’s easier to see the added value. It won’t work as well for frontier emulation like Nintendo Switch or PS3 due to drivers, but for the retro games this thing handles best, the aspect ratio and refresh rate do make a difference, even if it isn’t OLED.

The other alternatives to the RG 477M mostly come from ANBERNIC itself. The RG Slide ($189.99 at Manufacturer site) is one, and although it doesn’t have enough power to truly take advantage of this screen, it does have a cool sliding mechanism that feels incredible to use.

ANBERNIC has plenty of other 4:3 consoles, like the RG 406H. That one doesn’t have the power or the refresh rate of the RG 477M, but it’s much cheaper. It also drops the metal build for a plastic one. Personally, I hope ANBERNIC releases a plastic version of the RG 477M later this year at a slightly lower price. The metal build is the only thing I would be willing to give up in order to hit a lower pricepoint.

But the truth is that the RG 477M is currently in a class of its own. After just one week, I find myself turning to this device to emulate retro home consoles rather than much more expensive (and more powerful) widescreen devices. Flipping on my favorite CRT shaders and playing without black bars makes it feel extremely cozy, like I’m playing on the original hardware. If that’s what you’re after, it’s worth the premium.

There is a bit of good news if you act quick. The RG 477M just went on sale today, and for the first 72 hours both models are discounted by $20. The cheaper model’s 8GB of RAM is more than enough for what I used this for, and at $219.99, it’s a much easier sell. ANBERNIC handhelds typically get steep discounts later in their lifecycles, but I doubt you’ll be able to beat that price for another six months or more.