Buy ANBERNIC RG552 – The Most Powerful Retro Gaming Console

The ANBERNIC RG552 is a portable console to emulate your favorite games from the 80s and 90s, but it also has enough power to run Android games and versatility that we do not see every day in this class of devices, such as the possibility of boot Linux Batocera to expand its emulation possibilities.  If you are interested in getting to know it in detail, then you are welcome, and if you were looking for a simpler and cheaper portable console, then we recommend the popular Anbernic RG351P. 

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Technical specifications of the Anbernic RG552 

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Design

We can safely say that the Anbernic RG552 sports a similar design to the Nintendo Switch Lite, but smaller. It has size dimensions of 20 x 8.5 x 2 cm and weighs approximately 350 grams. The manufacturing material used is ABS plastic, but it appears to be metallic and is available in two color presentations: gray and black.  If we detail it well, we will find a 5.36-inch IPS screen, which we will talk about later. On the left, we can find the Select button, a classic directional pad, and the Left Analog Stick, which, by the way, can be clicked. On the right are the HOME button, four buttons (B, Y, A, X), and the right analog stick. 

Along the top are the left and right shoulder and trigger buttons next to each other. Additionally, here we come across a mini HDMI port, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and two USB Type-C ports; one is for charging the device and the other is for connecting peripherals. 

At the bottom are two speakers on each side and two Micro SD card slots, the left one can be used for Linux OS card and the second one for 64GB storage. On the back are two-finger grip pads and the fan intake area. The latter is very quiet and hardly noticeable when it is working at full power. 

Screen 

The screen is, for the most part, a great success. This is a 5.36-inch IPS panel with a resolution of 1,920 x 1,152 pixels and a 5:3 aspect ratio. Picture quality is to be commended thanks to its sharpness, brightness level, and viewing angles, but the Unusual aspect ratio can cause black bars in emulators and games that do not support wide image format. 

What can the Anbernic RG552 Run? 

Well, considering that it has a RockChip RK3399 6-core 1.8Ghz chip and a Mali T860 GPU along with 4GB of RAM, you can expect decent performance in many games, but it is not a performance that is good or consistent enough to be praised. In this sense, playing 8-bit and 16-bit titles is a joke for the Anbernic RG552, but as we make generational advances, things are no longer perfect. 

In this sense, PSone titles run great, but if we go to N64 the performance is variable depending on the title. Some titles will run at 60PFS, but in more intense ones like Rampage or Road Rash the frames per second drop to 40-30FPS, so it is recommended to activate frame skipping (Frame Skipping) to achieve a smooth speed. 

The Dreamcast emulation seems to be perfect no matter if we use Android OS or Linux, maintaining a stable 60fps in most titles. However, if you change the aspect ratio to 16:9 in the emulator settings, the image will look stretched, so it’s best to leave it at 4:3 with black bars. 

When it comes to PSP the results vary a lot. On Android and using the Vulkan API you can maintain 60FPS in easy-to emulate games like Tekken 6, but in more difficult ones like God of War: Chains of Olympus it is impossible to reach even 40FPS. Again, we recommend turning frameskip on for playable, though not optimal, results. 

Technically this console can run Wii and GameCube games thanks to the presence of Dolphin, but the results are too poor to recommend the experience. 

Operating Systems 

There are two operating systems on the RG552. Android 7.1 is built into the internal storage and boots without the Micro-SD card. The Linux operating system can be booted with the 16GB Micro-SD card in the first SD card slot.  Both Android and Linux come with emulators installed and everything you need to start playing right away. In the case of Linux, it is the Batocera distribution, which is very popular among retro gamers. However, many users report significantly lower performance emulating on Linux than on Android. 

That said, Android also has a custom skin and launcher to make the emulation experience easier, but it also has everything we’d expect from an Android phone, like the Google Play Store to install more apps or maybe native Android games. We even found an application that allows us to transmit our PCs to the Anbernic RG552 via Wi-Fi, but beware that it only works with Nvidia graphics. 

However, it is our duty to warn that the first units of the Anbernic RG552 have software problems, which were later corrected via firmware update, including the absence of the Play Store on Android and problems using the right Joystick on Linux. If by chance your unit has any of these problems, you must update the software following the manufacturer’s instructions found at this link.  

Battery & Other Features 

The battery has a range of 6 hours of continuous gaming and, to our surprise, it supports 30W fast charging via USB type C. 

To put the cherry on the cake, there is an HDMI output that we can use to project the image on a TV or monitor and play big. 

Availability and price of the Anbernic RG552

Anbernic RG552 is available for purchase at Amazon for a good price, in the same way, we got it for sale at Banggood, Geekbuying, and buying it from AliExpress is also possible.