Anbernic RG CubeXX Review

Buy the Anbernic RG CubeXX here: https://joeysrh.link/ANB_RGCUBEXX

Looking for the Anbernic RG CubeXX Setup Guide? Find it here.

Specs

Price

The Anbernic RG CubeXX has an H700 processor, allowing you to play up to and including Nintendo 64, Sega Dreamcast and PlayStation Portable, but some games from those catalogs will have some issues emulating – so not the entire catalogs are playable and we’re skipping ahead here, but considering this is a 1:1 aspect ratio screen, PSP might not be your favorite.

The price is $67 US dollars before shipping, on Anbernic’s website. $67 is crazy budget king territory for a handheld like this. 

Screen

The main highlight of the Anbernic RG CubeXX is the 1:1 aspect ratio, 720P IPS display. It’s super nice, and I’m glad we’re starting to see 720p and above displays in this price point now. Game Boy, and Game Boy Color look absolutely fantastic on this screen, two highlights for sure. 

The Powkiddy RGB30 and Powkiddy RGB20SX are other 1:1 aspect ratio devices, both with the same screen, so we have a few options now.

Features

There’s WiFi, Bluetooth and HDMI on the Anbernic RG CubeXX, which is awesome to give you a lot of flexibility for connecting wireless controllers, docking this to a TV, retroachievements and other WiFi related activities and so on. It’s feature rich, which is great to see. 

Comfort & Controls

The Anbernic RG CubeXX is pretty comfortable, it has nice protruding grips on the back that contour to your hands, and it gives you the ability to hold it nice and close. I like handhelds that let me use my palms and most of my hands to grip onto them, it’s more comfortable this way and the Anbernic RG CubeXX allows just that. Anbernic is very good at doing comfortable handhelds and it shows here.

The dpad is a Sega style dpad, and I very, very much enjoy using it. It’s very accurate, and allows me to be precise with my movements in games, which is a big bonus. I’d love to see this Sega dpad used more often because it’s definitely one of their better dpads that they’ve done and I’m a big fan here – especially given the positioning of being on top, for older retro games. 

On the buttons side, Anbernic is known for very good buttons and it’s no exception here. Nice travel, not loud, and they do button things. They’re more on the mushy end than clicky, and once again, very accurate – it’s a nice package between the buttons and dpad. 

Speakers & Software

Down firing speakers here, which doesn’t really matter at this price point, front facing, side facing, down facing, just put some speakers. Have a quick listen to the sound. 

Typical speakers in this price range, they’re good enough for the price point and that’s all you really need. 

On the software end, you can run the stock operating system as it arrives, or you can install a custom firmware like muOS, which is what I use personally. It’s currently in testing, not available to the public without paid donations, but muOS allows a lot more than the stock firmware for customization and so on.

However, if you do want to use Bluetooth, I would suggest sticking with the stock firmware, as muOS doesn’t support it yet. 

Performance

On the performance end, the Anbernic RG CubeXX can essentially run up to and including Nintendo 64, Dreamcast and PSP, but some of those libraries – not all, you’ll need some tweaks for them.

The best case scenario for the Anbernic RG CubeXX is Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Pico-8 games, to make use of the 1:1 aspect ratio, which looks great.

You can also change up your NES and SNES to 8:7 to match the screen too, without losing too much, and that helps just adapt your games to the screen. 

That’s not to say that 4:3 content doesn’t look great on here, if you want to do that, just depends on your preference for black bars and if you want to see them or not. 

Game Boy Advance scales quite well surprisingly, and looks gorgeous on this display once again. It’s not shocking to anyone that owns a 1:1 aspect ratio device, but it’s nice here and GBA is my favorite retro console. 

Nintendo DS is fun as you can put screens on top and bottom – some text might be a bit hard to read, but it’s fun to try and find ways to make Nintendo DS playable on devices.

Heading over to Nintendo 64, and some games will just work right away, others might need to change some emulator settings, but you can have a good time emulating Nintendo 64 here.

Those same words are echoed with Dreamcast, albeit you’re using more frameskip to get to a playable framerate, but that’s not a big issue to a lot of people so enjoy some Dreamcast.

My Thoughts

I just don’t think there’s a better device at this point than the Anbernic RG CubeXX. It truly is an emulation beast, and a budget king. A huge benefit too, is it ships with cardinal snapping on the sticks with the stock firmware, which means they sort of act like dpads and snap to the cardinal directions, but that’s adjusted on muOS and custom firmware to be like normal sticks. If you really want that feature, then stick with stock and enjoy it. It’s great that Anbernic gives us options like this. 

There’s also a more expensive, RG Cube that runs Android and is more powerful, if you like the design, but want something that can play a lot more. Anbernic really thought of everything and includes something for everyone.

Wrap Up

Overall, this is a great device, which isn’t a shock as all of Anbernic’s devices are pretty great. This is the 8th h700 processor device from them, so you have a lot to choose from if you like the performance, but not the design. Just pick whatever you want and have fun – we are in a great spot in this hobby with these devices and I love showing them off.

At $68 US dollars, this is a no brainer, and if you can get it even cheaper, then that’s awesome. Enjoy your handheld.