#RG353M

123 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

mint monolith
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"The M stands for Premium"

🔷 The Anbernic RG 353M is a premium horizontal handheld in the 4th generation of Flagship handhelds from Anbernic

Released: June 2022

📊 Specifications:

  • Processor: RK3566 Quad-Core 64 bit Cortex-A55, Main frequency 1.8GHz
  • Memory: LPDDR4 2GB
  • Display: 3.5-inch IPS full viewing angle, zero distance OCA full fit/ 640*480, multi-touch
  • Battery: Polymer lithium battery 3500 mAh
  • Storage: 32GB high-speed eMMC 5.1, Linux 16GB TF
  • Connectivity: 2.4/5G WIFI 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.2

📌 Additional Information

This device is a dual boot device capable of Android and Linux based operating systems

Software Available:
Rocknix: https://rocknix.org/devices/anbernic/rg353pmvvs/
ArkOS: https://github.com/christianhaitian/arkos/wiki#download-links

✅ Reviews:

💵 Where to buy

https://rh-go.link/RG353M

Official Release Price: $145.99 USD

📸 Images

RG353M.png
mint monolith
prisma oriole
prisma oriole
lone rock
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I miss the old 353 channel

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If it's device by device, maybe add RG353P and PS?

granite copper
mint monolith
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RG353M

wide fiber
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nobody else has issues with GammaOS core not reading SD Card storage????

crude lance
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Works fine for me. 👍

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And I share the card with UnofficialOS.

languid venture
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Has anyone ever replaced the battery in this thing? Mine just started dying randomly even when the firmware reports like 80% full.

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I was wondering if anyone had a link to a battery but I can go googlin

granite copper
languid venture
languid venture
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Oh you know I havent tried any of these fixes that are on github I thought it was just a garbage anbernic battery

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I will try some of these things

granite copper
wide fiber
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@granite copper should we just put that as a just in case, or only if we're seeing the issue?

languid venture
languid venture
fickle lichen
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How are the light bleeds on your devices. Mine is pretty noticeable and when using touchscreen it’s easy to notice the pressure on the screen

crimson latch
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Nothing

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Been great

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I use it mainly on GBA and ds games, didn't notice anything yet

fickle lichen
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What is the normal behavior for charging on this device? I have Arkos installed and other than orange light that I see is there no way to check progress? Also when I shut down while plugged in no lights come up

lone rock
fickle lichen
tiny bone
inner coral
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Q: What is considered to be the best aftermarket firmware for this device these days? Or would I be better off just running apps from inside Android for emulation?

Oh, JelOS is known as ROCKNIX now?

silver pelican
inner coral
silver pelican
hollow pollen
idle viper
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Is there a way to see what's running on this device in real time?

It just seems to drain and drain.. like a % every couple minutes, just sitting in the menu/selection screen

wide fiber
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That would be the display. The display is draining the battery

idle viper
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Well I haven't changed the display and it didn't do that before

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Not this fast

gleaming burrow
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I just replaced the battery on my 353m because the battery life was draining crazy fast. However it continues to drain fast with the new battery. So I removed the micro SD card and booted from Android. It still drains fast. It did not do this when the unit was new. Since it isn't the battery or the OS or the SD card, I have to assume the unit is defective. Unless anyone has an idea I think it's time to replace with a new handheld.

granite copper
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Do you have one of those magnetic charging connectors plugged into the charging port?

lunar ginkgo
granite copper
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They cause all kinds of weird issues

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On these devices.

lunar ginkgo
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Noted. Thank you for your service

hollow pollen
gleaming burrow
dark bloom
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Just joined this discord as I came across an RG 353m in the wild.

Im currently attempting to boot it to ArkOS, and after following the guide, am running into the "infamous" black screen issue.

Searching the github for issues I came across both of the fixes, and tried them both. The first DTB file didnt make any difference, screen was still black.

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The second updated DTB made the screen appear as though it was broken, so i quickly shutdown the device and reverted to the original dtb.

I can tell the device is booting ArkOS as it successfully ran the firstboot sh file, expanding the ntfs partition properly and everything.

My question is as follows, if i need to manually edit the DTS file, does anyone have tips on the best way to do this, without damaging an otherwise fully functioning device?

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I should add, it boots to android just fine, battery isnt dying super fast, audio is fully working, all buttons functional, and runs roms transferred to it with MTP connected to my win 11 pc.

void elk
dark bloom
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Appreciate your response!

I got sent down that rabbit hole because someone else had written about needing the dtb file from the rg353v I think it was, to get their rg353m to boot it due to the V2 screen

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However, I was helped out by the kind souls on the UnofficialOS discord, and it turns out the issue was actually AlexsCodingPlayground USB Image tool!

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Not sure if it has an issue with my USB controller chipset, or the adapter I used or the version of windows I'm on, whatever the case may be it wasn't fully imaging the SD correctly.

Switching to win32diskimager fixed the issue, I was tripped up by the screen behaving like it did for others with a completely separate issue, hence my assumption regarding the DTB needing to be edited

pastel talon
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Has anyone successfully fitted a new battery to thier 353m? Just want to get an idea of the process

forest jay
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Bringing back the nostalgia! What have yall been playing on the 353?

granite copper
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UFO50 via PortMaster
Super Uno for snes

forest jay
forest jay
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Well i guess my battery is finally pulling on its last strings. Has anyone bought a replacement that they liked?

mighty gulch
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finally got around to replacing arkos with darkos, its great. jaguar performance is actually awesome, wasnt expecting it to be that playable

granite copper
mighty gulch
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yeah im really impressed with it. huge leap forward from where jag emulation was before

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good work bringing that in! was playing tempest 2000 and missile command 3d and both ran great

granite copper
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tempest 2000 had me for awhile

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i need to checkout more games

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nba jam te is surprisingly good on jaguar as well

mighty gulch
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yeah its a pretty small library without that many games really worth playing. lots of stuff with better versions on other consoles (like rayman) but there's a few gems. i like the low poly early 3d vibe

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super burnout is a pretty solid superscaler type racing game.

hollow pollen
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whats the benefit of Darkos to arkos

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@granite copper how is dARKOS better than ARKOS

granite copper
grand thicket
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Hey guys is this device still worth getting?

hollow pollen
grand thicket
hollow pollen
hot hinge
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Rk3566 with 2gb ddr4 ram

It's Ps1 & Under, Dual Boots with Gamma OS

DC/PsP/N64/Saturn is all Hit or Miss depending on CFW of Choice for the Linux side. Just do not expect full libraries of any of them

hollow pollen
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It can play a good set of portmaster games. Also it can play upto ps1 games and some nds

hot hinge
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NDS is great because it has a Touch Screen, but its also 3.5" and best in Single Screen mode. So get used to Screen Swapping

mighty gulch
rotund thicket
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Anyone having issues with dArkOS? Sometimes when I power on the device, it just hangs with the dArkOS logo on the screen. I have to power cycle to fix it. Additionally, it has frozen a few times. Once it was while I was scrolling through my games and another while loading games. Im new to this but I didnt expect so many hang ups having only owned this device for 12 hours.

rotund thicket
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Seems roughly 50% of the time when I power on the device, I have to power cycle because it gets stuck with the dArkOS logo displayed during boot.

granite copper
rotund thicket
granite copper
# rotund thicket SanDisk Ultra 128GB

Ok. Some devices seem to hang with the older kernel currently in use in the latest available build of dArkOS. I have a build that uses a newer kernel that brings performance improvements to emulators with support for Vulkan and hardware video acceleration that hopefully addresses this edge case issue as well. It would be helpful if you could help test and see if it resolves the lock ups for you.

rotund thicket
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How can I test? Im open to it. Currently on a single SD card until the other SD cards come in. I know SanDisk is top notch but probably switching the OS to a 64 GB PNY Elite-X.

granite copper
rotund thicket
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Yeah, I got the PNYs cheap. All my SanDisks are 128GB sadly. Probably should get a better SD card but the guides said PNY aren't THAT bad. Couldn't turn down 3x 64GB for $28. Maybe I can find a 33GB SanDisk that wont make me upset to hit the checkout button.

rotund thicket
granite copper
# rotund thicket I'm new to retro handhelds but i come from a cybersecurity background and love t...

I also recommend you try some other solutions such as Unofficial OS. It's also Emulationstation based and has alot of feature integrations into Emulationstation so the configuration experience feels more consistent if that's important for you. There's also ROCKNIX which is based on the mainline linux kernel and is close to uOS in configuration experience. Just be aware that using ROCKNIX and attempting to go to other non mainline linux solutions will require you to open the device and unplug the battery due to power management differences

rotund thicket
# granite copper I also recommend you try some other solutions such as Unofficial OS. It's also ...

I appreciate the information. I didnt research much into which OS utilizd on this device but saw dArkOS was a solid choice. Unclear if my situation is unique or not. It is not a huge deal breaker if 50% of the time when I boot up, I just have to power cycle or reset the device. Resetting doesnt always work on the first attempt though. People have talked about the battery drain in sleep mode which is why Ive been powering down the device when not in use. I will say that in the small instances ive tested, it seems to be a greater chance of it hanging if I func + power off vs going through the menu and shutting the device off from there. Limited testing pool though.

granite copper
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You can download the first file which is just the 8gb image or download the 2 7zip files into the same folder and use 7zip to extract just one of them and flash using usb it or rufus. Balena Etcher is not recommended

hollow pollen
hollow pollen
granite copper
granite copper
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You only need to open and decompress one of the files using 7zip

hollow pollen
granite copper
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My bad

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Well, since you have the uncompressed file

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Just flash that

hollow pollen
granite copper
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Didn't realize I uploaded the wrong files. Was a long day yesterday

hollow pollen
rotund thicket
rotund thicket
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Ok so ive been playing this a solid amount and wanted to give my initial thoughts, ask some questions, and see what everyone think.

This is my first retro handheld but im not new to handhelds in general. I love how small and premium this device feels but I wonder if the metal housing is not what im looking for.

Does anyone find this device to be "slippery" to hold?

I was warned about the heat of this device but I still went for it. Its a little annoying but nothing too drastic.

Are the buttons hard or is it just me? Is it because of the metal housing? I dont feel like im pressing hard but after 30 mins to an hour of gameplay, my thumbs are hurting. I mean...im not THAT old but maybe its like playing guitar and I just need to rebuild my "gamer calluses". Lol

Is there a way to choose which N64 emulator to utilize for each game? I know I can manually select one but seems to be on a global scale. Then to that point, I cant figure out how to change controls or do save states. I was hoping to see better performance playing N64 games however maybe there are settings or a certain emulator im supposed to be using.

Overall im pretty satisfied with the device so far. Using both analog sticks and bumpers is not possible by a normal human IMO. I AM having that "grass is greener" feeling and wondering if maybe a gameboy like design was what I should have went with. Maybe a Ambernic RG40XXV or TrimUI Brick.

granite copper
# rotund thicket Ok so ive been playing this a solid amount and wanted to give my initial thought...

I haven't found this device to feel slippery on my end. I wouldn't be surprised though given the only non smooth surface there are the 2 bumpers on the back of the device.
Heat can be a problem with the device especially with playing systems that are harder to emulate for the chipset such as N64, PSP, Dreamcast, etc. PSX and below should be easy and low heat generating. In dArkOS you can try undervolting to reduce the heat generation provided your device stays stable. You can access that by pressing the Start button>Advanced>CPU Undervolt.

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The buttons themselves are not hard but the metal casing doesn't have any give which makes long gaming sessions tougher

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Plastic has a little give which makes longer gaming sessions more comfortable

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You can change the N64 emulator to use on a per game level as well. While hovering of the game, just press select>Edit the Game's Metadata

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Then choose the emulator and core you prefer. If using the standalone mupen64 emulator, changing the controls is not an easy process but it is possible. Savestates are set to default to select+r1 to savestate and select+l1 to loadstate.

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A vertical unit will probably be less comfortable for long term gaming expecially if you're using games that make heavy usage of the shoulder and trigger buttons. If anything, you probably want a bigger horizontal system

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If pocketability/portability is not a big need for your use case, I would look at a horizontal 5 inch screened device or bigger

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If you don't mind Android, there are plenty of options there such as the Retroid Pocket 4 or newer devices

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If you prefer to stick with a linux based handheld, there are some options there but if you have a preferred CFW, that will limit what devices you can choose from

rotund thicket
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I appreciate all the info! Retroid Pocket 4 looks pretty decent but it is also pretty expensive. Maybe the Anbernic CubeXX might be something more reasonable. Im not ready to give up on the 353M that easily though.

lone rock
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If you don't mind the weird format, the 353P is pretty comfortable

granite copper
# rotund thicket I appreciate all the info! Retroid Pocket 4 looks pretty decent but it is also ...

CubeXX is cool but the screen is designed for specific use cases like gameboy games. It's 1:1. I had a rg cube (android version) and I liked it but other content I wanted o play on the unit didn't look so great on the screen. Still a neat device. I have an Ayn Thor I really like but I still love this 353m because it's a good compromise of pocketability, performance for game systems I want to play on it, and a portable media player since I can load Kodi on it and play my content on it via hdmi to a tv and an external keyboard. Been a great replacement for a raspberry pi for me especially since we now have hardware based video decoding available.

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If you're interested in a bigger screen, you can also check out the rg503. You should be able to pick that up cheap and it has oled. Same chipset as the 353m but just half the memory at just 1GB of ram. Still plenty for the systems that you can reasonably emulate on the system. Works pretty well for PSP using Vulkan

mighty gulch
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yeah I would definitely recommend a bigger, more ergonomic horizontal rather than a vertical if you're looking for something comfier for longer sessions. there's lots of good options at various pricepoints but most are android not linux

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i dont really mind twin stick/shoulder games on 353m but it might depend how you hold the device? im usually spidering my hands and resting the device on my ring fingers or pinkies. its definitely not great to use the sticks if you're holding your palms against the device