Emulation Handhelds Sorted by Chip, Not by Brand

There are a ridiculous number of little emulation handhelds now, and a new one seems to land every few weeks. The model names don't help: RG35XX, RG40XX, RG406, RG556, Mini Plus, Pocket 4, Smart Pro. It all starts to blur.

The thing that cleared it up for me is that performance comes almost entirely from the chip. Two handhelds from different brands with the same chip inside play the same games about as well. So I sort them by chip first and worry about the brand after.

The four tiers

Tier	Typical chip	Comfortable up through	What it's like
Entry	Allwinner A133, F1C200s	Game Boy Advance, SNES, Genesis	Linux only, very cheap, long battery life
Mid	Rockchip RK3326	PS1, some N64 and Dreamcast	The long-running budget workhorse
Upper-mid	Rockchip RK3566	Dreamcast, PSP, most N64	The value sweet spot right now
High	Snapdragon 6 and 8 series	GameCube, PS2, some Switch	Android, and priced near a Steam Deck

Read the right-hand column of that table as "comfortable", not "possible". An entry-level device might technically launch a PS1 game. It'll be much happier with the Game Boy Advance library, and so will you.

Tip

When a new handheld is announced, look up the chip before anything else. If it's one of the chips above, you already know most of what the reviews are going to say.

The brands, briefly

• Anbernic has the biggest catalog and the fastest release pace. The RG naming mostly tracks screen size, so the number tells you roughly how big it is, not how fast.
• Miyoo makes fewer models with a strong reputation for build and screen quality. The Mini and Mini Plus are the well-loved ones.
• Retroid is Android-first, with the Pocket series aimed at the higher tiers.
• AYN makes the Android handhelds at the top of the range, the Odin and Thor lines. AYANEO is a different company that mostly makes Windows handhelds, which puts it in Steam Deck territory.
• TrimUI makes small ones. The Smart Pro is the model people talk about.

Firmware: the part the box doesn't mention

Stock firmware is usually where these devices fall down: clunky menus, odd defaults, missing features. The community fixes that with replacement firmware:

Firmware	Worth knowing
muOS	Popular on recent Anbernic devices
Knulli	Batocera-based, for a range of handhelds
ROCKNIX	The project that used to be called JELOS
ArkOS	A long-standing choice for RK3326 devices
AmberELEC	Another mature option for older Rockchip handhelds

Which ones you can use depends on the exact chip and model, so check the firmware's supported-device list before you flash anything. The Android devices mostly skip this: you install a frontend and emulators like on a phone.

Heads up

Two versions of the "same" handheld sometimes ship with different screens or chips. Match the firmware to your exact revision, not just the model name.

Shape matters more than the spec sheet

This is the one people underestimate. Vertical, Game Boy-shaped handhelds are lovely for 2D games and everything up through the 16-bit era. They're small, they fit a pocket, and a d-pad on the left is all those games want.

The moment you want anything from the 3D era, PS1 on up, you want a horizontal device with two analog sticks. A vertical device with a fast chip is still a bad N64 machine, because the controls are wrong.

So the order I'd decide in:

1. What do I actually want to play? That picks the tier.
2. 2D or 3D? That picks the shape.
3. Linux or Android? Linux devices are simpler and last longer on a charge. Android ones do more, including streaming and movies.
4. Then pick the brand and model with the best screen and build in that slot.

I went through that decision for the Android end of the market in picking an Android handheld for emulation and movies. If you'd rather have a box on the TV than something in your hand, the Raspberry Pi setup covers the same systems for less. And at the top end, where these start to overlap with PC handhelds, the EmuDeck hotkeys are the cheat sheet to keep handy.