My introduction to handhelds being the Game Boy and then going on from there, I have had some sort of handheld device my whole gaming life.

It's something that I find to be the most exciting.

I like the portability aspect of it, the take it wherever you go, and as someone who doesn't like to use my cell phone or pocket computer as a gaming device in line, I strive to find the best option.

For a while, this RG35XX Plus was really good, but well, I think I have a better solution.

I will admit I am a sucker for a good clamshell design.

The best handheld device I had ever used for a very long time was the Game Boy Advance SP, which I still have one thanks to Morgan.

I use it from time to time, but I realized that there were some shortcomings with this very device.

I'm not going to go out and mod it, though I can.

The two major shortcomings that happen is one, lighting is, well, pretty brutal on something like this.

Still works.

Ah, it's so nice.

And the form factor, as I've grown older, is a little bit tough.

Right now I'm playing Super Mario World.

And so when I was using this, I'm like, man, I love the form factor, but I need something similar in size that allows me to play the game just a little bit better.

I'm not looking for better performance.

No, not at all.

I'm not looking for better anything, or even more versatility, if I'm being honest with you.

I'm just looking for an experience.

Oh, there's a coffee bean in here.

Here, that.

I'm just looking for an experience that is gonna grant me a little bit better of a handheld time, right?

That's kind of what I'm looking at.

The handheld experience of the SP is charming, very charming, and so I was looking for something a little bit better.

Well, first, I gravitated towards another piece of hardware by Nintendo, and that is the Nintendo 3DS.

What is it?

Clamshell design.

A little bit bigger, obviously.

Still pocketable and absurdly comfortable to use.

I love the 3DS.

I think that as I have gotten older, I became more and more appreciative of that device because, one, it allows me to play some great remastered titles like Majora's Mask, which never got finished in the month of June, but I got to play that as well as other ones like Link Between Worlds and stuff like that.

Again, my main purpose is to be able to pull a gaming device out while I'm standing in line or I just have a few minutes to myself and get after it pretty quickly.

Another problem, it's not supported anymore.

I can't find games as easily, and the games I wanna purchase digitally because it's the only way I can play some of these retro titles I've been wanting to play in this form factor, I can't get because Nintendo shut down their store and I had to wipe the machine because of issues and because Nintendo did things a little bit different when this launched, my digital purchases were lost with the hardware because when you reset the system hardware or the system software, rather, it actually clears out all of your digital purchases.

They're not linked to your account, so to speak.

So I only play physical games on that.

Well, this guy came in handy, this RG35XX+.

I thought it was cool.

The issues I had with it were the sleep functions aren't the best and that kind of lent itself to a bad gaming experience.

The problem also I have with this is I always felt kind of awkward having the screen exposed as much as it did.

I could get a case for it and make sure I have a screen protector but sliding it in and out of my pocket, I didn't love it.

It's a great form factor, I really think it is and I wouldn't go for anything much bigger if I'm being honest with you, especially with these little emulation devices.

I like the size of it.

I know that there are better ones, bigger, extra thumb sticks, but I'm only looking to play Game Boy Advance games.

That just didn't cut the mustard.

Well, then Ambernic released some news that they were going to put out a new RG35XX.

It was the RG35XX SP.

Now, my favorite, as I've said, absolute favorite handheld that I've ever used in my whole gaming life is, I think undisputedly, the Game Boy Advance SP.

So when I found out that they were coming out with the SP version of the very handheld that I had been using, the RG35XX Plus, we're going with Amber again, I was elated.

I was like, sweet, let's check it out.

And at the price point, I figure it's great and I purchased this 100% so this is not biased whatsoever.

So I think there's nothing better to do but to crack into this and get a first impression on what we are dealing with.

Now, I don't like that when they wrap this, this is directly from Anbernic, it looks like a very questionable product.

My local UPS store that receives all of my packages for me was like, what do you get sent to you?

And I'm like, ah, don't worry, it's not as nefarious as you would think.

So packaging is fine, whatever, no big deal here.

Let's go ahead and unbox this as best as we can.

And there we go.

Should be good.

Oh, there it is.

A great design, good box.

Now I know that it is bigger than the Game Boy Advance SP but that is also to be desired because the Game Boy Advance SP for me, rather, was never one that I found to be particularly comfortable as an adult.

It always ended up being a little bit too tiny.

Let's take a sip before we open this up.

Good, okay.

So we'll have the Game Boy Advance SP here as reference and we will open up the device here.

I like to make it a little bit more dramatic.

So we have the very device with the foam top on there and something else.

We have additional, so good.

We have, is this just one screen protector?

One screen protector, so you better be able to install it well.

And we have, I believe, one singular cable.

This is a USB-A to USB-C, which all of us have plenty of these.

So this will be fine.

I think what we will do here is I am not going to embarrass myself by trying to install a screen protector off the rip.

We're going to get into the device itself.

So if we're looking at them side by side, we do see that it probably has maybe a, it's the same height.

Width-wise, I would say it has maybe an additional, gosh, almost, very little, very little.

But if we're talking about thickness here, it is definitely thicker, that's for sure.

So you can see that we have additional buttons here.

We have the mini HDMI out, which the RG35XX Plus has that as well.

The texture is soft, feels good.

I went with this color scheme because I am a Game Boy fan.

And so I figured it would be very appropriate to go with that color scheme.

This is actually a color scheme I had on one of my versions of the Game Boy Advance SPs back in the day.

Now, man, what I like about this is it has this full articulation, which is really, really nice.

Not that I would ever use it this way because I like the tilt.

Now, I will say off the rip, the extra size of this and the clickiness is the same clickiness you would get from, yeah, this feels nice.

This feels really nice.

And this is just big enough in the hands.

And you have the extra two, the R1 and R2, which is, on this you would see it would be L and R and then ZL, ZR.

I think that it has a better implementation on this than on the other.

Where the button for the light is is the menu button, which you would find the menu button here.

All right, so I guess it's time to turn this sucker on to see if it's charged enough.

Do I need to plug it in to get first charge?

Oh, nope, we're good, off the rip.

We already have some battery power.

Let's see what happens here, ladies and gentlemen.

Volume rocker on the top, not a rocker, but just up and down.

I guess you could call that a rocker.

We're taking some time to start up.

Now, something that I always found to be absurdly obnoxious about this guy was on and off feature on this is not the best.

Right now it's on pause, I mean standby.

I'm in, but if I keep it on that standby mode for longer than the day, this whole thing is fried.

Now, I do like these buttons back here.

They feel really good with the lip being the way it is, but let's see.

Oh gosh, the sounds.

And it already has stuff installed here.

Let me turn this down a bunch so it's not annoying.

Let's just go into, real quick, a game that is here.

They already have games.

I wish they wouldn't.

I wish they would just be sent as is because I don't want to have to answer to the fact that this came with games on it.

I don't know how they do this or get away with this, but whatever.

They do, and so they have games installed on this device from their store.

Let's go to Pokemon Emerald.

Let's get into it.

Let's see what it sounds like.

Oh, okay, it says 60 FPS at the top.

I don't think that is particularly necessary to know that we're getting 60 FPS.

Oh, and it has a little Game Boy Advance SP at the bottom here, which is, now, that is a nice touch.

That is a very nice touch, and you know what?

We'll do this.

I think it's only fair that I do this and put Emerald in, and we'll get kind of the same.

I'll show you why this is such a different experience here.

So, obviously, I can do a screen mod to have a better version, but this is as bright as it gets, right?

So, what you're looking top-down right now is as bright as it gets.

I obviously have additional things that I can do here with this guy where I can increase the speed of it and fast forward, but just as is, we're in a well-lit room here, and the clarity of this display, I don't know the exacts of what the display is, is incredible.

As far as something else is concerned, what do you notice?

There isn't a headphone jack.

Also, I close it, it's still very much so on.

I close this, it's no longer playing.

Open, we're back in.

Now, the battery life thing, it will fry the battery, so it'd be better if I turned it off, but that is neither here nor there.

The thing I was looking at is I close this, I'm just gonna turn it off because it's not necessary.

Well, headphone jack.

Not that that is crucial, but, oh man.

And then I think I can save state.

Fast forward, baby.

Oh, that is so nice.

I can tell you right now, I know, and this is raised, so you see right here, the secondary buttons are actually raised.

This Game Boy SP at the bottom looks so good.

Now, I'm looking at the buttons here.

The B button looks like it's a little stamped off center, but this is, we're good to go here.

And then I can get out of this really quickly.

We can go close content, and we can be right back to where we need to be when it comes to the gaming.

Oh man, this is, so if I'm looking at these two right here, this right here is exactly what I'm looking for.

I can tell you right now that the games I wanna play, the retro titles I want to experience, this answers the call.

This right here fits as easily in my back pocket as something like this would.

It is a little bit bulkier.

I can feel back there.

It's bulkier than this for sure, but what this grants me access to is so much more.

And I'll be honest, I don't often just keep stuff in my pockets.

I certainly wouldn't just keep this in my back pocket because I sit down a lot.

So realistically, this would be in something like my backpack or something like that, but this as a device just far exceeds everything about this.

Is it thicker?

It is thicker.

The body of the RG35XX Plus is just ever so thick, like I would say maybe a millimeter thicker than the RG35XX SP when you, just the body itself.

Now this as a whole is for sure thicker.

So you're gonna have a little thicker of a device, but this is, oh, it feels so well built.

And that hinge has an actual lock to it, a real proper lock.

Oh, and there it is.

So I opened it and let's try closing and opening again.

So we got ourselves, oh, okay.

So I have to press that button.

Okay, and this has a lock too, snap.

Yeah, I think off rip, first impressions, I want to like this as much as I feel like I like it now.

We're just gonna have to let time do the test here.

We're gonna have to see how good this actually performs.

I'm gonna definitely try some of the games that I want to play in this portable fashion on this device and see how it runs.

Get a couple things hammered out, swap out SD cards, make sure that the firmware is up to date and dial in a couple settings to really test the battery.

So I'll be back on this in the next couple of weeks to give you guys a real like.

How did it stack up?

This was definitely a novelty.

This feels like it's more practical.

This always was something I wanted to use, but when I started to use it, I always felt like there was just something about it missing where this has the opportunity to grant me the very exciting feeling that this granted me back in the early 2000s.

That's what I'm looking for.

I want the nostalgia a little bit.

I want the practicality, but most of all, I want the access to my games in a portable fashion that is very convenient.