Anbernic RG Cube XX

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Device Overview: Anbernic RG Cube XX

The Anbernic RG Cube XX is the budget spin-off of Anbernic’s boxy RG Cube, and its defining trait is the screen: a 3.95-inch IPS panel running a perfectly square 720×720 at a 1:1 aspect ratio. That shape is the whole pitch. Where a normal 16:9 handheld wastes glass on retro systems that were never widescreen, the Cube XX fills its display with 4:3 and near-square content, and it turns out to be an oddly good match for the vertically stacked screens of a Nintendo DS. Under the hood it is the same Allwinner H700 that powers the RG35XX line, so nobody should mistake this for a performance jump. It is a familiar chip in an unusual body, sold for around $60 to $65.

Emulation performance, generation by generation

The H700 is a quad-core Cortex-A53 clocked at 1.5GHz with a dual-core Mali-G31 MP2 GPU and 1GB of LPDDR4. In plain terms, this is a competent 8-bit-through-32-bit machine that runs out of headroom the moment you ask for anything demanding. Everything up to and including the original PlayStation is comfortable: NES, SNES, Genesis, Game Gear, WonderSwan, Game Boy through GBA, TurboGrafx-16, Neo Geo and PS1 all run at full speed through RetroArch cores like Snes9x, gpSP and PCSX ReARMed, and the square panel is a natural fit for vertical arcade shooters. Nintendo DS is genuinely usable via DraStic, and the square screen lets you stack both DS screens at a sensible size instead of shrinking them into slivers. Above that line, expectations have to drop. Nintendo 64 through Mupen64Plus is a per-game lottery, with Super Mario 64 playable but sluggish and heavier titles needing frame-skip. PSP via PPSSPP handles 2D and lighter 3D games but chokes on anything ambitious, and GTA: Liberty City Stories only limps along with frame-skip enabled. Dreamcast on Flycast runs a handful of lighter titles and stutters on the rest, while Saturn is effectively off the table. Treat this as a PS1-and-below device that occasionally reaches higher, not an N64 or PSP machine.

Screen, build and controls

The panel is the reason to buy. It is fully laminated with OCA bonding, bright, and sharp for its size, and several reviewers noted it looks better than the pricier Android RG Cube’s screen. The body measures 157.2 x 89.6 x 17.9mm and weighs 246 grams, noticeably lighter than Anbernic’s other H700 devices and comfortable across long sessions thanks to a genuinely well-shaped grip. Controls are dual analog sticks with RGB lighting, a proper cross d-pad, and four shoulder buttons. Be clear-eyed about two things: the sticks are standard potentiometer units rather than Hall-effect, so drift is a long-term risk, and the L2/R2 triggers are digital clicks rather than analog, which is a non-issue for retro but a limit for the very PSP and N64 games that ask for them. A 3,800mAh battery is rated for about 6.5 hours, and that holds up for 8-to-32-bit systems while N64 and PSP drain it faster. Dual microSD slots let you keep firmware and ROMs on separate cards.

Software and setup

Out of the box the Cube XX runs Anbernic’s own 64-bit Linux, a simple front end that boots straight into a game library and asks little of a first-time owner. Being Linux rather than Android is a real advantage here: PortMaster works, so native ports such as Stardew Valley, Portal and various open-source game engines run directly instead of through emulation. The stock OS is fine, but the device’s real ceiling comes from custom firmware. Knulli and muOS both ship builds tuned for the 1:1 screen, ROCKNIX and Batocera are options too, and each brings better emulator management, cleaner box-art scraping and finer RetroArch configuration than the stock software. Setup is the usual routine: flash an image to a microSD, drop your legally owned ROMs into the right folders, and boot. Nothing here needs a PC beyond that initial flash, and Wi-Fi plus Bluetooth 4.2 cover wireless pads and RetroArch netplay.

Price, value and who it is for

At roughly $60 to $65, often bundled with a preloaded card, the Cube XX competes with Anbernic’s own RG35XX Plus and RG35XX H stablemates on identical silicon. The only real reason to pick it over those is the square screen, and that reason is stronger than it sounds. If your library leans toward NES, SNES, GBA, arcade boards, vertical shoot-’em-ups and DS, the 1:1 panel is more usable than any widescreen at this price. If you mostly care about PSP, N64 or Dreamcast, this is the wrong device, and a Snapdragon-based Android handheld is worth the extra money. Buy the Cube XX as a focused retro machine for pre-PS2 systems and as a surprisingly practical DS player, not as a do-everything emulator. For that specific job it is one of the more charming cheap handhelds you can put in a pocket.