The RG351P - handheld gaming perfection?

For the last couple of years, I've been watching videos on YouTube about retrogaming handhelds. These are typically Chinese manufactured with a price varying between £30 and £200. Whilst they follow the same basic template: ARM CPU, mobile GPU, a modicum of RAM and a screen of varying quality, their form factors have been numerous, from some copying the PlayStation Vita to others a model of the Game Boy family from the year dot, whereas a few follow their own path - the Powkiddy RGB20 for example. What they all have in common is the ability to run some variation of emulator-supporting operating system and a distinct lack of regard to intellectual property.

What you get in the box

Now, you can buy theses handhelds from AliExpress but, if you're familiar with that online retailer, it can be an "interesting" experience. Use the manufacturer's store and you should be good, though as always with AliExpress, shipping times can range from days to literally months. However, there is a UK-based retailer, DroiX, that sells a range of these handhelds and, after checking out various online reviews, I ordered the Anbernic RG351P from them for £79.95 plus £5.99 next working day delivery. A note here, I ordered this on a Saturday, so expected delivery on the following Tuesday. The order wasn't completed until that day so it arrived (via Amazon courier, not DPD) on the Wednesday. While they technically fulfilled the delivery timescale, it's not what I expected and if I were to order again, I'd save a couple of quid and go for the 48 hour tracked delivery. Other than that, no quibbles about the order or the goods received.

So, what does £80 get you and what exactly is the RG351P?

The device itself is the follow up to the RG350P/M models (the P signifies a plastic casing, the M a metal one). You can still buy these (£74.95 and £94.95 respectively) and there are valid reasons to choose the previous model over the newer one (mainly the CPU and type of emulation offered), but you'll need to check out the many YouTube reviews for that. There is, by the way, a 351M which will set you back £129.95 but other than the case and built-in Wifi, has no real differences to the 351P. The 351P is supplied with a USB-C OTG adaptor and an 802.11n WiFi stick, so you still have online access. 

The 351P is delivered in a study box reminiscent of those used by Apple for their iPhones, bearing line drawings of the device on two sides, a guide to the various controls and ports, some basic specs and a contents list - this includes the console itself, a charging cable and a dinky little instruction manual. The OTG adaptor and WiFi stick, along with a plastic screen protector and a couple of screen wipes, are not mentioned on the box but were included in it.

The packaging is quite nice and there's a foam pad protecting the device fascia whilst in transit. As for the device itself, it is 152x71x18mm and weighs 340g. The 3.5 inch screen has a resolution of 480x320, a 3:2 ratio that is perfect for Gameboy Advance emulation but stretches anything with a traditional 4:3 ratio. You can switch to a 4:3 ratio but that gives you black bars on either side of the screen - either way, it's a bright and punchy display. Personally, I don't mind either ratio so it's up to you whether this will be an issue. As for the rest of the specs, we have a 1.5GHz ARM-based CPU (the RK3326), a Mali-G31 MP2 GPU, 1GB of RAM and a 3500mAh battery, allowing up to 8 hours of play. 

The top of the device - 2 x USB-C, audio jack and L1/L2/R1/R2 buttons

Holding it in the hand, the build quality is rather good and I don't have any concerns about sturdiness. I am sure the M will travel better but you'd still need a screen protector and for the price difference, I think the P is better value. Controls-wise, we have two analogue joysticks that have a decent feel, not too loose, not too stiff, that also act as L3 and R3 when clicked. The shoulders have two buttons a piece (L1, L2, R1 and R2) which are nice and clicky. The front of the device has a good D-pad, four regular buttons and separate Start and Select buttons. These work well and aren't spongy. On the right hand side, you have a volume wheel, whilst on the left you have the power button. The base has the reset switch, dual speakers for stereo output and the memory card slot, able to take up to 256GB capacity cards - a 64GB card is supplied, containing the OS and about 2,500 ROMs across the various supported formats. On the top of the device, aside from the shoulder buttons, there are two USB type-C ports (one for power) and a 3.5mm audio jack for headphones. One final note on the hardware, I ordered mine in black but you can also get them in purple and white.

The bottom of the device - speakers, memory card slot and reset button

The manual is a small, folded sheet that contains everything you need to know about the device, though the text is tiny and people with less than stellar eyesight may struggle. Still, it does the job in a concise manner.

The manual - it does the job.

Switching on the RG351P and getting to the emulator front end takes a few seconds, but once you're there, navigation is mostly swift and responsive. My device shipped with the EmuElec front end, but there are alternatives to this which can improve the experience. However, that would require formatting the included card and losing the included ROMs. You'd also need a PC to hand so you could save stuff onto that. Emulation itself is handled by RetroArch, so you have access to its features such as save states, screenshots and the like.

The front end is simple to navigate

The following systems are emulated and, as noted above, you get some ROMs included. That's handy. 

Nintendo -  DS, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, NES, SNES and N64.

Arcade - Final Burn Neo, MAME, CPS I, CPS II and CPS III.

Sege - Genesis (presumably US titles only) Megadrive (presumably Japanese and European titles only), Game Gear and Dreamcast.

Sony - PlayStation and PSP.

Bandai Wonderswan Color.

MSX.

NEC PC Engine.

NeoGeo. 

NeoGeo Pocket.

Each format comes with it's own list of games

As you can see, there is a ton of choice here and you can add your own (legally acquired) ROMS by taking out the memory card and copying them on to it via a PC. I added my copy of Metropolis Street Racer for the Dreamcast just to see how it would play and it went about as well as expected. You see, whilst the RG351P is good for most of the above systems, it's not quite powerful enough to handle the Dreamcast or the N64. Even the PSP is iffy. MSR gave me somewhere between 19 and 32 frames per second which is patchy at best, as well as some audio glitches that didn't make it fun to play. Oh well, I'll stick to ReDream on the PC for that one. 

MSR - frame counter to top right. 30 fps is a rarity.

On the whole though, this little handheld copes well with most of the supported systems and should give you between five and eight hours of play time depending on the system being emulated: the more powerful the system, the lower the battery life. Indeed, stick to the original Sony PlayStation or earlier systems and you'll get a great mix of battery life and smooth performance. Adding my copies of the PlayStation games Exhumed and Star Fighter 3000 to the card allowed me to experience these great games again without being tied to a desktop or being overly worried about the battery conking out. Also of note, original Game Boy games are a revelation, the difference between the RG351P and the original hardware actually makes these games fun to play because they're not a murky green/yellow smeary mess. 

UN Squadron 

A note on the ROMS supplied on the card. These may not be in English and there is some repetition as well between arcade titles and home console conversions (for example, UN Squadron is featured on the CPS I, SNES and the Neo Geo), but on the whole, there is such a range of 8/16 and 32-bit software that you'll struggle to ever find yourself stuck for something to play. The same point can also be made for system options - there are numerous settings that can be changed to your satisfaction.

Star Fighter 3000

The RG351P is not the perfect handheld though. There's that screen resolution as noted above, but in reality, it's not that much of a problem and the convenience of portable gaming outweighs the slightly stretched image. It can't handle the N64, PSP or Dreamcast well, and that latter system is one that I would love to have on a handheld. One day, that will be the case. The RG351P is a little cramped and those with larger hands may struggle to access all the controls easily. Even my (not so large) hands were suffering a little from cramp after a couple of hours of sustained play. It's not heavy though, which stands in its favour. There is also no dedicated HDMI out so if you want to experience retro gaming on a larger screen, you'll need to find another option. Then again, if you have a PC, you can easily download RetroArch for that and, well, you get my drift. For a lot of the emulation, the screen resolution is just fine, but on a few of the later systems, especially the Dreamcast, things look a bit naff as the screen can't deal with the higher in-game resolution.

Streetfighter something or other.

Where the RG351P really scores for me is the ability to play a ton of older titles (and add more from my own disc collection) without spending the equivalent of the GDP of the average European nation. I love collecting physical games and the associated hardware, but space and cost mean that's just not practical. That also doesn't take into account the maintenance that these systems sometimes require - I have no inclination into getting into re-capping and soldering. 

Overall then, the RG351P is a bloody good handheld gaming machine that, whilst it doesn't have the biggest screen, the most powerful chipset or perfectly ergonomic controls, manages to do well enough in each of those categories, and others, to be a great jack-of-all-trades. For the price, the hardware is very good, and if you want more heft, the M version is out there too. The software is easy to navigate and, unless you really dig deep, simple and straightforward. 

You can buy the RG351P from a number of stores on AliExpress (including the manufacturer's store) but I bought mine from DroiX and they promise much more rapid delivery. The choice, as they say, is yours.

A Focus on the Falklands from Helion & Company

Helion & Company do a lovely range of military histories under the @War banner. I've reviewed their four volume set on the Iran-Iraq War in the Middle East@War series, and over the last year or so, picked up two volumes written by Mariano Sciaroni (translated by Andy Smith who gets an author credit on the second book) in Helion's Latin America@War series. Both books are worthy of attention.

A Carrier at Risk was published in 2019 and I believe I picked up at a wargaming show shortly after its release. This book covers Argentinian carrier operations and the anti-submarine ops conducted against the Royal Navy during the Falklands/Malvinas War of 1982. At the time, I rather enjoyed it and found it extremely enlightening because it was a rare look at the "other" side in that conflict. 

At 72-pages, it is long enough to tell the story without padding and there are plenty of photographs and maps to support the text, along with excellent artwork by Javier 'Javo' Ruberto. The author begins with the attempted carrier strike against the British Fleet on the 1st of May, followed by the sinking of the Belgrano. There is then a section detailing the basics of anti-submarine warfare that covers enough to give even the lay-person a good understanding, before detailing the forces arrayed against each other. The core of the book covers the period from the 3rd to the 8th of May and the activities of the Argentinian anti-sub forces compared to the Royal Navy's operations. The author writes well and tells an engaging tale evenly. This approach is supported by the resources he has consulted, including many war diaries and reports of proceedings of the vessels during the conflict. Overall, this is a lovely stand alone volume that covers a section of the conflict that, as far as I can tell, has not received any attention elsewhere outside of personal memoirs. 

However, Mr Sciaroni has not stopped there and has had an accompanying volume published at the end of 2020: "Go Find Him and Bring Me Back His Hat". This 72-page book covers the Royal Navy's anti-submarine campaign of the same conflict as well as the Argentinian submarine ops of the same period. Once again, the author has had the benefit of both interviews with key personnel of the conflict (including the captain of the San Luis) as well as access to official diaries and reports of proceedings. Maps, photographs and artwork are of the same calibre as the prior release. 

Starting off with a focus on the pre-war/early war activities of HMS Superb, we then move to a highly readable description of the forces used before the core of the book. The tale of the Santa Fe gets seven pages before we move onto the activities of both British and Argentinian forces on the 1st, 5th, and 11th of May. There is a separate chapter on the San Luis from the 8th of May to the end of the conflict.

This is another highly educational tome that combines perfectly with the author's earlier book. For fans of Cold War history, these give you a great insight into how opposing forces fought using weapons and technology that was either old and worked in a limited way, or new and not very reliable. That is something that really brings the bravery of those on both sides of the conflict to the fore. Neither side was really prepared for the conflict that followed the invasion and it shows in both the lack of knowledge and preparation, as well as the reliance on kit that was at best iffy and at worst, a liability. Indeed, having read other books on the conflict (including Jerry Pook's all too honest contribution), it seems to be that success favoured the side whose kit was the last to go unserviceable. What is also evident from these two volumes is that when reading about any conflict, it is vital to cover all of the combatants. Sciaroni does that very well here and as such, I highly recommend these books if they of your period or interest. These books will also being a ton of detail and realism to any Falklands naval game you may want to put on the table.

For those who wish to know more, there is also a Q & A style conversation with the author on YouTube due to be broadcast at 4pm UK time on the 19th March. Use this link here to check that out. I know I shall be.

Magazine Menagerie - Part Three - Amiga Addict

The third and final part of the Magazine Menagerie and we come to a review that I had said I wouldn't do. When reviewing the second issue of Amiga Addict, I'd said I wouldn't post another review of the magazine unless there was something to say. With my post on the latest issue of Amiga Future here, I decided that it would be worth adding a few comments about the latest Amiga Addict. If you're expecting a face off between the two, sorry, you're not going to get that. Spoiler alert: if you can afford to get both English print Amiga magazines, do it. They have different approaches and styles and, as I said yesterday, are great companion pieces.

The overview - another great issue. The new Across the Pond column was intriguing and should offer some good tales in future episodes. The Amiga Ireland 2021 report was interesting and gave rise to thoughts of attending next year (maybe, who knows, what with costs, travel and COVID). The first part of a series on the legacy of Commodore promises much and I hope it delivers in future instalments. There's an amusing tale of attending the World of Amiga show in 1994 and believe me, war games shows can be kinda similar, especially the Sunday ones after say 1.30pm... though we never leave kit behind. The second part of the Memories of Dave Needle was suitably funny and poignant, and the multi-page feature on the Amiga and the Jungle music scene was both eye opening and bewildering - it's not my favourite music genre by any means but it was an interesting read. Two pages are dedicated to AOZ Studio may be of interest from a developer's point of view, though I would check out the subscription costs before deciding anything - the free version contains adverts, the monthly sub is €9 and a two year license is €89 - not extravagant by any means but something to be wary of. The games reviews were varied (I remember playing Transarctica and, from vague recollections, think the review is spot on), and I particularly liked the review of Flink, a CD32 title that had previously escaped my attention. The interview with the designer/graphics artist was icing on the cake. Naturally, the regular sections were also worth reading.

I did get a huge dose of nostalgia reading about Games-X. Although short lived, it was a regular pick up from the post office/newsagents my mates and I passed on the way to school. After all, what else was dinner money for??? The magazine, as I recall, was a fun read and more akin to a comic than a traditional games magazine in its price and paper quality, though it was 30 years ago, so I could very well be wrong here. A good magazine at the time, and one that should be remembered for doing something a bit different. 

The highlight of this issue for me was the long awaited Unamiga review. After unforeseen postal delays, here was a take on a piece of hardware that I had no idea existed back when I did my Alternative Computing, but at what cost post a few months back. Basically, an FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array) recreation board, the Unamiga can be one of several computers depending upon the "core" selected. From an Amiga point of view, it is equivalent to a Motorola 68020 with 2MB of Chip RAM and 20MB of Fast RAM - a pimped out A500/A2000 is you like. Other "cores" can include the Spectrum NEXT, the original Spectrum, the C64 and the MSX amongst others. This, for the princely sum of €152 (about £131) for the A500/Checkmate 1500 case compatible board. Sounds great, doesn't it? The review is gushing, which it has every right to be - I have seen enough on the Unamiga elsewhere to consider it a lovely piece of kit, though if you're not in possession of an A500 case or suitable peripherals (keyboard, monitor, case, power supply etc) then you're going to spend a tad more than €152. Still, cheaper than a Vampire and anything available or promised by A-Eon. Sadly, getting hold of one is likely to be be a probable as a lottery win, as these are produced in small batches on an as and when basis. After all, a hobbyist group in a niche market. Such is the way of things. 

Anyway, cracking work and more of the same for next issue please! You can order a copy (or subscribe) at the Amiga Addict website. As for me and my ideas of running the Amiga Classic OS, there's always Amiga Forever.

Magazine Menagerie - Part Two - Amiga Future

Welcome to the second of the trio of recently received publications. In today's post, I'll be looking at an Amiga magazine that's been going for absolutely yonks. Yes, now up to issue 149, this is the March/April 2021 edition of Amiga Future.

Published in both German and English editions, it is the latter that I paid about £7.90 (€7.00 for the magazine, €2.20 for postage, exchange rates decide the actual amount in GBP) for and it arrived bang on the date the pre-order email said it would. 

The magazine is in the A4 format and of high quality. It is 56-pages in length and in full colour. For an extra €2.90, you can also get a cover mounted CD that includes games, demos and utilities for the various flavours of operating systems classed as Amiga - AmigaOS 4, AROS, Classic and MorphOS. 

The layout is clean and straightforward, and there are plenty of advertisers - ten in fact, spread over 15 pages. The most stylish of these has to be the Vampire Accelerator add in the centre-fold. Images are sharp and, overall, I have no negatives to say about the physical quality of the magazine. 

As you can see from the contents page, there's quite a bit in here, with a news section, a couple of well thought out and interesting interviews, numerous reviews (including a piece on the latest update to AmigaOS 4 and two articles on hardware, one of which (the MiSTer) has been on my "would like/can't justify" list for a while now. There is also a two page piece from Trevor Dickinson which is a nice way to get updates from the main source of commercial hardware in the OS 4 market. 

There is a good mix of content here, and that makes this an accessible read for anyone new to the Amiga. Yes, you might get a bit tied up in some of the technical stuff but, on the whole, my passing familiarity with the current market was more than enough to get a lot out of this issue. Complete beginners shouldn't have much of a problem finding their feet either. In that sense, Amiga Future is very similar to Amiga Addict.

My personal favourites were the MiSTer review and attached interview, the comparison between the adventure game Dune and it's board game equivalent and Trevor's Soap Box. I did, however, read this issue from cover to cover and have had a bit of a gander at some of the advertisers websites, just to see what they offered. 

I enjoyed reading Amiga Future and if you can, give it a try. There is much to recommend here. Will I be subscribing? Possibly. There are six issues a year and a subscription for that works out at just over £46 including postage (excluding the cover disc) for the year. In the meantime, it is easy to decide whether or not to buy on a per issue basis as the publishers post details of every new issue on Amigaworld.net and on their website, so it makes it very easy to check if there is something of interest before you buy an issue. Indeed, Amiga Future is a great companion publication to Amiga Addict and I hope both continue to be successful. You can buy Amiga Future from this website here. 

Magazine Menagerie - Part One - SAM Revival

Over the last week or so, a trio of computing magazines have dropped though the letter box and each one deserves a thorough read and, in my humble opinion, a bit of promotion. In this and the two following posts, I'll be looking at each magazine in turn and giving you my thoughts.

Let's start off with what many would consider to be the most obscure of the trio, SAM Revival. If you're not aware, the SAM Coupe was a British 8-bit computer originally released in 1989. Sadly, it was not commercially successful although it did gain a decent fan base over the years and, as I related in my review of Archive 25.2 here, I really liked the look of it. Off the back of Colin's article in Archive, I remembered that at some point, I had bookmarked the SAMCoupe.com website ages ago but then (to my shame) had forgotten about it. Rectifying this brought me to the SAM Revival page and, having had my interest piqued, I ordered the most recent issue, No 25.

This arrived a couple of days later in a rather sturdy cardboard envelope containing within a neatly bagged copy of the magazine, a thank you slip, an advertising slip and two floppy disks. Yes, SAM Revival ships with cover disks! If you don't have an actual SAM Coupe, Colin will send you the disk images for use with an emulator. As for the magazine itself, it's a full colour A5 publication with a sturdy cover and using high quality paper totalling 56 pages. A note on the date, yes, it says September 2015. SAM Revival is not a regular publication and this highlights the hobbyist nature of the magazine. This is published as and when, and speaking of which, the next issue is due out later this month. 

Priced at £9.99, money hasn't been skimped on the printing, nor the postage. But is it worth spending that money on a five and a half year old issue? For me, yes. I wanted to see what the magazine had to offer, get an idea as to what SAM Coupe's were still used for and to decide if I would buy future issues.

The contents include a four page editorial, ten pages of news, a few developer profiles and regular box outs with web links for further information, various SAM projects, help on running B-DOS, SAM rarities, a great developer diary piece and a highly detailed section on the cover disks. Some of this was easy for me to read, other pieces (like the SAM Snippets) made very little sense at all based on my lack of knowledge. Here is the thing, this has given me resources to learn more and get to understand how the SAM works as a computer. I am impressed how Colin is keeping a semi-regular magazine going and also providing additional hardware and upgrades that permit the SAM to be used today. What I can say is that I enjoyed reading everything in the magazine despite its age. 

The cover disks, for which I have nothing to use them on but they will be kept in a safe place, contain a couple of games, some demos and utilities. This brought back memories of my Amiga days and the huge collection of cover disks from various magazines I used to have. A nice touch and a good way of keeping software distribution alive for the SAM.

SAM Revival is the very definition of a niche publication. Yes, the SAM market is small, even compared to the likes of the Amiga and RISC OS, but that does not mean to say that there isn't the need for SAM Revival. Will I be buying the next issue? Definitely. Will I be picking up any of the back issues, which vary from £3.99 (Issues 1-8), £6.99 (Issues 9-23) and £9.99 (from Issue 24)? Maybe. Would I like to get my hands on a SAM Coupe itself? My heart says yes, my head says no - and that's mostly a space and cost issue. I can get an emulator though, so when time permits, that'll be something to look into. What I can say is that SAM Revival is well worth checking out for those that it interests and, given the nature of the articles in this issue, the information from previous issues (detailed on the website) would build up to quite a knowledge base on the format.

All in all, great work and I look forward to the next issue!

You can find out more on the SAMCoupe.com website and keep up with the latest goings on via their Twitter handle @QuazarSamCoupe.

Archive Magazine 25.2 Review

A little later than expected, Archive Volume 25.2 arrived this week and it turned out to be well worth the wait. With the usual high print quality, this issue is packed with articles, features, hints and tips.

A lovely winter scene graces the cover, leading to a hefty 6 pages worth of Newsdesk. It cannot be overstated how much this is a great thing, demonstrating as it does the continued vitality of the RISC OS market. This also including two new desktop machines: the 4te from R-Comp Interactive and the FOURtress from RISCOSbits.

We have a three and half page review of the Raspberry Pi 400 which, although not targeting the RISC OS market directly, is more than suitable as the basis of a cheap RISC OS machine if you take into account its limitations. This review does and it's very much a warts and all look at the device. This is to be applauded and certainly makes an informed decision on whether to purchase a Pi 400 much easier. Having seen a few YouTube videos on the Pi 400, I'm certainly interested in one for both RISC OS and Amiga OS purposes (it's just a matter of SD cards) so I, for one, am very grateful for the review, Mr Marks. Check out the Pi 400 official website here, where you can also find links about buying one. Starting at around £67 for the computer itself, it's cheap and cheerful, whilst the full kit including manual, cables and power supply can be found for under £94. 

Back to the magazine, and we have part two of the series on Python 3 for RISC OS, giving an update on developments and future plans, as well as the ubiquitous "Hello World" program. Well, you've got to keep the tradition going, haven't you?

The second part of ARMs and Architecture gets six pages and builds on superbly from the first instalment, providing further details on how processors operate and how this relates to the ARM architecture. There is a two page article on using RiscLua for genealogy purposes, and the first part of a series on the RISC OS sound system and efforts to improve it, beginning with a five page starter this issue and is another great introduction on a subject that may not be familiar to some. There is a single page on key re-mapping, and eight pages on how to draw a map of the London underground using the !Draw format. Intriguing and quite a fun read - though I am a bit of a nut about maps so seeing the process of creating one was cool.

There's a three and a bit page piece on networking the email client Pluto - this was a new topic for me and came across as a very handy guide. I don't think I'll ever have a set up to use that info but good to know it's out there, with a short summary of the available email clients for RISC OS (including the aforementioned Pluto) following. Acorn Retro is a lovely article on the subject of retro gaming with the BBC Micro from a gentleman well known for his love of another long gone (but not forgotten) computer, the SAM Coupe. That was a machine I really wanted back in the day, as my Dad had brought home a brochure from a (long gone) computer shop in Consett. That never worked out and a couple of years later, I managed to acquire an Amiga 500, but I do have a love of old 8-bit computers and if you want to know more about the modern day support for this machine, head over to SAMCoupe.com. They have their own magazine, SAM Revival, so I've ordered the most recent issue of that to see what it's like - expect a post in the near future. Code Burp 2 provides knowledge on changes between 26 bit and 32 bit programming, and the letters and emails section is a three page section, with some nice comments and suggestions for the editor - it's good to see such a healthy forum. 

There is an introduction to Prophet, a business management package for RISC OS, followed by the Yellow Pages, a brief code section for readers to try out, then the regular Mac Matters column, this time looking at the latest port of the RPCEmu emulator for macOS. Interspacing the articles are snippets of hints and tips, This issue ends with a "Next Issue" box out and an advert from RISCOSbits. 

This is Gavin's second issue as Editor and it has maintained, nay improved, on the quality of the first. There is something here for all levels of knowledge and experience. Yes, I know I am repeating myself from the review of Archive 25.1, but this really is an essential purchase for any RISC OS user and well worth a read for those with even a casual interest in the platform. Visit the Archive website here for more details about the magazine and subscriptions.