New Anbernic RG Vita / Vita Pro might be setup to Fail!

I love the idea of releasing an updated “Vita” style emulation handheld in 2026… but they need to stick the landing.

Anbernic appears to be gearing up to release another Sony Gaming Handheld update. First we got the RG Slide, a handheld which took inspiration from the PSP Go and now the RG Vita and Vita Pro taking inspiration from… if you guessed PS Vita give yourself a sticker.

Anbernic did ok with the RG Slide in that it is able to play the PSP catalog at minimum 1X resolution with its Unisoc T820 CPU paired with a quad-core Mali-G57 GPU. The concern I have is the RG DS released after the Slide equipped with a Rockchip RK3568 SOC from 2020 can barely play some Nintendo DS titles.

Display

Neither the Anbernic RG Slide or RG DS have displays that scale 1:1 with their corpo counterparts either. This should be an easy get with the RG Vita as 16:9 panels are plentiful in the handheld market.

If memory serves me right the Anbernic RG505 came equipped with PS Vita replacement OLED panels so they may still have some laying around. Either way there are plenty of display options.

It would be a shame if they stepped away from OLED as it’s obviously better and the Sony Playstation Vita came equipped with 960×544 [16:9] 220ppi OLED displays. To be fair the Slim models had LCD with the same resolution.

Sony went with this resolution because it’s 4x the Sony PSP so it made upscaling easier.

Power

The SOC is my biggest concern after the RG DS [there is a new GammaOS you can install now to increases performance] failed to emulate the handheld it was ment to replicate. I’ve used the Dimensity 8300 Anbernic has been using and I’m not confident it can power through Vita emulation with its lack of driver support.

For some reason Anbernic thus far has acted as if they are allergic to Snapdragon processors which unfortunately for them have nearly all the driver support right now. PS Vita emulation is day and night in performance depending on the 3rd party drivers you are using.

I will be testing PS Vita emulation on the Anbernic RG477M and RG477V this week to get a better feel for what the RG Vita will likely accomplish. Vita is difficult enough to emulate that I didn’t even test it during my review on either RG477 handheld due to their Dimensity processors.

Thoughts

If I had to guess the loadouts would be as follows

[edit: announced 5000mAh battery]

I’m assuming the processors and display are what are going to differentiate the base and pro model Anbernic RG Vita. Also RAM and Memory with current market conditions. This could open up pricing to be all over the place.

I know you can emulate though barley, pretty lame Vita games with the T820. I can’t remember playing anything I normally would in my testing but things like rhythm games, visual novels, and some anime worked decently.

I’ll do some testing myself but I did some searching assuming the RG Vita Pro will be using the D8300 SOC to see how Vita emulation is on similar handhelds. It looks a lot of the same except some heavier games will likely play at close to speed, especially if you lower the resolution.

I really want to see the Anbernic RG Vita (Pro) handhelds knock it out of the park. I would love to use them and Anbernic seems to build confidence on successful launches and take more risks on future releases.

Pricing?

Pricing could be a big factor here. Based on Anbernic’s pricing for similar handhelds with these SOCs the Base RG Vita will likely be around $175-$189.99 with maybe a $10-$20 sale for the first 72 hours. The RG Vita Pro model with a D8300 will be between $239.99-$259.99 with a similar $10-$20 discount at launch.

You can buy and easily jailbreak a renewed PS Vita on Amazon for around $250. If my pricing estimates are close to what I think they will be we might have some decisions to make.

Anbernic is really going to be pulling on a lot of nostalgia here. Fingers crossed that this new RG Vita is better than we even think it can be.

Checkout the Anbernic Blog for realtime updates at the button below:

Are you excited for the Anbernic RG Vita (Pro)? Which model do you think will have the most value?

We’ll update you here once we get more info.

GameOn

CellPhish

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