Inside this very well-packaged parcel from China is a new retro portable gaming console made by Anbernic, the RG556. I got it from GoGameGeek, and they also included a very nice keychain dongle with their logo and a couple of charms. One of them is a Game Boy, and the other is an Xbox game pad or some other controller. Very nice looking indeed.
Inside the box is a micro SD card. When you order this console, you have three options: no games, 128 GB of ROMs, and 256 GB of ROMs. In this particular case, it’s a 128 GB card. The card is formatted using the NTFS file system, which is a little bit unusual. The console inside the box is also very well packaged and protected by some cushion material. You also get a screen protector, which is a proper tempered glass one. It would be good if the manufacturer also included a sleeve for the console.
You also get an instruction manual in English and Chinese, and a decent quality USB 2.0 Type-C cable. The console itself looks like this: it has a clear case tinted blue, but you can also get a clear case tinted black or gray. You can easily see the inside components through it, and this transparent case kind of reminds me of the early 2000s fashion when Apple released semi-transparent iMacs, Palm released the Palm Pilot, and other manufacturers followed suit. For example, you could get Zixo modems with transparent cases.
The console is rather light, about 330g. It has a 5.5-inch screen and is obviously larger than your typical iPhone, for example. However, it is much smaller and way lighter than an Asus Rog Ally. The console easily fits in most pockets and is very light to carry around, making it a truly portable device. On top of the device, you have two shoulder buttons and two triggers. All of them use Hall effect sensors. You will also find the power button and volume control rocker.
On the lower end of the device is a Type-C connector and headphones out, which is similar to the Nintendo Switch. Most Nintendo Switch users complain that it is not very convenient to have the connectors facing down, since in most cases, they will poke you. Also at the bottom is a small latch that covers the micro SD slot, where you insert the micro SD storage with the games.
Also on the bottom are two speakers, right in the handles, giving you stereo sound. The speakers are loud, but not particularly impressive in quality. The device also has a microphone. Through the transparent back cover, we can clearly see that this device has active cooling. There is a fan that circulates air through the fins of the radiator. The problem is, the exhaust is near the micro SD slot. I’m not sure if this will cause any issues, but the Asus ROG Ally, which I showed previously, also has its micro SD slot near the exhaust of the cooling system, and that caused issues with both the card reader and the cards dying. However, the RG556 runs much hotter than this one, so it’s probably not an issue here.
On the front, you have two joysticks, both of which use Hall effect sensors. There is a full array of buttons, including select and start, and two additional buttons. The first one launches the emulation software, and the second one is for going back. Of course, on the front, you have the screen, a 5.5-inch full HD AMOLED screen running at 60Hz and supporting HDR10. The image quality is outstanding, much better than an IPS screen, for example. It also supports touch input and can register all 10 fingers at the same time.
The device runs Android 13, and obviously, this is not a phone, so you don’t have a SIM card slot or a camera. However, you do have Wi-Fi (both 2.4GHz and 5GHz), Bluetooth 5.0, and all the necessary sensors. There is also some backlight around the joysticks. It only has a white color, and if you find it annoying like I do, you can easily disable it in the settings. You can also control the cooling fan from the settings. You can turn it on, switch it to silent or strong mode, or leave it on auto, so the device will turn the fan on and off according to the current thermals. Even at maximum speed, the fan is not too loud.
I captured some images with my thermal camera while the device was running a stress test, and it doesn’t get hotter than 36°C, which is a very nice result. So the thermal solution definitely works.
The RG556 has 8GB of low-power DDR4X RAM and also built-in storage of 128GB. I assume that it is UFS 2.1. The whole thing is powered by the Unisoc T820 processor, an entry-level system on a chip from a not-so-popular manufacturer. In AnTuTu, it gets just above 400,000 points, which is not bad but not much by today’s standards. However, despite this somewhat mediocre performance, the games run surprisingly well. Since this is Android 13, you have access to the Google Play Store, even though the device doesn’t pass any security checks in Google, most probably because it is a rooted device.
The most popular game in the Play Store right now is probably Genshin Impact, and I was amazed to know that now it is provided by a different company. Anyway, it runs well on this device. Unfortunately, I was unable to use the physical gamepad to control the in-game character. The touchscreen controls work, but to make the physical controller work, you will probably need to install some patches, which may get you banned from the game.
However, the RG556 is not about playing Android games, even though you can. This is a retro gaming console, and pre-installed in the firmware are quite a few emulators of old and not-so-old consoles. You can launch them the normal way, like you launch Android apps, or you can press the special button on the left of the device. This will open a special menu where you can launch your emulated games. When you insert the SD card, the menu will automatically scan the content of the card, and all the games will appear in the library.
What amazed me about this device is that, despite its mediocre performance, it runs PlayStation 2 games very well. I launched one of the most popular and demanding PS2 games, and had zero issues with it. It is perfectly playable and runs just fine.
Another cool feature is that the RG556 also supports video out. At first, I had trouble connecting an external display to this console. I tried a Type-C display, which requires Alt DP mode, and it didn’t work. I also tried to connect it to quite a few docking stations I have, for example, this Steam Deck docking station, which also has HDMI, VGA, and DisplayPort out, but neither of them worked. However, I remembered I had a Type-C to VGA converter, and this time around it worked! So, you can connect an external second display to this console.
Inspired by this success, I decided to try another adapter, which is labeled Lenovo, but is obviously a fake. Similar adapters are available online under many brand names, like Orico, Basos, Ugin, and many others. They have different features, with some including USB ports, card readers, ethernet ports, M.2 slots for NVMe storage, and power delivery ports. Most of them also have an HDMI, DisplayPort, or VGA port, so you can connect an external display using the Alt DP capabilities of the Type-C connection. I tried the HDMI port on my monitor using this adapter, and it worked. I was also able to connect my HMD (head-mounted display) goggles.
So, yes, you can use external displays with the RG556. It will run in three modes: you can use a dual-screen setup, use the console as a giant touchscreen for your bigger screen, or mirror your gameplay on the external display. You can select these modes in the settings. You can also change how the controller behaves. You can use controller mapping or use it as an Xbox controller. This setting applies regardless of whether you are using an external monitor or playing on the console display itself.
One last peculiarity some may be interested in: the firmware on this device does not have multi-user functionality enabled. This means you won’t be able to have separate accounts for different members of your family. Everyone will be using the same account (on the device itself, not Google accounts).
All in all, this is actually a very decent and very affordable device. It’s also very easy to set up. Especially if you invest in that SD card with the ROMs, on the first power-on you only have to press a couple of buttons for the initial setup, then just pop in the SD card, and you’re ready to go. Your mileage may vary though. This device has a 5,000mAh battery, which is more than enough to play most games for a few hours. However, more demanding games—especially with the cooling fan on—will drain the battery faster, so how many hours of gameplay you get on a single charge will depend on the game.
Overall, the RG556 is a very interesting device. If you want to play retro games and Android games using physical controls with Hall effect triggers and joysticks, take a closer look at this console.