Three names dominate the sub-$100 retro handheld conversation in August 2026: the Anbernic RG35XX family, the Miyoo Mini Plus lineup, and TrimUI’s Brick and Smart Pro devices. All three promise pocket-sized access to decades of classic games, and all three now ship in multiple hardware revisions that make picking the “right” one harder than it looks. This comparison breaks down real specs, real prices, and real emulation ceilings so you know exactly which device fits your budget and your game library before you spend a dollar.
The short version: the Anbernic RG35XX H starts around $55-$68 and adds Wi-Fi and HDMI-out that the base model skips. The Miyoo Mini Plus undercuts everyone at roughly $63 while staying the lightest and most pocketable of the three. The TrimUI Brick Pro sits at the top of this comparison at $99, trading affordability for a bigger screen, Hall-effect sticks, and a 5,000mAh battery that dwarfs the competition. None of these three will run Dreamcast or GameCube cleanly, but each handles the 8-bit through PS1 era differently enough to change which one you should actually buy.
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The Retro Handheld Market in 2026: Why These Three Devices Matter
Budget retro handhelds became a genuine product category rather than a novelty once Anbernic, Miyoo, and TrimUI started iterating annually instead of releasing one device and walking away. Anbernic’s RG35XX line alone has spawned four distinct variants since its original launch, and DataForSEO search data shows “anbernic rg35xx” pulling roughly 12,100 monthly US searches with a keyword difficulty of just 14, while “miyoo mini plus” pulls an even larger 14,800 searches a month. That volume reflects a market that has moved well past enthusiast forums and into mainstream gift-buying territory, particularly ahead of the 2026 holiday season.
Part of the reason these three brands keep showing up in the same buying decision is that they’ve converged on similar silicon tiers rather than competing head-on with premium Windows handhelds like the ROG Xbox Ally X or Steam Deck OLED. A $1,000 Windows handheld and a $50 Anbernic solve completely different problems. The RG35XX, Mini Plus, and Brick Pro all live in the same $43-$99 bracket, run some flavor of embedded Linux, and are built specifically to emulate older consoles rather than run native PC games. That makes them directly comparable in a way premium handhelds aren’t.
2026 has also been a volatile year for handheld pricing generally. DRAM shortages pushed retro handheld prices up sharply earlier this year as manufacturers scrambled for LPDDR4 allocations, a trend covered in detail in our RAM crisis report. That backdrop matters here: every device in this comparison ships with just 128MB to 2GB of RAM, and the low-RAM tier (Miyoo’s 128MB DDR3) has become measurably harder for manufacturers to source affordably, which is part of why Miyoo has started pushing buyers toward the newer A30 model instead.
The three brands also split cleanly by design philosophy. Anbernic chases broad compatibility and the biggest homebrew/custom-firmware community. Miyoo chases minimalism, weight, and price. TrimUI chases raw headroom, betting that PSP and light 3D emulation matter more to buyers than shaving another $30 off the sticker price. Understanding that philosophy split explains most of the spec differences you’ll see in the tables below.
Anbernic RG35XX Family: Specs, Price, and What’s New in 2026
Anbernic’s official store lists the base RG35XX 2024 refresh at a sale price of $42.99 (regular $49.99), built around an Allwinner H700 quad-core Cortex-A53 chip clocked at 1.5GHz paired with a dual-core Mali-G31 MP2 GPU. It carries 1GB of LPDDR4 RAM, a 3.5-inch IPS screen at 640×480 with OCA full lamination, and a 2,600mAh battery Anbernic rates at roughly 7 hours. It ships with a 64GB microSD card and dual card slots that support expansion up to 512GB, running on a 64-bit Linux base. The base model skips Wi-Fi entirely, which is the single biggest thing that separates it from its siblings.
The RG35XX H is the version most reviewers actually recommend, and it’s listed on Anbernic’s own store at a sale price of $55.19 (regular $67.99). It keeps the same H700 chip, screen, and resolution as the base model but jumps to a 3,300mAh battery (Anbernic claims up to 8 hours), adds 2.4/5GHz Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.2, a mini-HDMI port for TV output, and a vibration motor. If you want to plug the handheld into a television or pair a Bluetooth controller, the H is the only base-tier RG35XX that supports it.
RG35XX Plus vs RG35XX Pro: The Other Two Variants
The RG35XX Plus shares the H’s 3,300mAh battery and Anbernic’s advertised “lasting 8 hours” claim, along with the same Wi-Fi/Bluetooth/HDMI feature set, essentially functioning as a color/finish variant of the H rather than a distinct performance tier. The RG35XX Pro, meanwhile, launched through a preorder window that opened with a retail price of $49.99 and an early-bird price of $44.99 for the first 72 hours, according to RetroHandhelds.gg’s coverage of the announcement. The Pro keeps the familiar 3.5-inch 640×480 IPS panel and H700 chip but trims the battery slightly to 3,200mAh, still with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, mini-HDMI, and vibration built in.
What all four RG35XX variants share is the H700’s compatibility ceiling. This isn’t a chip built to push new frontiers in emulation; it’s built to nail the systems people actually want to replay: NES, SNES, Genesis, Game Boy Advance, PC Engine, Neo Geo, and PS1 all run at full speed. PSP handles most 2D-heavy titles well, with heavier 3D PSP games starting to stutter. N64 support exists but isn’t full-library; some titles run great, others need per-game tuning or don’t run at playable speeds at all.
Miyoo Mini Plus and the A30/Flip Lineup: Specs and Positioning
Miyoo’s official product page for the Mini Plus (also sold as the Mini+ V2) lists a 3.5-inch IPS screen with OCA full lamination at 640×480, an ARM Cortex-A7 dual-core CPU clocked at 1.2GHz, and just 128MB of DDR3 RAM. Storage options run 32GB, 64GB, or 128GB microSD depending on the bundle. Multiple independent listings, including Amazon and spec aggregator RetroDex, corroborate a 3,000mAh battery, and reviewer Reviewed.com pegs street pricing around $63 with a tested configuration running Linux, commonly replaced with community firmware after setup.
That RAM discrepancy across some third-party listings reflects Miyoo selling multiple internal hardware revisions under the same “Mini Plus” name over its production run, a pattern that’s common in this corner of the handheld market and one more reason to check the specific listing before buying rather than assuming every “Mini Plus” box contains identical guts.
The CPU tells the real performance story here: an ARM Cortex-A7 dual-core at 1.2GHz is meaningfully weaker than the RG35XX’s quad-core Cortex-A53 at 1.5GHz, and it lacks a dedicated GPU comparable to the Mali-G31. In practice that means the Mini Plus is best understood as a PS1-class device. It handles 8-bit and 16-bit systems, Game Boy through Game Boy Advance, and PS1 titles at reasonable performance, but PSP, N64, and anything past that tier is generally not viable outside of very light homebrew.
Miyoo A30 and Miyoo Flip: The Newer Siblings
Miyoo’s official product listing for the A30 confirms it runs an Allwinner A33 quad-core Cortex-A7 chip at 1.3GHz, marketed directly alongside the Mini Plus and Flip with a “**30% off** promotion, positioning it in the roughly **$70–$85** tier rather than as a sub-$70 upgrade path. The Miyoo Flip, Miyoo’s clamshell-style device, is documented by independent spec databases (not an official Miyoo product page) at a 3.5-inch 640×480 IPS screen and a 3,000mAh battery, running Cortex-A55 silicon that’s a step up from the Mini Plus’s A7 core, though those specs come from third-party aggregators rather than Miyoo’s own site, so treat unconfirmed figures with some caution until Miyoo publishes a full official spec sheet.
The practical takeaway across the whole Miyoo lineup: if your game library stops at PS1, the Mini Plus remains the cheapest, lightest way to carry it in your pocket. If you want any 3D emulation headroom at all, look at the RG35XX or TrimUI options instead.
TrimUI Brick Pro and Smart Pro: Specs and Positioning
TrimUI takes the opposite approach from Miyoo, prioritizing screen size and battery capacity over minimalism. Pocket Retro Gamer’s 2026 review describes the Brick Pro as “a 3.95-inch vertical Linux handheld with a 1024×768 laminated IPS panel, two clickable Hall-effect sticks, a 5,000mAh battery and swappable shoulder buttons, built around the same Allwinner A133P as the original Brick.” That A133P chip pairs with a PowerVR GE8300 GPU, giving the Brick Pro meaningfully more graphical headroom than either the RG35XX’s Mali-G31 or the Mini Plus’s absent dedicated GPU.
Pricing sits at $99, though RetroDodo’s review notes a $10-off promo code (BPO10) that brings it down to an effective $89, still the most expensive device in this comparison by a wide margin. The original TrimUI Brick, which the Pro builds on, carries an MSRP of $79.99, with Android Authority’s review noting street prices “between $60-$80 depending on sales and the size of the microSD card.”
TrimUI Smart Pro: The Widescreen Alternative
TrimUI’s own product page for the Smart Pro lists a 4.96-inch IPS display, the same Allwinner A133P chip clocked at 1.8GHz, a PowerVR GE8300 GPU at 660MHz, 1GB of LPDDR4x RAM, and 8GB of eMMC storage with 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi. TrimUI’s official listing doesn’t publish a battery figure, but the Linux-Sunxi hardware documentation project and multiple spec aggregators, including RetroDex, independently confirm a 5,000mAh 3.7V Li-Ion cell, matching the Brick Pro. HandheldWiki’s side-by-side comparison tool puts the Smart Pro’s screen at 4.96 inches against the standard Smart Brick’s 3.2 inches, underscoring how differently TrimUI’s two shapes are meant to be held: the Brick/Brick Pro vertical for portrait-style retro titles, the Smart Pro horizontal for widescreen PSP and shader-enhanced classic emulation.
Weight is where the Smart Pro’s larger screen catches up with it. Spec aggregator RetroDex lists the Smart Pro at 231g across dimensions of 188x80x17mm, noticeably heavier than either the RG35XX H or the Mini Plus, though still well under a full-size Windows handheld.
Full Specs Comparison Table
Here’s how the three flagship configurations actually compare side by side. We’ve used the RG35XX H (the Wi-Fi/HDMI-enabled Anbernic variant most reviewers recommend), the standard Miyoo Mini Plus, and the TrimUI Brick Pro as the representative models, since these are the closest in market positioning as of August 2026.
| Spec | Anbernic RG35XX H | Miyoo Mini Plus | TrimUI Brick Pro |
|---|---|---|---|
| Official price (Aug 2026) | $55.19 sale / $67.99 regular | ~$63 | $99 ($89 with code BPO10) |
| SoC / CPU | Allwinner H700, quad-core Cortex-A53 @ 1.5GHz | ARM Cortex-A7 dual-core @ 1.2GHz | Allwinner A133P, quad-core @ 1.8GHz |
| GPU | Dual-core Mali-G31 MP2 | None listed / integrated 2D accelerator | PowerVR GE8300 (660MHz) |
| RAM | 1GB LPDDR4 | 128MB DDR3 (some listings show higher on later revisions) | 1GB LPDDR4x |
| Screen size / type | 3.5″ IPS, OCA laminated | 3.5″ IPS, OCA laminated | 3.95″ IPS, laminated |
| Resolution / aspect | 640×480, 4:3 | 640×480, 4:3 | 1024×768, 4:3 |
| Battery capacity | 3,300mAh | 3,000mAh | 5,000mAh |
| Claimed battery life | Up to 8 hours | Not officially stated (3,000mAh class) | Not officially stated (5,000mAh class) |
| Weight | ~165g (base RG35XX chassis figure) | Not officially published | Heavier than RG35XX/Mini Plus (exact figure not published) |
| Storage | 64GB microSD, dual slots, up to 512GB | 32/64/128GB microSD variants | microSD expandable |
| OS / firmware | Linux 64-bit; large muOS/ArkOS community | Linux; commonly upgraded to Onion OS | Linux; TrimUI custom firmware + community images |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi 2.4/5GHz, Bluetooth 4.2, mini-HDMI | Wi-Fi (model-dependent), no HDMI | Wi-Fi (Smart Pro: 802.11 b/g/n); Brick Pro connectivity model-dependent |
| Controls | Standard D-pad/dual analog | Compact D-pad, no analog sticks | Two clickable Hall-effect analog sticks, swappable shoulders |
| Practical emulation ceiling | Up to PS1 fully, light PSP/N64 | Up to PS1, minimal PSP/N64 | Up to PS1, improved PSP, still no Dreamcast/GameCube |
The RAM and weight gaps in this table aren’t oversights, they reflect genuine inconsistency in what manufacturers publish. Anbernic and TrimUI both maintain detailed official spec sheets; Miyoo’s official page stops short of listing battery mAh or weight at all, which is part of why third-party spec aggregators and hands-on reviews have become the primary source for those numbers across the whole Mini Plus lineup.
Pricing Comparison: Official Store vs Amazon vs AliExpress
Retro handheld pricing varies more by channel than almost any other hardware category, largely because these brands sell direct-to-consumer, through Amazon, and through AliExpress simultaneously, often at different price points depending on bundled storage and regional shipping costs.
| Device | Official store price | Typical Amazon listing | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anbernic RG35XX (2024) | $42.99 sale / $49.99 regular | $45-$55 | No Wi-Fi, base tier |
| Anbernic RG35XX H | $55.19 sale / $67.99 regular | Up to $71.72 | Adds Wi-Fi, HDMI, bigger battery |
| Anbernic RG35XX Pro | $49.99 ($44.99 early-bird) | Varies by retailer | Launched via preorder campaign |
| Miyoo Mini Plus | Sold via official Miyoo store | ~$63 (Reviewed.com tested unit) | Multiple internal hardware revisions exist |
| Miyoo A30 | Sub-$70 tier, 30% promo pricing observed | Comparable to Mini Plus band | Newer Allwinner A33 chip |
| TrimUI Brick (original) | $79.99 MSRP | $60-$80 (Android Authority) | Price depends on SD card size |
| TrimUI Brick Pro | $99 ($89 with code BPO10) | Comparable to official pricing | Most expensive in this comparison |
| TrimUI Smart Pro | Listed without fixed price on base config page | Commonly $65-$80 band per retailer | No official fixed USD figure published |
The practical spread: you can get into pocket-sized retro gaming for as little as $43 with the base RG35XX, or spend up to $99 for the Brick Pro’s bigger screen and battery. Everything else in this comparison lands in that $50-$70 middle band, which is where most buyers actually end up shopping given how closely the RG35XX H, Miyoo Mini Plus, and TrimUI Smart Pro track each other on price.
Emulation Performance Benchmarks: PS1, PSP, N64, Dreamcast
Every device in this comparison is built around a low-power ARM SoC, so none of them are going to touch Dreamcast, GameCube, or PS2 at usable frame rates, regardless of what firmware you install. Where they genuinely differ is everything below that ceiling.
The Anbernic RG35XX H’s H700 chip with its Mali-G31 GPU handles the widest range comfortably: NES, SNES, Genesis, Game Boy through GBA, PC Engine, Neo Geo, and PS1 all run at full speed according to multiple reviewer roundups. PSP performance is inconsistent, with many 2D-forward titles playable and heavier 3D PSP games stuttering. N64 emulation exists on the H700 but isn’t a full-library win, some titles run cleanly, others need per-game configuration tweaks or simply aren’t playable.
The Miyoo Mini Plus, running its weaker Cortex-A7 dual-core, is best treated as a hard stop at PS1. That’s not a knock, it plays the entire 8-bit through PS1 catalog well and remains the lightest device here, but reviewers consistently frame it as a nostalgia-focused device rather than a PSP or N64 machine. If your collection is mostly SNES and Game Boy Advance ROMs, the extra headroom in the RG35XX or Brick Pro genuinely won’t matter to you.
The TrimUI Brick Pro and Smart Pro, sharing the Allwinner A133P and PowerVR GE8300 combination, sit at the top of this trio for anything PS1-adjacent. Their higher clock speed (1.8GHz vs the RG35XX’s 1.5GHz) and dedicated PowerVR graphics give them the best shot at stable PSP performance of the three brands, plus the Smart Pro’s widescreen panel is specifically well-suited to PSP titles that were designed in 16:9 to begin with. None of the three, however, should be marketed or bought as Dreamcast or GameCube machines; that tier of emulation needs significantly more silicon than any $50-$99 handheld currently offers.
Community firmware changes this picture somewhat. Devices running muOS or ArkOS instead of stock firmware often see meaningful frame-rate improvements on borderline titles because these custom builds strip out bloat and optimize core emulator settings per device. The RG35XX has by far the largest custom firmware community of the three brands here, which is a real practical advantage if you plan to tinker rather than run stock software out of the box.
Battery Life and Build Quality Compared
Battery capacity tells a clear story: the TrimUI Brick Pro’s 5,000mAh cell is more than **3,000mAh** battery, which is **slightly smaller** than the RG35XX H’s 3,300mAh and equal to the Miyoo Mini Plus’s 3,000mAh; it is not larger than either. None of the three manufacturers publish independently verified runtime hours for every model (Anbernic claims “up to 8 hours” for the RG35XX H and Plus; TrimUI hasn’t published an official runtime figure for either Brick Pro or Smart Pro), but capacity alone suggests the Brick Pro should comfortably outlast both competitors on a single charge, particularly during PSP-tier emulation, which draws more power than 8-bit and 16-bit cores.
Build quality diverges along the same lines as screen size. The Miyoo Mini Plus is the smallest and lightest device here by a clear margin, designed to disappear into a jacket pocket. The RG35XX H sits in the middle, still genuinely pocketable at roughly 165g for the base chassis design, with a traditional D-pad and dual analog layout. The TrimUI Brick Pro is the outlier: Pocket Retro Gamer’s review specifically calls out “two clickable Hall-effect sticks” and “swappable shoulder buttons” as standout build features. Hall-effect sticks in particular resist the stick drift that plagues cheaper potentiometer-based analog sticks over years of use, a meaningful durability edge if you’re buying a device you expect to keep for several years rather than replace annually.
Charging is USB-C across all three brands’ current-generation models, a genuine improvement over the micro-USB ports that shipped on earlier retro handheld generations as recently as 2022-2023.
Firmware and Operating Systems: Stock Linux vs muOS vs ArkOS vs Onion OS
All three brands ship stock Linux-based firmware out of the box, and all three have active communities building alternative firmware images that most enthusiasts install within days of unboxing. This is arguably the most important differentiator in this whole comparison, because the stock experience and the modded experience can feel like genuinely different devices.
The Anbernic RG35XX line has the deepest third-party firmware support of the three, largely because Anbernic’s H700 chip has become something of a reference platform for the retro handheld scene. Our muOS vs ArkOS vs JELOS comparison covers this ecosystem in depth, but the short version: muOS focuses on a clean, curated interface with strong per-core tuning, while ArkOS leans toward raw compatibility across a wider hardware range. Both are actively maintained on RG35XX hardware as of mid-2026, though the underlying JELOS project that once competed with them has stalled, with only one of the three major community firmware projects still shipping regular updates.
The Miyoo Mini Plus’s dominant alternative firmware is Onion OS, purpose-built for Miyoo’s smaller-RAM hardware and specifically tuned to work within the Mini Plus’s tighter memory ceiling. It’s less feature-dense than muOS but noticeably more stable on hardware that has as little as 128MB of RAM to work with, which matters more here than on the RG35XX or TrimUI devices given how thin that memory budget actually is.
TrimUI’s ecosystem is the newest of the three and correspondingly the smallest, though it’s grown quickly given the Brick and Smart Pro’s popularity. TrimUI ships its own custom launcher on top of Linux, and community developers have started porting select CFW builds to A133P hardware, but neither the Brick Pro nor Smart Pro has the multi-year firmware maturity that RG35XX devices enjoy. If flashing custom firmware and joining an active modding community matters to your buying decision, that alone tips the scale toward Anbernic.
Screen and Ergonomics: 3.5″ vs 3.95″ vs 4.96″
Screen size seems like a minor spec until you actually hold these devices side by side. The RG35XX H and Miyoo Mini Plus both use a 3.5-inch 640×480 IPS panel in the same 4:3 aspect ratio, which matches the native resolution of most 16-bit and PS1-era games without letterboxing or stretching. The TrimUI Brick Pro steps up to a 3.95-inch 1024×768 panel, still 4:3, giving noticeably more visible detail on the same content, while RetroShelf’s side-by-side comparison tool shows the Smart Pro jumping all the way to a 4.96-inch widescreen panel, a fundamentally different viewing experience built around 16:9 content like PSP games rather than classic 4:3 consoles.
That aspect ratio choice matters more than raw size. If your library is mostly SNES, Genesis, and PS1 games designed for 4:3 displays, the RG35XX H, Mini Plus, and Brick Pro all present that content natively without letterboxing. The Smart Pro’s widescreen panel handles PSP titles beautifully but requires either stretching or pillarboxing for older 4:3 content, a tradeoff TrimUI clearly made deliberately given the Smart Pro’s PSP-forward positioning.
Ergonomically, the size differences track directly to hand comfort during long sessions. The Mini Plus’s compact frame is comfortable for shorter sessions but can feel cramped for players with larger hands during multi-hour play. The RG35XX H’s traditional horizontal layout with proper analog sticks is the most “standard console controller” feeling of the three. The Brick Pro’s vertical orientation and Hall-effect sticks are unusual if you’ve never used a vertical handheld before, but reviewers consistently note the learning curve is short and the payoff in stick durability is real.
Real-World Examples: 5 Buyer Scenarios From 2026’s Market
Retro handheld buying patterns in 2026 tend to cluster around a handful of recognizable use cases, each of which points toward a different device in this lineup.
- The commuter replaying childhood Game Boy and SNES libraries: wants the smallest, lightest device that survives a jacket pocket and a daily train ride. The Miyoo Mini Plus’s sub-$65 price and compact 3.5-inch frame fits this exactly, since PSP or N64 headroom is irrelevant to an 8-bit/16-bit collection.
- The dorm-room gamer who wants HDMI-out for a TV setup: needs Wi-Fi, Bluetooth controller pairing, and mini-HDMI, features only the RG35XX H (not the base RG35XX) actually includes among Anbernic’s lineup, at $55.19-$67.99.
- The PSP-curious tinkerer building a hybrid collection: wants the best shot at stable 3D emulation without jumping to a $200+ device. The TrimUI Brick Pro’s A133P chip and PowerVR GPU give it the strongest PSP performance of the three brands, worth the $99 premium for this specific use case.
- A parent buying a first handheld for a child: prioritizes durability and a low price over raw performance. The base Anbernic RG35XX 2024 at $42.99 covers NES-through-PS1 nostalgia titles at the lowest entry price in this comparison, without exposing a kid to a $99 device they might drop.
- The modder who wants the biggest community and the most firmware options: the RG35XX’s dominant muOS and ArkOS support (detailed in our custom firmware comparison) makes it the easiest device to heavily customize, with the most documentation and troubleshooting threads available online of any device in this comparison.
Use-Case Recommendations
| If you want… | Buy this | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Lowest possible price | Anbernic RG35XX (2024) | $42.99 sale price, still covers NES-PS1 |
| Lightest, most pocketable device | Miyoo Mini Plus | Smallest 3.5″ frame, sub-$65 pricing |
| HDMI/TV output plus Bluetooth | Anbernic RG35XX H | Only sub-$70 RG35XX variant with both |
| Best PSP-adjacent performance | TrimUI Brick Pro | A133P plus PowerVR GE8300 outperforms H700/A7 |
| Widescreen PSP library | TrimUI Smart Pro | Only widescreen panel in this comparison |
| Longest battery life | TrimUI Brick Pro or Smart Pro | 5,000mAh vs 3,000-3,300mAh rivals |
| Largest modding/CFW community | Anbernic RG35XX (any variant) | Dominant muOS/ArkOS support |
Migration Guide: Moving ROMs, Saves, and Save States Between Devices
Switching from one of these handhelds to another, or simply setting one up fresh, follows a fairly consistent process across all three brands since they’re all Linux-based and rely on standard microSD storage rather than proprietary cartridges or locked-down internal flash.
Start by backing up your existing microSD card in full before touching anything, using a card reader and a simple disk image tool on a PC or Mac. This protects your save files and save states in case a firmware flash goes wrong partway through. Most custom firmware projects (muOS, ArkOS, Onion OS) use a broadly similar folder structure once installed, which is what makes moving between these three handheld families relatively painless compared to migrating between totally different platforms.
SD_ROOT/
BIOS/ # per-console BIOS files, required for PS1, PSP, GBA
Roms/
GB/
GBA/
SNES/
Genesis/
PSX/
PSP/
Saves/ # standard .srm / .sav files
Savestates/ # emulator-specific, NOT cross-compatible between cores
RetroArch/
system/
saves/The critical caveat: standard save files (.srm/.sav) generally transfer cleanly between devices because they’re written by the game itself through the emulator core, but save states are tied to the specific emulator core and version that created them, and will not reliably load on a different device or a different firmware build. If you’re mid-playthrough on a game and switching devices, finish at an in-game save point rather than relying on a save state to carry over.
BIOS files are non-negotiable for PS1, PSP, and several other systems to emulate correctly, and none of these three manufacturers ship BIOS files with the device for legal reasons, you’ll need to source your own from hardware you legally own. Format any new microSD card as exFAT for cards over 32GB or FAT32 for smaller cards, since some older firmware builds specifically require FAT32 and will fail to boot from exFAT-formatted media. Always verify your specific firmware’s documentation before assuming either format works, since this is one of the most common setup failures reported across all three device communities.
Pros and Cons of Each Device
Anbernic RG35XX H
- Pros: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and HDMI-out at a sub-$70 price; largest custom firmware community; broadest console compatibility up to PS1; dual microSD slots for expansion.
- Cons: 1GB RAM limits PSP/N64 headroom versus TrimUI’s A133P chips; base RG35XX variant (without the H) skips Wi-Fi entirely, easy to buy the wrong one by mistake.
Miyoo Mini Plus
- Pros: Cheapest realistic entry point among the Wi-Fi-capable models; lightest, most pocketable frame in this comparison; strong Onion OS community support.
- Cons: Weakest CPU of the three (Cortex-A7 dual-core); hard ceiling at PS1-level emulation; official specs (battery, weight) are inconsistently published across hardware revisions.
TrimUI Brick Pro / Smart Pro
- Pros: Strongest chip (A133P plus PowerVR GE8300) of the three; largest battery (5,000mAh); Hall-effect analog sticks resist long-term drift; Smart Pro’s widescreen panel is purpose-built for PSP.
- Cons: Most expensive by a wide margin ($89-$99 vs $43-$68 rivals); smallest, newest custom firmware community; no official battery-life-in-hours figure published by TrimUI.
Where to Buy Each Handheld in August 2026
All three brands sell direct through their own official stores (anbernic.com, the official Miyoo storefront, and trimui.net), which is generally the safest way to guarantee you’re getting current-generation hardware rather than an older revision being cleared out by a third-party seller. Amazon carries all three brands as well, though listings for Anbernic and Miyoo devices in particular can include older hardware revisions mixed into the same product listing, so check the specific model number (RG35XX vs RG35XX H vs RG35XX Plus vs RG35XX Pro) carefully before checkout rather than assuming the top search result is the newest version.
AliExpress typically offers the lowest prices on all three brands but comes with longer shipping times from China and less consistent buyer protection than Amazon or a manufacturer’s own store. For first-time buyers, paying slightly more through an official store or Amazon to get faster shipping and clearer return policies is usually worth it, reserving AliExpress for repeat buyers who already know exactly which model and firmware combination they want.
The Verdict: Which Retro Handheld Should You Buy
There’s no single winner here because these three devices are solving genuinely different problems, but the data points toward clear recommendations depending on what you actually value. If price and pocketability are your top priorities and your library tops out at PS1, the Miyoo Mini Plus at roughly $63 is hard to beat for what it is. If you want the best all-around value with real Wi-Fi and HDMI functionality, the Anbernic RG35XX H at $55.19-$67.99 remains the strongest all-rounder in this comparison, backed by the deepest custom firmware ecosystem of any device here. If PSP performance and battery life matter more to you than saving $30-40, the TrimUI Brick Pro’s A133P chip, PowerVR GPU, and 5,000mAh battery justify its $99 price tag, particularly for buyers who plan to keep one handheld for years rather than upgrading annually.
What none of these three devices do is touch Dreamcast, GameCube, or PS2-level emulation, and no amount of custom firmware changes that fundamental silicon limit. If that’s what you’re after, you’re looking at a different, more expensive category of hardware entirely, closer to the territory covered in our broader handheld console roundup. For everything from NES through PS1, and PSP if you pick the right chip, these three remain the best-documented, most actively supported options on the market in August 2026.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which is better for PS1 emulation: RG35XX or Miyoo Mini Plus?
Both handle PS1 well, but the RG35XX H’s Cortex-A53 quad-core and Mali-G31 GPU give it more consistent frame rates on demanding PS1 titles than the Miyoo Mini Plus’s Cortex-A7 dual-core, which can struggle with a handful of the more graphically intensive PS1 games even though the bulk of the library runs fine on both.
Can any of these handhelds play N64 games?
The Anbernic RG35XX and TrimUI Brick Pro/Smart Pro can run a portion of the N64 library, though not the full catalog at consistent frame rates; performance varies significantly by title. The Miyoo Mini Plus’s weaker CPU makes N64 largely impractical outside of very light homebrew.
Do I need to install custom firmware like muOS or Onion OS?
No, all three devices work out of the box on stock firmware. Custom firmware like muOS, ArkOS, or Onion OS typically improves interface polish and per-core emulator tuning, and is popular within these communities, but it’s an optional enhancement rather than a requirement to use the device.
What size microSD card do I need?
All three devices ship with a bundled microSD card (typically 32GB-64GB) that’s sufficient for a large ROM library given how small most retro game files are. The RG35XX supports expansion up to 512GB across its dual card slots if you want significantly more storage headroom.
Which handheld has the best battery life?
By raw battery capacity, the TrimUI Brick Pro and Smart Pro lead with 5,000mAh cells, well ahead of the RG35XX H’s 3,300mAh and Miyoo Mini Plus’s 3,000mAh. Neither TrimUI model has published an official hours-of-use figure, while Anbernic claims up to 8 hours for the RG35XX H.
Are these handhelds legal to use with ROM files?
The hardware itself is legal to own and sell in most jurisdictions. Whether specific ROM files are legal to download depends on copyright law in your country and whether you own a legitimate copy of the original game; downloading ROMs for games you don’t own is generally considered copyright infringement regardless of which handheld you use to play them.
Which is best for a first handheld for a kid?
The base Anbernic RG35XX (2024) at $42.99 is the lowest-risk entry point given its price, while still covering the NES-through-PS1 range most nostalgic parents want to introduce. Its lack of Wi-Fi is arguably a feature rather than a limitation for a child’s first device.
Do these handhelds support Bluetooth controllers?
The Anbernic RG35XX H includes Bluetooth 4.2 for controller pairing. Bluetooth support on the Miyoo Mini Plus and TrimUI Brick Pro/Smart Pro varies by specific hardware revision and firmware, so check your exact model’s documentation before assuming Bluetooth controller support is included.
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