The world's best Game Boy Advance

Anbernic's RG34XX is a lovingly shameless tribute to the original hardware

I did not, strictly, need another device capable of playing Game Boy Advance games.

Nintendo Switch Online has a good selection. My Steam Deck would barely even notice that they were running. The Analogue Pocket is about as decadent a Game Boy clone as you could hope for. I even still have my Game Boy Micro.

But none of them quite hit the spot. I personally have a lot of nostalgia for the original GBA — it was a weird little machine and its games don’t fit neatly onto hardware that they weren’t designed for. (This often includes the Game Boy Micro, which has a screen roughly the size of a postage stamp.) Lately I’d found myself wanting something closer to the launch experience.

This is where I decided to revisit the world of Chinese retro handhelds. While I’ve used some of these devices in the past, I haven’t had much use for them myself in recent years because of higher-end options. But the pace of development has accelerated to the point where there’s an interesting new design almost every week. And one that caught my eye was the Anbernic RG 34XX.

Anbernic is a vaguely reclusive company based in Hong Kong. Most of its products have similarly impenetrable alphabet-soup names, though there is a degree of method to the seemingly mad scheme: in this case “RG” means it’s a handheld retro game system, “34” means it has a 3.4” display and “XX” apparently refers to the horizontally styled form factor.

Which is to say that the RG 34XX is a Game Boy Advance with a bigger screen.

I would not be surprised if Anbernic had somehow obtained access to the original GBA shell moulds through some form of subterfuge, because this device is an incredible match for the launch model. There are a few differences to accommodate modern functionality, but in terms of size, shape and materials, the RG 34XX feels basically indistinguishable to an actual GBA in your hands.

The GBA only had two face buttons, which isn’t ideal if you want to play anything other than GBA games. Anbernic made the inventive decision to include a couple more but colour-match them to the device — in my case, the iconic-to-me purple model — which preserves the visual verisimilitude. There are also L2 and R2 buttons back where the cartridge slot would’ve been, and the top panel is rounded out by microSD card slots, a menu button, a USB-C port for charging and a Mini HDMI port for video output.

Everything is in easy reach, which is more than I can say for the Analogue Pocket’s pokey shoulder buttons. The D-pad feels pretty much like the original GBA, while all the other main buttons are chunky and satisfying. The biggest difference is the Start and Select buttons, which have a harder feel on the RG 34XX. Even the volume rocker emulates the GBA’s plastic wheel, though unfortunately it doesn’t actually spin.

I’ll note here that before the RG 34XX, Anbernic released a device called the RG 35XXSP that’s a take on the clamshell Game Boy Advance SP revision. I wasn’t as interested in that model; it’s quite a bit thicker than the original, it doesn’t have a 3:2 screen and the controls don’t look as comfortable. But I always preferred the original GBA in the first place, so SP fans may well find the RG 35XXSP to be a better option.

Along with the RG 34XX’s overall design, the screen is the main attraction here. It’s nothing special technically — just a regular laminated IPS LCD — but it’s perfect for GBA games. The resolution is 720x480, matching the GBA’s 3:2 aspect ratio and providing 3x integer scaling from the original 240x160. That’s not quite as wild as what Analogue did with the Pocket, which has ten times the resolution of a Game Boy, but it still allows for razor-sharp pixels and convincing dot-matrix screen effects out of the box.

While the handhelds’ dimensions are essentially identical, the 3.4” screen is quite a bit bigger than the 2.9” panel on the original GBA. Anbernic achieved this by slimming down the bezels surrounding the screen, most obviously removing the “Game Boy Advance” logo below the bottom edge. It’s still a small screen by today’s standards, but it’s a meaningful bump in size that doesn’t compromise the feel of authenticity. Of course, the biggest difference is that the RG 34XX actually has a backlight — a lot of people have spent far more than the cost of this handheld to mod just that one feature onto their original models.

GBA games do look a little better on the Analogue Pocket if you look real close, and you’re running them safe in the knowledge that the FPGA is delivering the most accurate output possible; the RG 34XX runs regular emulators. But games on the Pocket also look much smaller due to letterboxing, the controls aren’t as comfortable and the system’s vertical layout doesn’t feel like the original hardware. I love the Pocket and I use it all the time for Game Boy games or other systems when docked to a TV, but the RG 34XX would now be my choice for playing GBA titles on the go.

The onboard software is perfunctory and unattractive but comes with all you need to get games up and running. The menu button on the top edge is simple and effective, letting you access save states, screen filters and so on. Most of Anbernic’s handhelds, including this one, run on Linux and are compatible with a wide range of community-led OS replacements that are extremely easy to install. This Retro Game Corps video shows off a great example of a GBA-first setup that fits the RG 34XX perfectly.

The RG 34XX uses the same Allwinner H700 chip as many of Anbernic’s other handhelds; it’s a quad-core Cortex-A53 CPU that will reliably handle most console hardware up to the original PlayStation. It can also play various chunks of the Nintendo 64, Dreamcast and PSP libraries, but technical compatibility aside, you likely wouldn’t want to run too many of those games on this particular handheld due to the lack of an analog stick.

The 3:2 LCD also means the RG 34XX isn’t the best fit for 2D-first systems, where most games are designed for 4:3 screens, though I did try it out with some PS1 titles and found it performed well. The control setup works great for games designed around the D-pad, so even though I’m considering this a GBA first and foremost, it’s a GBA that could theoretically be used to play WipEout 2097 in a pinch.

Really, though, the entire point of the RG 34XX is that it is a shamelessly loving tribute to the Game Boy Advance — and on some levels, it’s the best, most authentic and nostalgic way to play those games in 2025. It’s a testament to the scale of the Chinese supply chain, where small companies like Anbernic can make a high-quality product for a hyper-niche audience and sell it for $65.

Did I mention it’s $65? Sixty-five dollars. Six-five.

This is by no means the best all-around handheld available. But it is the best Game Boy Advance.