ANBERNIC RG CubeXX

The ANBERNIC RG CubeXX is a budget retro emulation handheld released by ANBERNIC in October 2024. Its defining feature is a 3.95 inch, 720 by 720 IPS display with a one-to-one aspect ratio, a square screen shape shared by only a handful of devices on the market. The format favors square-ish handhelds and vertical content: Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Pico-8, and vertically oriented arcade titles use the panel especially well. NES and other 4:3 systems still leave some border, while 16:9 content is letterboxed into a much smaller area.

The CubeXX is the Linux-based budget sibling of the Android-powered RG Cube, which shares the same screen concept at a higher price. It runs on the Allwinner H700, the quad-core Cortex-A53 chip ANBERNIC has used across its budget line since the RG35XX family, paired with 1 GB of RAM and a Mali-G31 GPU. There is no internal storage; the system runs from dual microSD slots, one for the operating system and one for games. Dual-band 2.4/5GHz Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are built in, along with HDMI output and USB-C charging, and the 3800 mAh battery is rated for roughly six hours of play.

In practical terms the hardware is comfortable with 8-bit and 16-bit consoles, handhelds through the Game Boy Advance, arcade systems, DOS, and PlayStation 1, with lighter Nintendo 64 and Dreamcast titles playable with tuning. Saturn, PSP, GameCube and PlayStation 2 are outside its reliable comfort zone. It ships with a stock Linux frontend, supports the Knulli and muOS custom firmwares, and runs PortMaster, which brings native Linux game ports to the device. At launch the CubeXX carried a $59.99 MSRP in white, gray, and black colorways, positioning it among the least expensive square-screen handhelds available and, within ANBERNIC's own range, the low-cost alternative to the RG Cube for players focused on classic handheld, arcade and up-to-PlayStation-1-era libraries.