G80 R36S Clone

I did everything right. I went to r36s.org, read the buying guide, identified a trusted seller on Amazon, and ordered what should have been a legitimate R36S. I wanted to review it for the site. Instead, Amazon’s commingled inventory gave me a counterfeit.

Here is how commingled inventory works: Amazon pools stock from multiple sellers listing the same product into shared fulfillment bins. When a seller ships genuine R36S units and another seller ships clones under the same listing, Amazon mixes them together. You can order from a seller with a clean reputation and still receive a clone, because Amazon picked from the same bin. It is not necessarily the seller’s fault. It is absolutely Amazon’s problem, and they have no interest in fixing it.

The clone I received boots into EmuELEC 4.7. That is the tell. A genuine R36S ships with ArkOS. If the device shows EmuELEC on boot, you most likely have a G80-board clone. The firmware information screen confirmed it: system string G80-CA-HH-R36S-EE-TF-R-20251225, Mali-G31 GPU, ARM vendor, four CPU cores, CPU model field blank. Not an RK3326. Not an R36S.

From the outside, the two are identical. Same box. Same branding. Same button layout, dual SD card slots, dual USB-C charging ports, dual RAM chips. You used to be able to tell the clones easily because they only had the one RAM chip, but newer G80 clones have matched the R36S and added a second RAM chip. You cannot tell by looking.

Game performance is not the problem. The clone runs 16-bit systems without complaint. PlayStation 1 is mostly fine. Some Dreamcast titles struggle. The emulation core does what it does, and for light use it holds up. The SD card did not die in two weeks of testing, which is better than typical for these devices. So, the bones are acceptable.

The problem is everything you actually touch.

The buttons stick. They feel cheap in the specific way that makes you wonder how many presses they have before they stop registering. The D-pad has a phantom down input baked in from the factory. Press down and it locks in that direction. Try to change to up, left, or right, and it still thinks you are going down. I tried to play BurgerTime. I could not. The left analog stick drifts right out of the box. Games that use the stick pull constantly toward one side. This is not wear. This is how it arrived.

A handheld where you cannot trust the inputs is not a handheld. It is a paperweight with a screen.

If this clone sold for fifteen or twenty dollars as most of them on AliExpress do, the hardware flaws might be forgivable as the cost of entry at the bottom of the market. But it sold at the same price as a genuine R36S. There are plenty of these clones that are perfectly serviceable. Most work without any issue whatsoever. Sure, you are stuck with EmuELEC, but it really isn’t the worst platform. Your upgrade options are limited. You are not going to be able to do custom firmware’s for the most part. From my research the G80 SoC is incompatible with ArkOS and ROCKNIX but there is some development work going on to try and fix that. You won’t be able to add on a rumble or wifi card. And the biggest issue is you don’t have support. For the one I received there is no manufacturer contact on the box. There is no support. There is nothing. And the legitimate seller I bought from can’t control Amazon’s warehouse issues.

For me I will keep it, maybe try and swap out the controls. But if you’re looking for one, do not buy this from Amazon. Buy one direct from AliExpress using a seller verified by the r36s.org community. And if you really want a cheap clones, pick up one of the ones from MicroCenter with the 2 year warranty.