RG280M review
Signed-off-by: Christine Dodrill <me@christine.website>
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title: "Anbernic RG280M Review"
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date: 2021-09-04
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tags:
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- anbernic
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- retrohandheld
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author: Twi
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---
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When I started this blog a few years ago, I never thought I'd end up covering a
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lot of the things that I currently cover. Today I'm covering something
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completely different to my normal blog fare. I'm going to talk about a handheld
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console that I got recently to get my retro game fix on the go, the Anbernic
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RG280M.
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People don't really expect this out of me for some reason, but I am a gamer. I
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play a lot of games old and new, and I've wanted to get into some older games;
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but without having to tether myself to a PC in the basement. Enter the RG280M.
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The RG280M is a pocket-size handheld that uses
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[OpenDingux](https://opendingux.net) and [RetroArch](https://www.retroarch.com)
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to emulate a wide array of systems, basically everything you could think of
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right up to the original PlayStation.
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The big few games I wanted to get out of this were some SNES romhacks (Hyper
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Metroid and some other Super Mario World hacks like Invictus), DOS games
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(particularly Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure), Gameboy Advance games like Mario and
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Luigi: Superstar Saga and a good Tetris round or two. When I was messing with
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the RG280M, it knocked everything out of the park save DOS emulation (which
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I was able to fix once I installed an optimized port of dosbox).
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This was also one of my first orders from AliExpress. AliExpress is a sort of
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consumer focused view of Alibaba (kinda like the Amazon of the asian continent)
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where you can buy single units of things instead of having to order in bulk. I
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originally thought I was going to get an RG351M (and the case I got actually
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shows the RG351M name), but through misunderstanding the post I ended up with
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this RG280M instead. I don't understand why they put totally separate models of
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gaming system in the _size/color_ selection area, but apparently they did and I
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misread things so I have this console. I also got a car decal and a few
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notebooks, and those have turned out to be pretty great (though the decal came
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bent).
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[I wanted to get the RG351M for its wifi so I could have it on my Tailscale
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network for the meme, but the RG280M is a fine system on its
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own.](conversation://Cadey/enby)
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Something neat about OpenDingux is that it allows you to install additional
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applications using opk files, which are a squashfs of an application binary and
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any additional data files that the program needs. Through this I was able to
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install things such as [Super Mario
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64](https://retrogamecorps.com/2020/10/26/super-mario-64-port-for-rg350-devices/),
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which lets me get a surprising amount of extra fun that way. The Super Mario 64
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port runs _flawlessly_ and the only complaints I have about it are complaints
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that I had with the original N64 game.
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[If you are wanting to get into retro handheld devices, seriously check out the
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<a href="https://youtube.com/c/RetroGameCorps">RetroGameCorps</a> YouTube
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channel. It is phenomenal. It has both video and written writeups on how to do
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simple and advanced things with retro emulation devices and is honestly the kind
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of quality that we strive for on this blog.](conversation://Mara/happy)
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The stock firmware of the RG280M is functional, but it can be a bit odd to use.
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It's very easy to modify that into a custom image though because of how the
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RG280M stores data. It uses 2 MicroSD cards, one for your games and the other for the
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OS and savedata.
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[The "TF" acronym here means <a
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href="https://appuals.com/what-is-tf-transflash-card-and-how-is-it-different-from-micro-sd/">TransFlash</a>,
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which was the original name for MicroSD cards and is notably not under the same
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kind of trademark protection that MicroSD is. As such, many retro emulation
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devices like this will use TF as the acronym to avoid either licensing costs or
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trademark infringement.](conversation://Mara/hacker)
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This means that you can flash a new firmware image to the system one and then go
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from there. I personally use the [Adam
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Image](https://github.com/eduardofilo/RG350_adam_image) on my system. It has
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better RetroArch integration and includes a game of 2048 by default.
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One of my bigger grips with RetroArch is that I haven't found a way to
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selectively do screensize scaling on a per-core basis (GameBoy roms kinda need
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scaling but I really do not want scaling on SNES or GBA roms to avoid distorting
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the image), however I'm pretty sure I'm missing something obvious in the giant
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list of RetroArch settings.
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[If you know what I'm doing wrong here, please let me
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know.](conversation://Cadey/coffee)
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Something really refreshing about this system is how darn easy it is to modify
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it. I can just replace the OS it's running with custom firmware. If I want to
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upgrade storage, I can pop in a bigger SD card. If I want to tweak things, I
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can. I can even develop my own software for it and have an easy distribution
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method for it in the form of OPK files. It's a very refreshing thing compared to
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the difficulties that I have running things on my iPhone. The device comes with
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a root shell out of the box and you can connect to it over SSH via a USB cable
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(remember that this doesn't have a wifi card in it so you need to do networking
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over USB). Software gets categorized and everything just works out for you with
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little effort required.
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The game I've gotten the most playtime out of is [Hyper
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Metroid](http://hyper.metroidconstruction.com), a sort of enhanced and remixed
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hack of Super Metroid that does some really interesting experimental takes on
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the Metroid ammo system (Missiles, Super Missiles and Power Bombs all pull from
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the same ammo pool instead of having separate pools per weapon), and it runs
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flawlessly on the RG280M. One of the tests I have for dpads on game controllers
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is if you can do [wall jumps](https://youtu.be/FApDTSPN_dY) in Super Metroid,
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and the 280M passes that test with flying colors. It's a 5 frame window of
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having to do a complete reversal of the dpad, and some controllers (like the
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Xbox 360 controller) simply do not give you enough precision to get it done
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without extraneous inputs that would mess up the walljump timing.
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With the default configuration, there is an amazing level of gamefeel on
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everything I've played. The system is snappy and responsive, so tight
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platforming in Mario games works amazingly. There's no slowdown or lag when
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playing anything I can throw at it. It Just Works. I'm able to play games from
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my childhood on the go without too much configuration or effort. If you are
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looking for something like this, you can't go wrong with the RG280M. It's about
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CAD$100 after currency conversion is done (AliExpress wanted me to pay for it in
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euros for some reason, so it was something like 86 euros in case you want to do
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the conversion to your currency of choice). It's been well worth the money in my
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book.
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The battery life gets me about 6 hours of playtime, which is more than enough
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for my needs. It's nowhere near the legendary battery life of the GBA or DS
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Lite, but it's more than sufficient for what it's doing. It's got better battery
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life than the Switch, so that's probably good enough for longer road trips.
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It also gets a huge thumbs up from me for having USB-C to charge. This is
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something that makes a lot of sense and it's kind of baffling that this cheapo
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emulator console from China can do USB-C properly and Apple can't put USB-C on
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an iPhone. It's one less cable I need to carry in my bag.
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Overall I'd rate this device at an 8/10. It's not perfect, there are some very
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minor things that I bet could be improved on in future iterations (I'd love to
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see a higher resolution screen and maybe DS emulation support); however it
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delivers what it sets out to deliver and does it smiling. On-device wifi would
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be an added bonus (it would be really damn convenient to SFTP games over my
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Tailnet, or even write something that would listen for files over Taildrop and
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automagically sort them into the right folders), but I can live without it.
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If you want to play DOS games on it, be sure to get [this dosbox
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port](https://retrogamecorps.com/2020/09/05/rg350-home-computer-guide/#MSDOS) as
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it is _a lot more_ performant than the one that comes out of the box. It will
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turn 10-ish frame per second gameplay of Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure into a full
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vsync fully playable experience.
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If you are in the market for this kind of device, you really can't go wrong with
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the Anbernic RG280M. It is a solid little chonker and will do everything it says
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it can on the box.
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