Anbernic RG34XX SP: Early rumours of a new 3:2 clamshell gaming handheld start with performance upgrades

Anbernic released a veritable avalanche of gaming handhelds last year, culminating in the RG34XX (curr. $84.99 on Amazon) just before Christmas. While Anbernic does not reveal sales figures for any of its devices, the RG35XX SP appears to have been the most popular of the bunch by virtue of its refresh four months after its official debut.

Since then, Miyoo finally released the Flip as an RG35XX SP alternative with a smaller form factor and a pair of joysticks. It is worth stressing that the Miyoo Flip has arrived to mixed reviews, particularly as more time passes. Nonetheless, rumours have now emerged that Anbernic is already developing the RG34XX SP in response.

Presumably, Anbernic would create the RG34XX SP by taking the display from the existing RG34XX and placing it in a shell based on the form factor of the RG35XX SP and the Game Boy Advance SP (GBA SP), by extension. The adoption of the 3.4-inch and 720 x 480-pixel display from the RG34XX would also allow the RG34XX SP to offer an exact 2x integer scaling for GBA games.

Allegedly, this 3:2 display will be joined by a new chipset, not the Allwinner H700 that powers the RG34XX and all recent RG35XX devices. Based on the image below, Anbernic is targeting performance somewhere between the Rockchip RK3566 and Unisoc Tiger T618. Although more details remain unknown at this stage, some speculate this could be the MediaTek Helio P65, which combines two ARM Cortex-A75 and six Cortex-A55 CPU cores with a Mali-G52 MP2 GPU on a 12 nm manufacturing process.