Anbernic RG557: Mystery chipset capable of Nintendo Wii U emulation revealed ahead of schedule
About twenty four hours have passed since Anbernic lifted the lid on the RG557. As is usual for Anbernic, it has showcased the device's design, gaming performance and a few specifications. For example, the company revealed that the RG557 utililses a 5.48-inch AMOLED display that resolves at 1,920 x 1,080 pixels in a 16:9 aspect ratio.
Also, it teased that the gaming handheld could emulate certain PS2 and PSP games at 4x and 8x their native resolutions, respectively. However, it decided against confirming what chipset underpins its next gaming handheld. Nonetheless, leaked specifications suggested that Anbernic may have settled on the Snapdragon G2 Gen 2 that Qualcomm announced last month.
According to Retro Handhelds, that will not be the case. Citing its 'Anbernic rep', the website claims that the RG557 will eventually launch with the MediaTek Dimensity 8300, which we reviewed last year and its 'Ultra' variant in the Poco X6 Pro and Xiaomi 14T (curr. $509 on Amazon). According to our benchmarks, the Dimensity 8300 would give the RG557 a healthy performance boost over the RG556, which uses the older and less powerful Unisoc T820.
As Retro Handhelds notes, the Dimensity 8300 would give the RG557 an advantage over the Retroid Pocket 5 as well. Specifically, Anbernic's next handheld could outperform the Pocket 5 by about 30% in CPU-heavy tasks. The gap between their GPUs could be practically non-existent, though. Apparently, the RG557 will be the first gaming handheld to leverage capacitive joysticks too, for improved accuracy. Presumably, Anbernic will reveal more details about the RG557 in the coming days.
