This cheap Android clamshell let me relive the Nintendo DS glory days, and it felt like coming home

I’m just going to come out and say it: The Nintendo DS is one of the greatest consoles of all time. The combination of a unique form factor and an absolutely killer library of games made it an absolute staple of my teen years. And now, there’s a modern, authentic, and affordable handheld that recreates it.

And no, it’s not the AYN Thor. While AYN’s take on the 3DS is undoubtedly a great device, the 3DS came out when I was a broke college student, so it doesn’t trigger the same level of nostalgia. It also starts at $300, which is expensive for a still-broke working adult with two children.

I’m talking about the ANBERNIC RG DS. Coming in just under $100, it seeks to recreate the magic of the Nintendo DS (or DSi, considering the size), and it delivers where it counts. There are a few caveats, but for me, this has completely revived my love of Nintendo’s groundbreaking clamshell handheld.

The clamshell time machine

It’s obvious where ANBERNIC has drawn inspiration for the RG DS, and it’s by far the most faithful recreation of the Nintendo DS we’ve seen so far. Size-wise, it’s almost identical to the Nintendo DSi, which is slightly larger than your average modern smartphone. As a result, it’s easy to slip into a bag or pocket.

And that right there is huge for DS emulation. The emulators have been ready for more than a decade, but the hardware almost always requires playing with the screens side-by-side, rather than stacked. That alone kills the immersion, as do huge black bars and workarounds like hotkeys to close the lid. All of that stuff looks and works just like the original on the RG DS, which is an absolute delight.

The hinge is one notable change, as it’s much stiffer than any clamshell I’ve tested. The benefit there is that it can stay open at any angle. Hopefully, it also means that the hinge won’t break as time goes on. ANBERNIC has a good track record with the hinges on its GBA SP clones, but only time will tell.

On the inside, there are two identical 4-inch IPS panels. At 640 x 480 resolution, they don’t offer perfect integer scaling for Nintendo DS games (they’re 2.5x the resolution), but with the right shaders I couldn’t tell the difference. Those shaders are also configured and turned on by default, so you don’t have to tweak any settings unless you really want to.

If we’re comparing to the original DS hardware, these screens are noticeably brighter. However, they are capacitive screens and not resistive screens, like the ones found on the DS. That means it won’t work with an original DS stylus, but ANBERNIC does include a color-matched capacitive stylus in the box. It doesn’t house in the console and there’s much more input lag than the original hardware, but it gets the job done once you’re used to it.

Beside the top screen are two front-facing speakers, which again look like the spitting image of the Nintendo DS. Admittedly, those speakers aren’t the best, but neither were the speakers on the original. There’s also a headphone jack on the bottom if you want to keep things more discreet.

The bottom half is where ANBERNIC took some liberties. The RG DS features two small inset sticks beneath the buttons and D-pad. I’m going to be blunt here: the sticks are not good. They’re small, strangely slippery, and too low on the device to use comfortably. Thankfully, DS games don’t use them.

As expected from ANBERNIC, the D-pad and buttons are fantastic. The dome switch D-pad is tight and responsive, as are the buttons. On the back, there are four in-line shoulder buttons, and while they aren’t uncomfortable to use, they are noisy. ANBERNIC seems to have a thing for loud microswitch shoulder buttons, and the RG DS continues that trend, for better or worse.

Overall, the RG DS is a nice little package. It’s much larger than the DS Lite I still have tucked away in storage at my childhood home, but it has enough of the DS DNA to provide an authentic experience. At least, until you turn it on.

The one-hit wonder

Typically, I run these gaming handhelds through a series of benchmark tests, but in this case, it wasn’t even necessary. The RG DS was designed with one thing in mind, and that’s the main thing I wanted to test it for.

The Rockchip RK3568 chipset and 3GB of RAM are, without mincing words, a very low-performance choice. It pales in comparison to other sub-$100 handhelds like the AYANEO Pocket AIR Mini or MANGMI AIR X, but it’s still powerful enough to emulate Nintendo DS games, just barely. As a result, it can only use the DraStic DS emulator, which is highly optimized for low-power devices.

On the surface, this isn’t an issue. Every game I tested ran great, and most can upscale to 2x for enhanced visuals. It also comes pre-installed and completely set up, so you can play games right out of the box. ANBERNIC even made a few adjustments to the app to make it play nicer with two screens, eliminating the desync issues some people noted in early reviews.

However, DraStic has long been out of development, and its closed-source nature means more extensive improvements won’t be coming any time soon. That means features like RetroAchievements and DSi game support will likely never be available on this device. I tried testing a few games on the more accurate melonDS emulator, but none ran at full speed. It was well beneath what I would consider playable.

Another concession is the lack of Google Play Services. You won’t find the Google Play Store on this device, but the APKPure app is pre-installed if you really need to sideload something and don’t have the APK handy. Everything I needed was already installed, so this didn’t bother me at all. Emulators like DraStic, RetroArch, PPSSPP, Flycast, and even Azahar are installed and ready to go.

Speaking of Azahar, despite ANBERNIC showing off 3DS games in previews, they’re mostly out of reach for this device. Only a few lightweight games like Rune Factory 4 managed to run at full speed in Azahar, and even then, the top screen suffers from letterboxing and the sticks are uncomfortable to use. In other words, this device is great if you stick to DS games on DraStic, but nothing more demanding than that.

As a sidenote, the updated version of DraStic used in the RG DS isn’t detected by most frontends like ES DE. The pre-installed ANBERNIC launcher does work, but I personally found it better to just open DraStic directly. If you’re like me, the vast majority of your time spent with this device will be playing DS games, so frontends aren’t as necessary as they are on more general-purpose Android gaming handhelds.

Of course, other retro systems up to PS1 also play fine, and you can turn off the top screen to save some battery while you play. You can also pop open GameFAQs on the second screen, which didn’t seem to have much of an effect on performance. That being said, this device really shines when playing DS games, and it felt strange to play other systems on it. I’d rather play single-screen systems on a single-screen handheld, and there are hundreds of options to play the retro systems the RG DS can run.

Despite the weak SoC, I also saw relatively modest battery life. Playing DS games or other systems with both screens installed typically got me around four to five hours of game time on the 4,000mAh battery, which is likely due to the two screens. When left closed overnight, it drained about 2% of the battery over eight hours, so this isn’t a device you can leave in a drawer for more than a few days between sessions.

Charging speeds were also pretty dire. It took around two and a half hours to fully charge the RG DS in my testing, which is exceptionally long for a gaming handheld. I wouldn’t leave it charging overnight, either. Cheaper gaming handhelds are often prone to battery swelling, and there’s no option in the settings to limit the maximum charge.

ANBERNIC RG DS review verdict: Should you buy it?

I’d put the ANBERNIC RG DS into a very special category of handhelds. One that’s not designed to emulate every retro (or non-retro) console under the sun, but instead emulates just one console very well. For me, this is the best way to play Nintendo DS games outside of an actual Nintendo DS.

Whether or not you should buy this handheld will ultimately come down to how badly you want to play Nintendo DS games. Everything else, from older home consoles to a very, very limited amount of 3DS titles, is just the cherry on the top.

For me, I’ve had an absolute blast with the RG DS, despite its flaws. Any excuse to revisit the incredible Nintendo DS catalog is a good one, and I would mostly consider this an upgrade over the original hardware.

The only place I felt it was lacking was in rhythm games like Elite Beat Agents or Rhythm Heaven, where the touch display lag made it difficult to get my timing right. Where I live, a Nintendo DSi costs roughly the same amount as the RG DS, and lord knows what kind of beating those screens took. Not to mention the lack of saves states and fast forward.

In terms of other dual-screen emulation devices, the best option is clearly the AYN Thor ($299 at Manufacturer site). The 3DS-like is significantly more powerful, with better screens and build quality. The software experience is also superior, and it plays much more nicely with other dual-screen functions. However, it costs more than three times as much, so it’s not really in the same category of devices. Save up for it if you can, but don’t feel like you need to spend that much just to play DS games.

The only device that I’d consider a true alternative is the MagicX Zero 40 ($94.99 at Amazon). That device is also designed to play DS games, but uses a single vertical screen to achieve it. Unfortunately, it suffers from many of the same downsides, including a processor that’s too weak to run melonDS. It’s also much smaller and doesn’t work well with a stylus, so much of the DS catalog doesn’t feel quite right.

Despite its flaws, the ANBERNIC RG DS does accomplish the goal of faithfully recreating the Nintendo DS. While I do hope that ANBERNIC eventually releases a second version of this with a more powerful chipset, for now, this is my favorite way to play Nintendo DS games.