Buy the BatleXP G350 here: https://joeysrh.link/ALI_BATLEXPG350
The R36S was never good
Look, a lot of you are familiar enough with the R36S at this point. It’s inescapable – it was shilled to high heaven at launch because it’s a cheap device, usually like $20-30 US dollars or so on Aliexpress, depending on where you live, and at the time of release, there wasn’t any competition for it at that price.
On my end, I’ve hated that thing since day one – the dpad was god awful, the buttons were god awful, the software was atrocious to setup and overall I never recommended it to anyone, ever, but I did do a setup guide to help people not hate the thing for those that bought it and also did a guide on how to slightly help the dpad and buttons and tried to help those that bought it while never ever recommending it.
This is much better
Fast forward to today, and I can finally actually recommend a device near that price range and it’s the new BatleXP G350.
All the same specs as the R36S except with much better build quality.
The dpad, is not awful – neither are the buttons and neither is the software after you load up ArkOS on it, which is super simple.
The rumor is that Anbernic made this device and is releasing it under a different name and I have no idea how true any of that is, but if you gave me this device without telling me who made it, I would instantly say Anbernic made it – it’s that close.
Pricing wise, I’ve seen this go for $40 US dollars regularly, but on sale for $25 to $30 US dollars so it’s right in that same pricing range as the R36S, while just being an absolute metric ton better in every way.
Tour of the device
So taking a quick look at the actual handheld, and focusing on the dpad and it’s very much an Anbernic dpad here.
It’s nice and big, it’s soft and has good pivot while also being decently accurate which is normal for Anbernic style devices.
I haven’t used an R36S in months, but I can tell you this is a night and day better upgrade over whatever they call that dpad thing on that device.
The buttons are another super upgrade here, they’re not tied to each other like the R36S was and you had to cut them to separate them.
These are nice tall buttons, easy to push down, not loud at all super silent and satisfying to use. It’s the typical Android buttons which doesn’t mean much to you if you’ve never had one.
On the back is curved shoulders and triggers, great for hotkey usage, a nice click to them and honestly the only negative is I sometimes found myself hitting the shoulder button when wanting to use the trigger button, but not enough to completely hate the experience.
In all honesty, the only negative I can point to for a budget handheld like this is the lack of WiFi.
WiFi would really help a newcomer to this hobby with artwork, updating the software and so on and it sucks not having it, but for this price point, we can make do.
Software
The device ships with their own software called BatleXP, which is basically an ArkOS clone, but through my setup guide we can just install proper ArkOS onto it and use a good actual operating system.
For anyone not familiar with ArkOS, it’s very easy to use – you have a nice pretty frontend, you can head into games and play them easily, you can adjust settings easily and all that sort of thing – perfect for this device.
The SD card that comes with the BatleXP G350, at least for the operating system, is a branded Kioxia card which is actually pretty safe to use here if you don’t plan on installing ArkOS. This is another sort of sign of this being an Anbernic device since they’ve switched to using these types of cards.
What’s on the SD card
Now, despite the fact that I think all of these devices should not come with any games for a variety of reasons, I know many will be curious what games do come with the stock SD card and I should probably let you know that it’s once again Anbernic’s lineup of games which has no Pokemon, has no Mario and is generally devoid of any Nintendo games for the most part.
I realize this will bother some people, likely newcomers to this scene who tie the value of how many games are on the SD card to the actual device, but with how easy it is to add games to these devices, this shouldn’t be a factor at all.
In fact, my guide for this device shows you how to do just that, but I did want to mention this because I know this part is important for these sorts of budget handhelds.
Simple thoughts
Alright so overall, I didn’t want to make this an overly long or complicated video, the BatleXP G350 to me, is a much better R36S and a much better budget handheld than pretty much everything in this price range, so this is an easy recommend if you absolutely must only spend $35 or 40 dollars and can’t go any higher.
The Anbernic RG40XX V is a great alternative
Now because I am who I am, I would hate myself if I didn’t tell you about much better options for a few dollars more that would make your life a lot easier.
For example, on a good day you can find the Anbernic RG40XX V on Aliexpress for $50 or so US dollars, which is more powerful than the G350, and overall a better device.
The Anbernic RG40XX H is also great
In that same breath, there’s also the RG40XX H which is a horizontal version of that handheld and regularly in that same price point.
Both of these have WiFi, better processors, video out with bluetooth, better supported devices and more firmware options and all that sort of thing.
Final thoughts
I could talk about other options like the TrimUI Brick or the Miyoo Mini Plus, more Anbernics and all that sort of thing, but it would just cause confusion here.
I think the overall takeaway here is this handheld is pretty great for the price, but if you can fork out the extra $20 or so dollars for either of the two devices I mentioned, you’ll gain a lot by the features I mentioned and have a longer lasting device.