1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,920
Remember when handheld gaming devices basically stopped existing?

2
00:00:03,920 --> 00:00:09,040
You know, after the 3DS and Vita sort of went away and smartphones started taking over.

3
00:00:09,040 --> 00:00:14,520
Thank God that time is over and we have handheld gaming devices go lower.

4
00:00:14,520 --> 00:00:20,760
We have way more that we can handle and today we are unboxing the Ambernic RGDS.

5
00:00:20,760 --> 00:00:25,560
As the name implies, it's basically like a little DS.

6
00:00:25,560 --> 00:00:31,040
That's pretty cool. ShortCircuit done, we did it. In the box, you get your device.

7
00:00:31,040 --> 00:00:37,120
You get a stylus. This is a really ginormous stylus.

8
00:00:37,120 --> 00:00:42,440
It's a really big stylus. I don't see a place for this to fit.

9
00:00:42,440 --> 00:00:46,240
This goes back here. In the box we have our wrist strap.

10
00:00:46,240 --> 00:00:49,760
That's pretty nice, I had that back in the day. Maybe I'll try to put it on later.

11
00:00:49,760 --> 00:00:55,080
We have screen protectors. Did that come default in this box?

12
00:00:55,080 --> 00:00:58,880
Yes. That's kind of nice. Thank goodness I'm not taking this anywhere

13
00:00:58,880 --> 00:01:02,040
because I don't like putting screen protectors on, so bye.

14
00:01:02,040 --> 00:01:06,400
But that's actually really cool and it feels like tempered glass if that's pretty high quality.

15
00:01:06,400 --> 00:01:11,120
We have the version that comes with a 256 gig micro SD

16
00:01:11,120 --> 00:01:14,240
from very well-known brand Leaders Logic.

17
00:01:14,240 --> 00:01:17,480
Guess it's nice to have the convenience of it coming with your device,

18
00:01:17,480 --> 00:01:20,800
knowing that it'll be compatible. It does not come with any games by default

19
00:01:20,800 --> 00:01:23,860
just so they can sidestep any copyright issues.

20
00:01:23,860 --> 00:01:30,560
We also have a little quick start guide and then type A to C,

21
00:01:30,560 --> 00:01:35,560
three-foot cable that is about as cheap as they make them.

22
00:01:36,160 --> 00:01:42,000
That makes sense. This whole package, minus this, starts at 95 US dollars.

23
00:01:43,640 --> 00:01:49,480
You heard that right. Less than $100 gets you a pretty nice looking DS-like device

24
00:01:53,040 --> 00:01:56,620
with fairly modern hardware as well as some nice quality of life stuff

25
00:01:56,620 --> 00:02:00,060
that just makes this a better than DS experience.

26
00:02:00,060 --> 00:02:06,500
I can't believe these things are this cheap, especially with this pretty okay plastic finish.

27
00:02:06,700 --> 00:02:09,740
It looks a little bit cheap. It also is already scratched

28
00:02:09,740 --> 00:02:14,500
and I think people have been fairly careful with this, so I expect this not to be the most durable material.

29
00:02:14,500 --> 00:02:19,380
I like the more matte finish on the bottom. It actually feels more Nintendo console to me,

30
00:02:19,380 --> 00:02:22,980
like almost like the Game Boy Advance SP plastic. Neither is super bad.

31
00:02:22,980 --> 00:02:28,860
However, seeing as clamshell designs for handheld consoles is the peak design

32
00:02:28,860 --> 00:02:31,940
because it has a built-in little case and screen protector.

33
00:02:31,940 --> 00:02:35,740
It would be nice to have this be a little bit more not sticker-esque.

34
00:02:35,740 --> 00:02:39,980
On the top of the device, we have our micro SD slot. We actually already have a micro SD card,

35
00:02:39,980 --> 00:02:44,860
so we're gonna keep that one in the box. We have two USB ports, one presumably for charging

36
00:02:44,860 --> 00:02:48,620
and one for kind of more of the full-featured USB accessories,

37
00:02:48,620 --> 00:02:53,260
you know, display out or controllers. We also have four shoulder buttons,

38
00:02:53,260 --> 00:02:59,020
which is two more than the original DS had. And that's because even though this is clearly DS inspired,

39
00:02:59,020 --> 00:03:04,660
it's not locked to just DS games. You can play all kinds of stuff up to a certain point

40
00:03:04,660 --> 00:03:08,420
because of the technical limitations, which we will get to, but that would include PS1,

41
00:03:08,420 --> 00:03:12,500
which did have four shoulder buttons. On the bottom, we just have our screw holes.

42
00:03:12,500 --> 00:03:15,860
Looks like hex screws, which means that it's not impossible to fix,

43
00:03:15,860 --> 00:03:18,860
but it makes me wonder how hard the whole thing will be.

44
00:03:18,860 --> 00:03:22,860
We have our 3.5 millimeter jack on the front, which is pretty nice.

45
00:03:22,860 --> 00:03:26,940
Although I could see having it on the side,

46
00:03:26,940 --> 00:03:30,300
getting in the way of the way you wanna grip the device.

47
00:03:30,300 --> 00:03:33,460
Not the end of the world. It's far enough that it should be fine for most people,

48
00:03:33,460 --> 00:03:37,820
but I could see some people kind of wanting a more vertical stance and then being forced out of it.

49
00:03:37,820 --> 00:03:42,540
Side's got nothing, which brings us to the inside. We have our stereo speakers.

50
00:03:42,540 --> 00:03:46,260
We have two matching 480P IPS displays,

51
00:03:46,260 --> 00:03:51,140
which is exactly two and a half times the resolution of the original DS's screen.

52
00:03:51,140 --> 00:03:57,300
That's okay. Presumably we can run the games at 2.5x resolution,

53
00:03:57,300 --> 00:04:00,900
but it does worry me that it's not an even multiplier

54
00:04:00,900 --> 00:04:04,300
because the really well thought out retro handhelds

55
00:04:04,300 --> 00:04:08,740
usually have a screen resolution that is a multiple of four or five,

56
00:04:08,740 --> 00:04:13,280
exactly of the original display. So then you can do just like 4x,

57
00:04:13,280 --> 00:04:17,220
have it be super clean upscaling, either pixel perfect or you can do scaling

58
00:04:17,220 --> 00:04:21,260
that looks even better. Then we have our D-pad.

59
00:04:21,260 --> 00:04:25,540
Oh, no. That's so friggin' mid man.

60
00:04:25,540 --> 00:04:29,500
Oh, shit. The face buttons feel similarly clicky

61
00:04:29,500 --> 00:04:33,860
to the point where I almost wonder if it's like exactly the same kind of switches underneath.

62
00:04:33,860 --> 00:04:36,900
The joysticks are very small,

63
00:04:36,900 --> 00:04:43,180
PSV-sized and they're recessed so that the whole device can actually close neatly.

64
00:04:43,180 --> 00:04:48,380
However, that means that these are not gonna be the greatest feeling joysticks in the world.

65
00:04:48,380 --> 00:04:51,660
This is not too bad though. The recess is big enough that I think I could make it work.

66
00:04:51,660 --> 00:04:55,380
It's not the most comfortable gaming experience, but should be fine.

67
00:04:55,380 --> 00:05:00,820
We have four buttons that'll matter more once we're in software, which we're gonna do after I tell you about our sponsor.

68
00:05:00,820 --> 00:05:05,460
Let's turn this thing on. Wow, that is the most Android looking slash screen

69
00:05:05,460 --> 00:05:10,260
I've ever seen in my entire life. I wish they did a little bit more custom work.

70
00:05:10,260 --> 00:05:15,260
I just don't want Chrome to be the first thing that's on my slash screen when I'm opening a retro style device.

71
00:05:15,260 --> 00:05:20,660
However, it's really easy to get access to all the emulation stations in this bad boy.

72
00:05:20,660 --> 00:05:26,580
And it gives you an idea of the variety that you can talk to. You got your PC, you have your Neo Geo,

73
00:05:26,580 --> 00:05:31,580
you have your MSX, cool, that's cool, that's pre-installed, N64.

74
00:05:31,580 --> 00:05:35,340
And then probably most importantly, you're gonna have your Game Boy Advance.

75
00:05:35,340 --> 00:05:40,980
Then there's Drastic, which is your DS1, which is probably why you're buying this thing.

76
00:05:40,980 --> 00:05:44,620
It's important to note, no melon support, which means no DSI support,

77
00:05:44,620 --> 00:05:49,380
but how many of you out there are really like that DSI experience, I want that.

78
00:05:49,380 --> 00:05:52,900
I guess before we get into a natural game, I should figure out how to do like dual screen stuff.

79
00:05:52,900 --> 00:05:56,060
The screens actually function independently. It's not like it needs the software

80
00:05:56,060 --> 00:06:01,460
to assign what the second screen is doing. You can have your Android step down here, watch videos,

81
00:06:01,460 --> 00:06:06,180
open up guides, play your game on the top, or if it is a dual screen game, take control of both.

82
00:06:06,180 --> 00:06:10,420
Just like an Android device, if you pull from the top, you can access your quick settings, then your deeper settings there.

83
00:06:10,460 --> 00:06:18,140
If you turn RG Launcher on, you actually do get a much more retro style display.

84
00:06:18,700 --> 00:06:22,820
I like the cleanness of this, but I do think it would be nice

85
00:06:22,820 --> 00:06:27,660
to have a little bit more styling, not just kind of color and shadow.

86
00:06:27,660 --> 00:06:31,140
I wanna see how good the dual screen experience really is.

87
00:06:31,140 --> 00:06:35,380
Both screens are actually touch screen, as opposed to the original DS where it was just the bottom.

88
00:06:35,380 --> 00:06:38,900
Yeah, the screen is not ideal for video watching.

89
00:06:38,900 --> 00:06:43,420
It doesn't look very sharp. The motion blur is not very good

90
00:06:43,420 --> 00:06:48,300
and the color is pretty underwhelming. However, if I click to the bottom screen,

91
00:06:48,300 --> 00:06:52,260
I'm immediately in control of what I wanna do. Okay, we've discovered a little bit

92
00:06:52,260 --> 00:06:57,220
of a configuration problem that we had where you can get emulators working

93
00:06:57,220 --> 00:07:01,360
on the main operating system with ROMs, but they won't show up in this RG Launcher.

94
00:07:01,360 --> 00:07:05,580
So make sure when you set it up that you configure it right. Apparently it is possible to swap

95
00:07:05,580 --> 00:07:09,820
what the screens are doing, but what I'm finding is that the interface on this device

96
00:07:09,820 --> 00:07:14,820
is really not well optimized between different apps.

97
00:07:15,240 --> 00:07:18,580
The buttons do different things in different places, which can be fine,

98
00:07:18,580 --> 00:07:24,220
but I think there's gonna be quite a learning curve if you want to get the full use of this device.

99
00:07:24,220 --> 00:07:27,580
That probably means that there is a ton of control that you can get out of this.

100
00:07:27,580 --> 00:07:34,100
And if you're someone that likes sort of uncovering the mysteries of weirdly designed UIs,

101
00:07:34,100 --> 00:07:37,420
you're gonna love this thing. Let's try just doing a DS game,

102
00:07:37,420 --> 00:07:40,620
which is sort of its core functionality. We need to figure that out.

103
00:07:40,620 --> 00:07:45,340
Okay, that's a little troublesome. I assumed that opening the default emulator

104
00:07:45,340 --> 00:07:49,380
and opening the game, it would all be pre-configured. But no, we are on an adventure

105
00:07:49,380 --> 00:07:52,980
to figuring out how this friggin' works.

106
00:07:52,980 --> 00:07:57,780
Oh no. Okay, so the trick is open the app on the bottom device

107
00:07:57,780 --> 00:08:00,820
and then it'll work on both. That's one of my problems with my experience

108
00:08:00,820 --> 00:08:04,980
with retro Android devices is unless they're pre-configured,

109
00:08:04,980 --> 00:08:08,860
or you can install sort of a fan-made OS on it,

110
00:08:08,860 --> 00:08:15,540
like you can with like the Meuse or whatever. I've always had a little bit of struggle bus feeling with them

111
00:08:15,540 --> 00:08:19,300
where you gotta work a little bit too hard to make it work. This input latency is pretty bad.

112
00:08:19,300 --> 00:08:22,740
I can feel it already. Uh-oh. Uh-oh.

113
00:08:22,740 --> 00:08:26,380
If you're not big into emulation, input latency is a pretty common issue

114
00:08:26,380 --> 00:08:29,820
across all software emulation across all devices.

115
00:08:29,820 --> 00:08:33,340
It doesn't matter how powerful it is. There's just gonna be some level of input latency.

116
00:08:33,340 --> 00:08:37,260
The fact that I can feel it in the menu is a little troublesome.

117
00:08:37,260 --> 00:08:40,380
But let's play a game and see maybe it's not so bad.

118
00:08:40,380 --> 00:08:43,620
I haven't played Mario Kart DS in a billion years, so let's see how this goes.

119
00:08:43,620 --> 00:08:49,980
I forgot this. Both shoulder buttons don't do the same thing because there was many fewer buttons on the original DS.

120
00:08:49,980 --> 00:08:53,580
This looks pretty okay. The colors are popping a little bit more here

121
00:08:53,580 --> 00:09:00,020
than on our crappy YouTube videos. It's very soft looking and doesn't look scaled

122
00:09:00,020 --> 00:09:04,140
in an ideal manner. One advantage of software emulation

123
00:09:04,140 --> 00:09:08,980
is that if you have enough power, you can crank the resolution to theoretically whatever you want.

124
00:09:10,500 --> 00:09:14,380
And this feels very DS resolution,

125
00:09:14,380 --> 00:09:18,220
both in the foreground and the distance. But it plays pretty good

126
00:09:18,220 --> 00:09:22,020
and the input latency doesn't actually feel as bad out here. Maybe there's something wrong with that menu.

127
00:09:22,020 --> 00:09:27,100
That being said, totally playable and I could definitely beat all of the Mario Kart races

128
00:09:27,100 --> 00:09:30,220
on this. The touchscreen on this device is not very good.

129
00:09:30,220 --> 00:09:33,580
Both my finger and the pen suck. This pen makes it worse.

130
00:09:33,620 --> 00:09:36,940
This is clearly designed for finger use. I'm gonna leave that for now.

131
00:09:36,940 --> 00:09:41,500
I don't wanna be too hard on this device because it is a very good value.

132
00:09:41,500 --> 00:09:44,860
And a lot of these problems, in fact, probably all of them are solvable

133
00:09:44,860 --> 00:09:48,180
with enough tinkering and problem solving ability.

134
00:09:48,180 --> 00:09:51,340
But when I buy a standalone device

135
00:09:51,340 --> 00:09:56,700
to do very limited amount of things, I wanted to do it out of the box and well.

136
00:09:57,660 --> 00:10:00,940
And although you're seeing me struggle a little bit here,

137
00:10:00,940 --> 00:10:06,420
this isn't the first time someone has struggled with this. Figuring how to make the two screens friggin' work

138
00:10:06,420 --> 00:10:10,860
and I don't think he particularly likes this device. At the end of the day, the only thing that matters

139
00:10:10,860 --> 00:10:16,140
is that playing games pretty well. And so far, it's playing them well enough

140
00:10:16,140 --> 00:10:19,340
that I could have a pretty good time playing them. That makes sense.

141
00:10:19,340 --> 00:10:23,380
It has a pretty decently powered quad core cortex processor.

142
00:10:23,380 --> 00:10:26,960
Has three gigs of RAM, which obviously isn't enough if you're trying to run modern stuff,

143
00:10:26,960 --> 00:10:30,020
but for emulation, we're totally fine.

144
00:10:30,020 --> 00:10:35,620
Comes built in with 32 gigs of storage. It has Bluetooth 4.2 and Wi-Fi 5,

145
00:10:35,620 --> 00:10:40,020
which again are fine for this device. However, that extra lag from the Bluetooth 4.0

146
00:10:40,020 --> 00:10:43,460
means that I probably would not, this feels horrible. Oh no.

147
00:10:43,460 --> 00:10:48,860
It just feels a little slow. And this is a game that I've played 100,000 times.

148
00:10:48,860 --> 00:10:53,940
I'm very familiar with the way it's supposed to feel. Certainly not unplayable and I could definitely get used to it,

149
00:10:53,940 --> 00:10:56,960
but I am pretty sensitive to input latency

150
00:10:56,960 --> 00:11:00,540
in 2D platformers. And so if you're like me,

151
00:11:00,540 --> 00:11:05,100
this is probably not the ideal option. You're probably gonna want something like a analog pocket

152
00:11:05,100 --> 00:11:08,980
where it's pretty much zero lag. The last aspect we haven't really talked about

153
00:11:08,980 --> 00:11:12,260
is battery life. It's a 4,000 milliamp hour battery,

154
00:11:12,260 --> 00:11:16,420
which they claim is good for six hours of gaming. Obviously if you're playing less demanding stuff,

155
00:11:16,420 --> 00:11:20,140
it should be even less. If you close the device,

156
00:11:20,140 --> 00:11:25,220
it's supposed to go to sleep and pop back up. It obviously paused my game, which is great.

157
00:11:25,220 --> 00:11:28,540
Oh wait, does each screen get different scaling?

158
00:11:29,260 --> 00:11:32,380
So that really blurry text is a scaling issue,

159
00:11:32,380 --> 00:11:36,780
which I can adjust. However, when I did that,

160
00:11:36,780 --> 00:11:40,980
it only adjusted one of the screens filtering

161
00:11:40,980 --> 00:11:44,900
so that the bottom screen looks pretty okay.

162
00:11:44,900 --> 00:11:48,860
And this one is blurry mess city.

163
00:11:48,860 --> 00:11:52,260
It's not immediately apparent how to change the top one,

164
00:11:52,260 --> 00:11:58,460
even though I've been changing the bottom one. So I'm gonna close the app, see maybe that's how you do it.

165
00:11:58,460 --> 00:12:03,780
Okay, thankfully closing and resetting the app got the scaling to match on both screens

166
00:12:03,780 --> 00:12:09,980
so that this is significantly closer to what do I expect at a 2.5x resolution scale.

167
00:12:09,980 --> 00:12:12,100
Looks totally fine.

168
00:12:14,180 --> 00:12:17,220
Just enough input latency that it's a bit hard

169
00:12:17,220 --> 00:12:20,420
to play a rhythm game on this. Which is fine, there's not that many rhythm games

170
00:12:20,420 --> 00:12:25,220
I wanna play on the DS. Most of all I wanna play is RPGs and Zelda and stuff,

171
00:12:25,220 --> 00:12:28,960
and I can live with a little bit of input latency on that. Okay, I'm calling it rhythm heaven,

172
00:12:28,960 --> 00:12:33,920
not a super great experience on this. Let's play a game that might do better for us.

173
00:12:33,920 --> 00:12:37,960
Let's play Legend of Zelda Spirit Tracks. Let's see, maybe some of the scaling

174
00:12:37,960 --> 00:12:42,440
will actually look good here. Ah, first impression, this is fine.

175
00:12:42,440 --> 00:12:45,960
You can totally play it. It looks sharper than I did on the original DS.

176
00:12:45,960 --> 00:12:49,920
It's responsive enough, you could play a game like this. If you're looking for a way to play DS games,

177
00:12:49,920 --> 00:12:52,920
this is gonna pass the bar mostly.

178
00:12:52,920 --> 00:12:57,800
I'm curious if I can fix some of the softness with one of those visual filters that I hated before,

179
00:12:57,800 --> 00:13:03,600
but maybe I'll come around and on. Catchy, where were we? That high resolution 3D rendering, that's kinda cool.

180
00:13:03,600 --> 00:13:08,600
It seems like the sharp 3D mode is slightly sharper.

181
00:13:10,400 --> 00:13:13,180
Let's just see if I can see it this time.

182
00:13:14,680 --> 00:13:15,520
This is off.

183
00:13:18,440 --> 00:13:21,120
What do I think of the Ambernic RG DS?

184
00:13:22,200 --> 00:13:26,560
Pretty unbeatable deal at this price. And if you're someone that needs the device

185
00:13:26,560 --> 00:13:30,640
to be under $100 for you to buy it, I actually think this is pretty cool.

186
00:13:30,640 --> 00:13:33,840
The screens are totally decent. The fact that it comes jam-packed with ways

187
00:13:33,840 --> 00:13:36,920
to play a bunch of games, super cool.

188
00:13:36,920 --> 00:13:41,380
I think that the UI needs a complete rework, which is really hard on any budget and or device

189
00:13:41,380 --> 00:13:45,320
where there isn't an entire team making this a really good experience.

190
00:13:45,320 --> 00:13:49,120
However, I do think that it's a pretty solid option

191
00:13:49,120 --> 00:13:54,700
for $95. The fact that you can get this kind of emulation for under $100, it's pretty freaking sweet.

192
00:13:54,700 --> 00:13:58,540
And yes, you want the SD cards if you want entire libraries of games,

193
00:13:58,540 --> 00:14:02,900
but you can get most of the games you wanna play at once on this thing built in.

194
00:14:02,900 --> 00:14:06,540
I think I'm gonna hold off a little bit more for something that's a little bit more polished

195
00:14:06,540 --> 00:14:10,220
and high-end. However, what I'm not gonna hold off on

196
00:14:10,220 --> 00:14:13,940
is telling you you should watch more ShortCircuit. If you like retro devices

197
00:14:13,940 --> 00:14:17,740
and you want something that's more accurate, we just unboxed the Super Station One,

198
00:14:17,740 --> 00:14:25,300
which is a PlayStation One form factor, Mr. FPGA style retro device, and it is awesome.