Hey there, how you doing? Today I am super freaking excited to show this thing to you! It's probably the retro ulation thing that I've been looking forward to the most. Specifically, because it's so nostalgic for the little GBA lover that lives inside my heart:)

Well, from GBA SP to Powkitty V90, now we finally have the Anbernic RG35XX SP. It's taken this long to get the RG35XX SP, a clamshell handheld that tries to do the GB thing and take it one step further to go above and beyond with a ton of great emulation options that make it not only a great handheld for GBA, but a great handheld for all the old retro stuff, including PS1, Nintendo 64, Dreamcast, Nintendo DS, PSP.

I have been waiting for this sort of thing literally the entire time that I've been into this hobby, it's the one thing that I've wanted for all these years, and now I have it in my hands! So, does it do it? Does it live up to the glory story of the GBA SP? Well, let's find out!

But first before we take another step further, we need to talk about the name: RG35XX SP. These Anbernic names suck! And I'm not going to stand for it. I've given each of these things a new name. The RG35XX Plus became the Bizzazzle, the 35XX H is the Zazzbizzle, the 28XX is the Zazzbitty. So with this wellth thought out super consistent and 100% better naming scheme in mind, I hereby present to you —— the Flipzizzle!

I need to mention that this Flipzizzle was kindly provided to me to review by litnxt, they sent me this amazing retro color version which I am in love with. It looks so good! Litnxt have good prices, good service, free worldwide shipping, and you should buy this from them if you want one.

The Flipzizzle has the same specs as the entire XX line. Same processor like the Bizzazzle and the Zazzbizzle and the Zazzbitty. The device itself is square. There's a top and a bottom, some sides. The top opens up and inside we have a screen up there, a D-pad, face buttons, a menu and hotkey button, single front-facing speaker, start and select button. Power indicator can be seen from the front and right side. On the right we have a power button and a reset button. Underneath we have a headphone hole, a Micro SD card hole for the system card and a second micro SD card hole for a optional games card. On the left side we have volume up and down and up. Top we have inline bumpers and triggers, and an HDMI hole and a USB hole. Around back we have a trap door with a removable battery.

The flippy screen is what sets this thing apart from everything else around. It opens up to a little over halfway, kind of freely but then it snaps to about a 150° angle, which is the perfect angle for General use. Flip devices are only as good as their hinge. As far as I could tell, this is a high quality hinge and it's the same style hinge as the GBA SP. So I have hopes that this thing will last a long time. 

The Flipzizzle comes in four different colors, transparent blue and black and silver and retro beige. Of course I went for the retro beige, that's my jam as you well know. I wasn't sure based on the photos if it would actually look good, but when I put my actual eyeballs on this in real life, I was so relieved that it looks as good as it does. I wouldn't change a thing about it, it looks like a real retro piece of tech. 

This is more or less the same size and shape as the GBA SP, but it's a good bit wider and a little bit thicker. Overall it feels a bit bigger and heavier in your hand in contrast the previous flip device. Now I think the size is perfect. Bigger devices are more comfortable to hold and it's still a good size and weight to keep in your pocket.  

I find the Flipzizzle to be super comfortable. It's a bit wider than the Bizzazzle and the Miyoo Mini Plus. And the extra width is enough to make this feel more like a horizontal handheld rather than a vertical one. I played on this for 3 hours straight as I was testing stuff for this video. I had no problem doing that which is not common for me. Usually I get crampy by the end of a Long play session, they've got some secret sauce with this one, It's a delight to hold and to play games.

I will mention that all the controls are clicky, including the D-pad. But I like clicky controls and I like these. However, I know lots of people worry about playing these things in quiet environments like in bed. If your partner is trying to sleep and in that case this might be a little too clicky, so maybe don't play this in bed, and do other things, if you know what I mean. 

The D-pad and face buttons are both low profile, and have very little travel. I almost never have input issues with clicky D-pads, and it's the same with directional inputs like diagonals. The bumpers and triggers are in line, which makes me happy and they're great to use. All the controls are great. The screen is the exact same screen that we get on the Zazzbizzle and the Bizzazzle, 3.5 in, 640x 480, almost all 3.5 in screen devices use this exact screen. So no surprises here. Good viewing angles, good brightness, retro games look amazing on screens this size. And the speak is good the same.

One interesting thing that kind of surprised me is that I put some Adventure Time on here just to test out the video player, the shape of the Flipzizzle means that you can place it on a table, and angle the screen so that you can see it easily. This feels like a little TV. I love watching stuff on this. I'm actually going to swap to a bigger SD card, just so I can put a ton of my favorite cartoons on here. And there's a music player so you can use this as like a a media player. Also for your information, there is no static or any idle noise from the headphone jack. 

The system on here is the Anbernic system, it's the same system that's on all these things. It's a fine operating system that works and it gives you the options that you need the games run through Retro Arch, and you can change the Retro Arch options. Good hotkeys for saving your state and stuff. In the apps section you got the music player and a video player and an ebook reader, and a file manager. There's some more advanced options in there, you can connect to Wi-Fi for retro achievements, you can connect up Bluetooth controllers. And when you plug this into HDMI, you can connect it up to a TV and use it as a Home console.

Another cool thing about this thing is that it has a systemwide sleep when you close the screen even while you're gaming. The game stops running and the screen goes off, and when you open it up, you're right back where you left!

Give you the super quick version now. You can play everything up to and including PS1 with zero issues, Sega Saturn sucks, don't bother. Nintendo 64 and PSP and Dreamcast work pretty good. The hardest to emulate games don't work great, but most do and in all these systems you can tap the power button to switch between D-pad and analog stick input. So everything should be more or less playable.

But the the star of the show obviously is Game Boy Advance, and this is really cool. They applied an LCD Shader which looks pretty good. It feels really GBA but they've done the bezel on the bottom of the screen to offset the image and show The Game Boy Advance SP logo. They even have a subtle drop shadow around the edges to make it look like the screen is like inset.

This Flipzizzle is the GBA device that we've been waiting for, and no word of a lie this thing has overnight become my current favorite retro toy. I need to give it some more time to see how it fares in the long run and we'll see how custom firmware shakes out in the months to come. But this has potential to be the handheld of the Year for me.You can definitely expect some more content on the Flipzizzle, because there's more that I want to show you.

If you want to Flipzizzle of your own or any retro toy, make sure you check out the link to LITNXT!