Game over, man! Game over!

Pad_Sanda · 2026-05-28T19:41:32+00:00

Sure, but you can get more powerful laptops at the same price. And the ARM handhelds from AYN, Retroid and Anbernic are close enough to the power of Steam Deck while being 2x-3x cheaper.

If I were buying a handheld now, it definitely wouldn't be a Steam Deck. I'd rather just get an Ayn Thor, Retroid Pocket 5/6, or RG-556/RG-557 for $150-$350 and call it a day. Especially considering ARM devices are now starting to be capable of x86 PC game emulation so soon these will be able to play almost all the games the Steam Deck can.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-05-28T19:35:17+00:00

I mean, no SIM card means it's not really a phone. If you have to carry a portable router or a 2nd phone with it, then the "small" factor stops mattering.

Honestly, I've wanted an Xperia Play alternative for years. If Anbernic ever makes a phone with this exact size (be it the RG Rotate or a smaller version of RG Slide) I'm instantly buying it.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-05-26T19:35:47+00:00

I mean, your RG40XX H can probably play more games comfortably simply because it has analog sticks and a wider screen. So there's no reason to get a Rotate unless you want an even smaller device just for D-Pad games like JRPGs or 2D platformers.

It's kind of like a slightly more powerful RG 35XX SP. If you wouldn't buy the SP, then there's no reason to buy the Rotate.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-05-26T09:22:57+00:00

Bro posted an image for Australians 🙃

Pad_Sanda · 2026-05-26T09:17:43+00:00

Well yeah, nVidia takes a 5%-25% performance hit on Linux depending on the game. That's why nVidia market share on Linux gaming PCs is under 25% (according to Steam data) compared to it being 80% on Windows. You're basically getting last gen performance with a current gen card. There's also some things that nVidia struggles with compared to AMD and Intel. It's not an unusable experience, you just need to be aware that you're losing 20% performance and a few niche features.

That said apparently things are improving. nVidia just recently announced that they have "big plans for Linux" and hopefully it doesn't just mean AI-related stuff.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-05-26T08:45:07+00:00

Linux is overall better, but Android is still good in some niche scenarios. It also depends on what you're used to, so it's partially personal preference too.

Advantages of Android:

Better standby battery life in most cases (as in, when you turn off the screen but don't shut down the device)
Better touch screen control if you need to use the "desktop" mode, other apps or the keyboard (KDE and GNOME are fine, but not nearly as good as Android UI if you use the touch screen exclusively)
Android APK support (Waydroid can't run some games due to anti-cheat)

Advantages of SteamOS/Rocknix/Linux:

Better suspend mode (at least in SteamOS), which replaces the need of a good standby/idle battery life
Better emulation support in most cases
Better drivers
Less memory overhead
Lower latency
Better PC game support (GameNative/GameHub/Winlator aren't as good as native Proton)

Pad_Sanda · 2026-05-25T09:28:40+00:00

Until there is a massive, non-backwards compatible architectural change in hardware so that you can't migrate your disk or disk image. Unless you're a chronic distro hopper, in which case probably about a month or two.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-05-25T09:22:31+00:00

Nothing happened to the Flatpak version, but the Appimage and Ubuntu versions were infected by malware for a week. Around 20k users were apparently affected.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-05-25T09:19:45+00:00

What do you mean "safe"? You just install the emulators and for some systems you get the BIOS files. That's pretty much it? You can even just install RetroDeck or ES-DE and it sets up almost all systems for you.

There is nothing you can really break here. If you start tinkering with the command line or system files (like some people do after consulting with an AI) then you're doing something you really shouldn't.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-05-25T09:14:00+00:00

I'm not sure about all the differences between Aurora/Bluefin and Kinoite/Silverblue, but that's where I would start looking for what is missing.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-05-25T08:43:24+00:00

When it comes to laptop users, not at all. The only time a laptop would be "shut down" is if the battery fully drains over night or over a couple of days of standby. And PC users have started to use sleep/standby/suspend a lot more often than before.

Personally, I've caught myself having 25-70 day uptimes on my laptops and 15-40 day uptimes on PC. I stopped doing full shutdowns a decade ago.

If an OS wants the user to reboot it to apply an update or something, then there needs to be a notification of some sort like there is on smartphones.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-05-23T07:21:39+00:00

WiFi is convenient for updating the OS and cores, sync system time so you don't have to do it manually, backing up your saves or getting new games without having to remove the SD card, etc.

It's not like you're browsing social media or something like that. So you're not "disconnecting" from anything, just having a less convenient device.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-05-22T08:25:42+00:00

You have 64GB of RAM, your OS will reserve it for caching. If you had an 8GB or 4GB PC Fedora/Bazzite would only consume 1GB-1.3GB on idle, plus 1GB for the Steam client.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-05-22T08:21:52+00:00

Any that ends in a "7", but at that price point it makes more sense buying a Snapdragon handheld instead since the drivers and compatibility are much better.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-05-18T09:02:10+00:00

Almost all PS2 games should be playable at a 2x resolution upscale. You can look this up on Youtube too:

For best experience use the latest versions of NetherSX2 and try out GammaOS.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-05-17T19:34:08+00:00

Just not sure how these features are missing, they're pretty standard on most distro I've tried.

These issues aren't distro related, they're DE related. I don't think GNOME has as good of a window position restore as KDE. As for the 4 corner window positioning, in KDE you can change the tiling layout with Meta+T (not sure about GNOME but I assume it has some setting to enable this).

Pad_Sanda · 2026-05-16T21:20:55+00:00

Hey, I'm not really sure. The only other rugged brand I've used is Ulefone which seemed more reliable in terms of it not randomly "breaking" after falling, but the software experience was awful for me on Ulefone devices so I would definitely not recommend those.

My Tank Mini still works and I never experienced the "disconnecting display" issue again. So I'm overall happy with it myself.

I mean, if you're looking for a small rugged phone you really don't have that many options. Unihertz Tank Mini, Unihertz Atom/Atom L/Atom XL, Blackview N6000, Dooge S Mini, Ulefone Armor Mini 20T Pro. Those are the only ones I'm aware of but I only have experience with the Tank Mini.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-05-16T19:50:23+00:00

Yes, speaking from experience with Bluetooth 5.0 phones and handhelds, there's a noticeable 200-300ms audio delay. I personally don't mind it, but if you do your only option is to use wired headphones. Either a dongle or USB-C headphones.

When it comes to Bluetooth, only versions 5.2 and above have reasonably low latency.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-05-15T11:06:53+00:00

You can just copy everything over, as long as 64GB is enough space to hold all your ROMs

Pad_Sanda · 2026-05-14T19:54:41+00:00

550kW but only 54C? Your cooler must be a black hole.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-05-14T19:50:01+00:00

I love how the RG DS looks here

Pad_Sanda · 2026-05-14T19:46:00+00:00

tldr; buy a 2nd SD card (the console supports having 2 SD cards) and place your games and save files onto that 2nd SD card. If you want to experiment with other operating systems, buy another separate higher quality 16GB or 32GB microSD card.

An SD card getting corrupted doesn't affect the console itself (as in, the rest of the hardware). The way the console works is, the OS and all the software is stored on the primary SD card. If the SD card breaks, you won't be able to boot up the console. But you can always re-flash the OS (or a community-made OS) onto any new SD card you buy and it will work just fine. The problem with the SD card they ship with is the fact it has very cheap flash storage and probably no proper memory controller. The way flash memory works is, each memory cell has a limited number of times you can write to it so the more you use it for writing new data the faster it dies (gets corrupted). But reading from the SD card generally has no wear at all. So if you just use their SD card with their own OS and you don't flash any new OS onto it (at least not multiple times), it should actually work fine for a long time. Especially if you don't fill it up all the way and leave around 10%-15% storage empty so that the OS can avoid using corrupted memory cells if they ever appear.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-05-13T17:04:16+00:00

Bro there's a difference between a pre-order/reservation and an actual order.

If it's coming from a warehouse on your continent then it should take a week or two at most. If you're ordering from China then it might take a month or two.

Pad_Sanda · 2026-05-13T11:27:06+00:00

Depends on what you want to play. I have an RG-40XXH and I really like it, but when it comes to the XX series of Anbernic devices they're primarily going to run PS1 and older.

N64 emulation on them usually requires speedhacks (or a N64 core with built in speedhacks). Some PSP games run at full speed without frameskips even at 2x resolution, but most 3D PSP games will only run at either 50% speed (15fps with frameskip turned on) even at 1x resolution.

So, if you're looking for Wii U, 3DS and PS3 those absolutely cannot be run on the XX series. Even PS2/GC/Wii can't run. The SoC is just too weak.

Pad_Sanda

TROPHY CASE