AYANEO "KONKR Pocket Advance" pre-orders begin, showing early signs of a major hit
Pre-orders for the "KONKR Pocket Advance," a horizontal handheld reminiscent of the Game Boy Advance from AYANEO's new sub-brand "KONKR," began on August 5th.
The device features a 3.5-inch LCD display (960x640 resolution, 3:2 aspect ratio) optimized for 4x integer scaling of retro games. It is powered by a MediaTek Helio G90T SoC, includes an active cooling fan and a 4000mAh battery, all while keeping the weight down to approximately 224g.
With a strategic starting price of $89 for the early-bird 3GB RAM model, it has already become a major hit, selling over 20,000 units on the major Chinese e-commerce site JD.com. In response to this demand, AYANEO has announced the addition of new colors such as "Peach" and "ONYX ICE" to keep up with interest.
Anbernic officially releases the clamshell "RG SP"
On August 5th, Anbernic began sales of the "RG SP," a new clamshell (foldable) Linux handheld.
As the third GBA SP-inspired model following the previous "RG35XX SP" and "RG34XX SP," this device is characterized by the removal of analog sticks to achieve a thinner and more compact form factor. In terms of specifications, it is equipped with an Allwinner H700 chipset (1.5GHz quad-core), a 3.4-inch IPS display (720x480), 1GB of RAM, and a 3300mAh battery, providing approximately 6 hours of gameplay.
The regular price is $64.99, but it was offered at an early-bird discount of $57.99 for the first three days of release, attracting the interest of retro gaming fans with its affordable pricing.
Retroid Pocket Nova price adjusted due to rising Qualcomm chip costs
For the "Retroid Pocket Nova," Retroid's latest Android handheld which began shipping at the end of July, the price of the base model (8GB RAM + 128GB storage) was increased by $10, from $229 to $239, starting August 6th.
According to an announcement on Retroid's official Discord, this price adjustment is due to "rising costs of Qualcomm chipsets and raw materials." The device is powered by the Qualcomm QCS8550, a variant of the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2, and has been directly affected by the rising chip prices impacting the entire industry.
On the software side, however, there is positive news: a custom ROM based on Android 16, "LineageOS 23.2," has already been released for the device, drawing significant attention from the community.
