Anbernic RG DDS Price Is Official: From $284.99 on Pre-Order, Shipping December 10

Anbernic opened RG DDS pre-orders on its own store on October 16, and the prices are the ones that leaked from its AliExpress store a day earlier. The product page also fills in most of what the October 9 reveal left out, from the weight to what the AI button does.

UPDATE What’s new since publishing

Anbernic’s own store opened RG DDS pre-orders on October 16 at exactly the leaked prices, for both memory versions, and shipping starts December 10 as leaked. The size and weight and AI button sections below, and the specs table, now give Anbernic’s official answers.

How much does the RG DDS cost?

$299.99 for 8GB of memory and 128GB of storage, or $364.99 for 12GB and 256GB, on Anbernic’s store. Both are $15 off while the handheld is on pre-order, so the 8GB/128GB model costs $284.99 and the 12GB/256GB model $349.99 right now. Every colour costs the same. Shipping is extra and calculated at checkout, and Anbernic’s shipping policy says buyers in Europe also pay customs tax.

When does the RG DDS ship, and where can you pre-order it?

It ships gradually from December 10, 2026, and pre-orders are on Anbernic’s own store at anbernic.com. Every version you can order today ships from China. The store also lists US-warehouse versions at the same prices, but they can’t be ordered yet. A gradual rollout means even a day-one order isn’t guaranteed to arrive before the holidays.

With almost two months between ordering and shipping, the cancellation rule matters: Anbernic’s shipping policy accepts a cancellation within 12 hours of ordering, through a support ticket. After that, it points buyers to its return policy.

Did the AliExpress leak get it right?

Mostly: the prices and the December 10 start matched, but the product page drops the leak’s promise that shipping would finish by January 31. The leaked graphic appeared on an RG DDS listing in Anbernic’s official AliExpress store, the same store Anbernic links under its October 9 reveal video. A Retro Handhelds report on it gave $264.99 for the 8GB/128GB model, which was a slip. Anbernic’s graphic showed the arithmetic: $299.99 minus $15 is $284.99, the 8GB/128GB pre-order price now on its store.

What are the RG DDS specs?

Anbernic’s product page lists a roughly 4.7-inch 1200 x 720 top screen and a roughly 4-inch 960 x 720 bottom touchscreen, both IPS (the LCD type), both 300 pixels per inch and 500 nits. If you’re wondering why a flagship has 720p screens, it’s the 3DS. Anbernic says each display triples the width and height of the original 3DS image, which is 400 x 240 on top and 320 x 240 on the bottom, so every original pixel becomes a clean 3 x 3 block with no blur or uneven scaling. There’s no glasses-free 3D screen.

Inside is a Qualcomm Snapdragon G2 Gen 2, a 4nm chip with eight cores running at up to 2.8GHz, cooled by a fan and a heat pipe. It runs Android 16 and has a 6,000mAh battery with 27W charging. Anbernic also lets you switch between Qualcomm’s own graphics driver and Turnip, an open-source driver for the chip’s Adreno graphics, so you can use whichever runs a game better. For connections, there’s Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.4, a 3.5mm headphone jack, a microSD slot for cards up to 2TB and a USB-C port that sends 1080p video to a TV or monitor.

Around the screens are two analog sticks, which Anbernic calls capacitive, a D-pad, side-by-side shoulder buttons, front-facing stereo speakers and a built-in retractable stylus with a conductive fabric tip. A gyroscope and a Z-axis linear motor for vibration sit inside.

How big and heavy is the RG DDS?

It weighs about 434 g and measures 166 x 93 x 26 mm closed, according to Anbernic. Its alloy hinge holds the top screen anywhere from 15 to 180 degrees. A magnetic sensor puts the handheld to sleep when you close it.

What does the RG DDS AI button do?

It’s a dedicated button for Anbernic’s own AI assistant, which offers game guides and strategies, real-time translation of on-screen text while you play, chat, text-to-image generation and image processing, according to Anbernic’s spec sheet. Anbernic says you can also set the button to other functions. It’s the round button above the face buttons, roughly where the New 3DS had its small C-stick.

What don’t we know yet?

Battery life and the refresh rate are still missing from Anbernic’s spec sheet. It lists the 6,000mAh capacity without an estimate of hours. For the refresh rate, it says only that the two screens match.

How does the RG DDS compare with the AYN Thor and Retroid Pocket Duo?

On price, it sits between the Pocket Duo and the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Thor. The Retroid Pocket Duo is $269 for 8GB and 128GB, or $249 with Retroid’s code DUO until October 31, so the Duo undercuts the 8GB/128GB RG DDS’s $284.99 pre-order price even before the code. AYN’s Thor starts at $259 for the Lite, which uses the older Snapdragon 865, while the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 Base is $329 for 8GB and 128GB. At 12GB and 256GB, the RG DDS’s $349.99 pre-order price is $59 below the $409 Thor Pro.

The screens are the real split. The Pocket Duo and Thor both use AMOLED panels with 1080p top screens. A 1080-line screen is 4.5 times the 3DS’s 240 lines, so neither can fill its top screen at a whole-number scale: a clean 4x leaves a black border. Filling both screens cleanly is what the RG DDS was designed around. The Duo’s screens do run at 120Hz, a figure Anbernic hasn’t given for the RG DDS.

Retro Handhelds expects the RG DDS’s Snapdragon G2 Gen 2 to beat the Pocket Duo’s Dragonwing Q-7790 on paper, but nobody has tested an RG DDS yet. If you only play Game Boy Advance and older, a single-screen handheld like the KONKR Pocket Advance costs far less, at $129 for 4GB and 64GB.

Don’t confuse the RG DDS with Anbernic’s own RG DS and RG DS Plus, which cost under $100 on Anbernic’s store. They’re a different class: the RG DS Plus runs a Rockchip RK3568 with 1GB of memory.

Did I pre-order one?

Yes, the 12GB, 256GB model in Basalt Black. I’ve also ordered the Retroid Pocket Duo, so a comparison may be in order.