Miyoo Mini Plus vs RG35XX 2026: OnionOS Still Wins

Two handhelds, roughly the same price, roughly the same size, roughly the same screen, and roughly a thousand internet arguments about which one you should buy. The Miyoo Mini Plus and the Anbernic RG35XX are the budget retro handheld equivalent of a bar fight that has been running since late 2022 and shows no sign of anyone getting tired, sitting down, or checking a spec sheet.

Here is the short version, because you deserve it up front. For most people, most of the time, the Miyoo Mini Plus is the better device and the RG35XX Plus is the better computer. That reads like a contradiction. It is not. The more capable chip loses this fight anyway, and it loses it on software, controls, and pocketability rather than on any benchmark. We will show our work.

Before any of that, we have to deal with an inconvenient truth: "RG35XX" is not one product. It is a family that Anbernic has refreshed so many times that asking "Miyoo Mini Plus vs RG35XX" is a bit like asking "iPhone vs Samsung" and expecting one answer. So we are going to pin down exactly which three devices are in this room before we let them start throwing chairs.

The Two Devices (and a Trick Question)

This comparison has a hidden third participant, and pretending otherwise is how bad buying advice gets written. There is the Miyoo Mini Plus in one corner, and in the other corner there are at least two very different Anbernic handhelds both wearing the name RG35XX. Getting these straight is not pedantry. It changes the answer.

The Miyoo Mini Plus in one paragraph

The Miyoo Mini Plus launched in October 2022 as a supersized sequel to the cult-classic Miyoo Mini. It runs a SigmaStar SSD202D system-on-chip: a dual-core ARM Cortex-A7 clocked at 1.2GHz, paired with a frankly tiny 128MB of DDR3 RAM. That SoC was designed for smart doorbells and dashcams, not gaming, and it shows in the emulation ceiling. What it lacks in horsepower it makes up for in size, a genuinely excellent D-pad, and a 3.5-inch IPS panel at 640x480. It weighs about 116 grams and fits, as one reviewer memorably put it, in a playing-card holster. It also gained Wi-Fi over the original Mini, which turns out to matter more than the chip does.

The RG35XX that isn't one device

The original Anbernic RG35XX arrived in 2022 (not 2021, despite what half the internet will tell you) built around an Actions Semiconductor ATM7039S: a quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 with a PowerVR SGX544 GPU and 256MB of DDR3. It had no Wi-Fi, no Bluetooth, no HDMI, and a small 2100mAh battery. It was a $50 curiosity that punched above its weight and below its battery life.

The RG35XX Plus is a different animal entirely. It shipped in late 2023 on the Allwinner H700: a quad-core ARM Cortex-A53 at 1.5GHz with a dual-core Mali-G31 MP2 GPU and a full 1GB of LPDDR4. That is eight times the RAM of the Miyoo and a real, if modest, 3D graphics processor. It added dual-band Wi-Fi, HDMI output, and a 3300mAh battery. When someone says "the RG35XX beats the Miyoo on power," this is the device they mean, whether they know it or not.

How we're framing this fight

Our primary matchup is the two current, in-production, Wi-Fi-equipped devices you can actually buy in 2026: the Miyoo Mini Plus and the RG35XX Plus (H700). We keep the original 2022 RG35XX in the frame because it is the device that started the rivalry and because you will still find it discounted. Where a claim only applies to one specific model, we say so. Anything less and we would be comparing a doorbell chip to a smart-TV chip and calling it a coin flip.

Specs Head-to-Head

Here is the whole argument in one table. Read it once, then let us tell you which rows are lying to you.

Reading the silicon

The single most important number in that table is RAM, and it is not close. The Miyoo Mini Plus has 128MB. The RG35XX Plus has 1GB. That is an eightfold gap, and it is the whole reason the H700 can dream about Dreamcast while the SSD202D tops out at the original PlayStation. The Miyoo's chip has no real 3D GPU, so everything past the 16-bit era is software-rendered on two Cortex-A7 cores that were never meant for it. The H700 has an actual Mali-G31 and four Cortex-A53 cores. On paper this is a rout.

Screen, battery, ports

The panels are, for practical purposes, identical: 3.5-inch IPS at 640x480 on all three. Reviewers give the Miyoo a hair on maximum brightness and note that its screen "looks absolutely gorgeous" on colourful 8- and 16-bit titles, but nobody is choosing between these on pixels. Battery is where the RG35XX Plus quietly wins: its 3300mAh cell delivers up to eight hours against the Miyoo's five-to-six, and it embarrasses the original RG35XX's anaemic 2100mAh, which taps out around three. All three finally standardised on USB-C — yes, including the original, so ignore anyone who tells you it uses micro-USB.

What the table doesn't tell you

Three rows are quietly doing all the damage. First, Analog sticks: No across the board. That single row neuters most of the H700's theoretical power advantage, and we will spend a whole section on why. Second, Bluetooth: chip present, not enabled on the Miyoo — the silicon is there, the firmware pretends it isn't, and no, you cannot pair headphones or a controller. Third, Best custom firmware, because on hardware this cheap the operating system is the product, and that row is where the Miyoo wins the war.

Performance and Emulation Ceilings

Let us talk about what actually runs, because a spec sheet is a promise and emulation is the receipt. We are pulling from three kinds of sources here: hands-on reviews (Android Police, Retro Handhelds, DROIX), the community consensus on r/SBCGaming and r/miyoomini, and the OnionUI project's own documented compatibility. They all tell the same story with slightly different accents.

PS1 and below: a tie the Miyoo edges

Everything up to and including the original PlayStation runs beautifully on both current devices. NES, SNES, Genesis, Game Boy, GBA, Neo Geo, PC Engine, and the vast majority of PS1 titles are full-speed on the Miyoo Mini Plus and the RG35XX Plus alike. This is 95% of what anyone actually plays on a device this size, and in this range the Miyoo has a subtle edge that has nothing to do with the chip: OnionOS ships cores that are "pre-configured and optimized for performance," as Retro Game Corps put it, so the average user gets full speed without touching a settings menu. If you want the fuller picture of what the platform chews through, our breakdown of the Miyoo Mini Plus game list catalogues the real, tested library rather than the marketing number.

Dreamcast, Saturn, PSP: the H700's real advantage

Above PS1, the two devices diverge hard. The Miyoo Mini Plus simply stops — no Dreamcast, no Saturn, no PSP, and only the lightest N64 games in a stuttering, unofficial sort of way. The RG35XX Plus keeps going. DROIX, reviewing it directly against the Miyoo, states flatly that "the H700 processor with GPU runs faster than the Miyoo processor" and singles out "meaningful gains for PS1 and Dreamcast titles that ran slowly on competing devices." Retro Handhelds, reviewing the same H700 silicon, reckons "it'll be able to handle most games up to the PSP and Sega Saturn." That is a real, defensible capability gap. Dreamcast 2D fighters, lighter Saturn games, and a chunk of the PSP library are genuinely playable on the H700 and impossible on the SSD202D.

The analog-stick problem nobody mentions

Here is the catch that spec-sheet warriors always miss. Both the Miyoo Mini Plus and the RG35XX Plus are vertical devices with no analog sticks. The H700 can technically boot a PSP or N64 game; you just cannot play most of them. Android Police's reviewer put the problem plainly for the whole vertical Anbernic line: the device "lacks analog sticks, which creates a significant gap — many 32-bit games require analog controls to be playable, despite the processor's capability to emulate them." So yes, the RG35XX Plus can run Ridge Racer. No, you do not want to steer it with a D-pad. If 3D-with-sticks is your goal, the horizontal RG35XX H is the model to buy, or you skip this class entirely — the accuracy-obsessed will always point you toward the FPGA precision of a MiSTer, and the performance-obsessed toward something with actual thumbsticks. Both current handhelds here are, functionally, superb 2D machines that happen to have different opinions about the sixth console generation.

Software: OnionOS vs GarlicOS

On $60 hardware, the operating system is the device. Both of these handhelds ship with stock firmware that ranges from mediocre to actively annoying, and both are transformed by community custom firmware. The difference is that one community got a head start, a killer feature, and a cult following, and the other spent its first year politely copying it.

OnionOS and why it wins

OnionOS — properly the Onion project, maintained under the OnionUI organisation on GitHub with Aemiii91 as its best-known developer — is the reason people forgive the Miyoo its doorbell chip. It bolts a clean interface, dozens of pre-configured systems, RetroAchievements, box art, themes, and over-the-air updates onto a device that stock feels half-finished. Retro Game Corps, who was openly "torn on the Miyoo Mini" at launch over its "software navigation and contrast/sharpness issues," credits Onion with fixing exactly that: it "improves the software experience, adds new systems and emulators, and incorporates recent fixes for the screen, too." Controller Nerds, who scored the Mini Plus a 9/10, called OnionOS "the real icing on the cake" that "unlocks a whole boat load of new features." It is the most mature, most polished custom firmware in this price bracket, full stop. If you want to understand the engine under the hood, it is the same libretro core ecosystem we cover in our guide to RetroArch cores in 2026.

GarlicOS, muOS, and Knulli

The RG35XX line is not short on custom firmware — it is arguably spoiled for choice. GarlicOS, built by the developer known as Black Seraph, was the early hero, and it is telling that it was "modeled after the popular Miyoo Mini custom interface known as OnionOS," deliberately built to make Onion refugees "feel at home." The sincerest form of flattery, and an admission about who set the standard. In 2026 the RG35XX conversation has moved on to muOS and to Knulli, the Batocera-derived firmware that shares DNA with the desktop distribution we cover in our Batocera 43.1 download guide. These are excellent. They are also, collectively, still catching up to the fit-and-finish that Onion shipped years ago, and choosing between three good options is its own small tax on your evening.

Wi-Fi, RetroAchievements, and the Bluetooth lie

Both current devices have Wi-Fi, and on both it enables RetroAchievements and — the Miyoo's genuine killer app — wireless ROM transfer straight from your PC over the network. No card-pulling, no adapter fumbling. That single feature is why comparison after comparison lands on the Miyoo despite the weaker chip. On the Bluetooth front, be careful: the Miyoo Mini Plus's Wi-Fi module technically includes a Bluetooth radio, but as multiple reviewers confirm, "neither the base OS nor OnionOS offer Bluetooth connectivity" — no wireless headphones, no wireless controllers, out of the box or otherwise. The RG35XX Plus's Bluetooth 4.2, by contrast, actually functions. If untethered audio matters to you, that is a real, if niche, point for Anbernic.

Build Quality and the D-Pad

Retro handhelds live or die on how they feel in your hands during hour three of a JRPG grind, and this is the category where the Miyoo Mini Plus stops being the plucky underdog and starts being the favourite. It has, by broad consensus, the better body and the far better directional pad.

The Miyoo D-pad reputation

The Miyoo Mini and Mini Plus earned a reputation for one of the best D-pads on any budget handheld, and it is deserved. Comparisons repeatedly describe a "d-pad that stands leagues ahead of the RG35XX," with crisp, deliberate directional input that makes 2D fighters and platformers feel right. Controller Nerds, handing over that 9/10, noted that despite the tiny footprint it is "pretty comfortable to hold and play for extended periods." For the games this class of device is actually good at — everything 2D — input quality is the whole ballgame, and Miyoo won it.

Anbernic's finicky diagonals

Anbernic's D-pads, across the RG35XX family, have a well-documented weakness with diagonals. Android Police's reviewer did not mince words: "the diagonal directional input is also finicky, making it a pain in the butt to aim in some run-and-gun shooters." This maps exactly onto the community complaint that the RG35XX registers accidental diagonals in games — Contra, Metal Slug, fighting-game inputs — where the Miyoo stays clean. The same reviewer conceded the RG35XX "doesn't feel cheap," which is praise with a ceiling. It is a well-built device with a mediocre D-pad, and on a machine built for 2D that is the wrong corner to cut.

Pocketability versus comfort

Size is the other honest trade. The Miyoo Mini Plus is tiny — around 116 grams, genuinely pocketable, the kind of thing you forget is in your jacket. The RG35XX Plus is bigger and heavier at roughly 186 grams, which some hands will find more comfortable for long sessions and others will find is the difference between "pocket" and "bag." There is no wrong answer here, only a preference. But if the entire pitch of a device this small is that it goes everywhere, the Miyoo delivers on that pitch harder.

Pricing and Availability (2026)

These are cheap devices, which is the point, and the pricing gap between them is small enough that it should rarely be the deciding factor. But availability is genuinely messy, because Anbernic refreshes the RG35XX line roughly as often as most people change bedsheets.

What each costs now

Expect to pay roughly $55-60 for a Miyoo Mini Plus and $65-75 for an RG35XX Plus. The ten-to-fifteen-dollar premium buys you the H700, HDMI, the bigger battery, and functioning Bluetooth. Whether that is worth it depends entirely on whether you will ever use those things — and if all you play is 2D, you mostly won't. The original RG35XX turns up on clearance around $45-55, but with no Wi-Fi and a three-hour battery, it is a false economy unless the discount is brutal.

The accessories tax

Budget for the extras, because the box does not include them. A fast, name-brand microSD card is non-negotiable — the bundled cards are slow and unreliable, and a bad card is the single most common cause of "my handheld is broken" posts that are actually "my card is broken" posts. A case, a screen protector, and possibly a second SD card for a clean firmware setup will each add a few dollars. None of this is unique to either device; it is the cost of entry to the hobby.

Availability and the churn

The Miyoo Mini Plus has a chronic stock problem — it sells out, reappears, and sells out again, and there is no reliable seasonal pattern. If you want one and one is in stock, buy it. The RG35XX line has the opposite problem: it is too available, in the sense that there are five slightly different models on sale simultaneously and it is easy to buy the wrong one. Read the SoC before you check out. If the listing does not say H700, you may be looking at the old ATM7039S original at a not-old price. Retro Handhelds flagged exactly this trap when a later refresh launched, noting the "RG35XX Plus includes Wi-Fi, better shoulder buttons, and a bigger battery, and costs about the same" — the model names do not map cleanly to value.

Which One Fits Your Scenario

Enough abstraction. Here are the concrete buyer profiles, because "it depends" is only useful if we tell you what it depends on. Find yourself in this list.

The pocket purist and the couch player

You want the smallest thing that plays SNES and PS1 on a bus: buy the Miyoo Mini Plus. Nothing else in this comparison is as pocketable, and its D-pad and OnionOS make it the most pleasant 2D machine of the group. This is the single most common use case, and the Miyoo owns it. You want to play on your TV: buy the RG35XX Plus. It has HDMI out; the Miyoo does not. For a cheap plug-into-the-living-room emulation box, the Plus is the only one of the two that qualifies, full stop.

The Dreamcast fan and the long-haul traveller

You specifically want Dreamcast, Saturn, or PSP: buy the RG35XX Plus — and accept that without analog sticks, the 3D-heavy end of those libraries will frustrate you, so consider the horizontal RG35XX H instead. You want the longest battery for flights and commutes: buy the RG35XX Plus, whose 3300mAh cell and ~8 hours outlast the Miyoo's ~5-6 and humiliate the original RG35XX's ~3. If your play sessions are measured in flights rather than bus stops, the bigger battery is a real quality-of-life win.

The tinkerer, the gift-buyer, and the collector

You love flashing custom firmware and distro-hopping: the RG35XX Plus gives you GarlicOS, muOS, and Knulli to play with, which is either a feature or a chore depending on your temperament. You are buying a gift for someone non-technical: buy the Miyoo Mini Plus, because OnionOS is the closest thing to "it just works" in this bracket and Wi-Fi ROM transfer means you can load it up without teaching anyone about SD card folders. You already own one and want to know if the other is worth it: probably not — as DROIX concluded, existing owners "may not find the upgrade compelling unless pursuing enhanced PS1/Dreamcast emulation specifically."

Migrating Between Them

Say you own one and you are switching to the other, or you are running both and want your library to travel. The good news: ROMs and in-game saves move cleanly. The bad news: save states do not, and per-system settings never transfer. Here is how to do it without torching your progress.

Miyoo (OnionOS) to RG35XX (GarlicOS/muOS)

Pull the Miyoo's card, copy your Roms and BIOS folders to your computer, then load them onto a freshly flashed GarlicOS or muOS card. Folder names for the major systems mostly line up, though every firmware has its own quirks — check the destination firmware's wiki for the exact system-folder abbreviations before you assume PS means the same thing in both. Copy your .srm in-game saves; leave your save states behind.

RG35XX to Miyoo (OnionOS)

The same in reverse, and slightly easier because OnionOS is opinionated about where things go. Flash a clean OnionOS card, drop your ROMs into the matching Roms subfolders, put BIOS files in BIOS, and place your .srm saves under the OnionOS saves path. Then use the Miyoo's best trick — connect it to Wi-Fi and push any stragglers over the network instead of shuffling the card again.

Moving saves and ROMs without losing progress

The one rule that saves people real heartbreak: battery/SRAM saves are portable, save states are not. A .srm file is the emulated cartridge battery and travels between devices and cores. A save state is a raw memory snapshot tied to a specific core version, and it will corrupt or refuse to load on different firmware. Before you migrate, load each in-progress game and save inside the game to create an .srm, then migrate that. Here is the mental model for the card layout and the checklist:

OnionOS (Miyoo Mini Plus)          GarlicOS/muOS (RG35XX)
/Roms/<SYSTEM>/game.chd           /Roms/<SYSTEM>/game.chd
/BIOS/*.bin                        /BIOS/*.bin
/Saves/  -> in-game .srm saves     /Saves/  -> in-game .srm saves
/States/ -> DO NOT MIGRATE         /States/ -> DO NOT MIGRATE

Migration checklist:
  1. In each game, save IN-GAME to write a .srm  (states are throwaway)
  2. Copy /Roms and /BIOS across   (folder names mostly match)
  3. Copy .srm saves across         (portable between cores)
  4. Leave save states behind       (core/version-locked)
  5. Reconfigure per-system settings (they never transfer)
  6. Verify folder abbreviations against the target firmware's wiki

Do those six steps and your library survives the move. Skip step one and you will learn, the hard way, why every forum thread about lost progress ends with someone typing "but the save state worked yesterday."

Pros and Cons at a Glance

The scannable version, one table per device, no hedging.

Miyoo Mini Plus

RG35XX Plus (H700)

Original RG35XX (2022)

The Verdict: Software Still Wins

We told you the answer in the second paragraph, and every source since has agreed: the Miyoo Mini Plus is the better device, the RG35XX Plus is the better computer, and for most buyers the device wins. Now here is the reasoning laid bare.

If you asked us to just pick one

Buy the Miyoo Mini Plus. It has the better D-pad, the better build, the more mature software in OnionOS, the network ROM transfer, and the smaller footprint — and 95% of what people play on a 3.5-inch handheld is 2D content that both devices run identically. The RG35XX Plus's extra power lands on systems that its own missing analog sticks then sabotage. When DowneLink tested both side by side for weeks, they landed on the Miyoo as "the overall winner, primarily due to its WiFi capabilities and superior build quality," calling the Wi-Fi ROM transfer "a game-changer worth the price premium." That is the consensus, and the data supports it. The spec sheet lost to a D-pad and a settings menu that was already finished.

When the RG35XX Plus is the right answer

Three clear cases flip it. You want to play on a TV — the Plus has HDMI, the Miyoo does not. You genuinely want Dreamcast, Saturn, or the lighter end of PSP — the H700 reaches there and the SSD202D never will. Or you need the longest possible battery, where 3300mAh and eight hours beat the Miyoo outright. DROIX's advice holds up: "if you are looking to buy your first handheld then the Anbernic RG35XX Plus is one to go for," precisely because it is the more feature-complete box. If any of those three needs is yours, buy the Plus and do not look back — and if 3D-with-sticks is the real goal, buy the horizontal RG35XX H instead of either.

When to skip both

Be honest about your ceiling. If what you actually want is comfortable N64, PSP, and GameCube with real analog sticks, neither of these is your device, and no amount of custom firmware changes that. That is the moment to spend more and step up to something like a Retroid Pocket, which brings sticks, a bigger screen, and Android to the table. The Miyoo Mini Plus and RG35XX Plus are superb at what they are: sub-$75 pocket machines for the first five console generations. Buy the Miyoo unless you specifically need HDMI, Dreamcast, or the biggest battery — in which case buy the RG35XX Plus. Either way, the OnionOS-versus-everyone-else gap is the reason this fight keeps ending the same way.