Mangmi Air X vs Anbernic RG406H

Two Android handhelds, $88 apart, and on our grade sheet the first ten columns are identical. The Mangmi Air X takes a straight A on the Game Boy, the NES, the Sega Genesis, the Game Boy Advance, the SNES, the PlayStation, the Nintendo 64, the Nintendo DS, the Dreamcast and the PSP. So does the Anbernic RG406H. Everything from 1989 to the last days of the PSP runs at full quality on both, and one of them costs $80.

The split happens after the PSP. That is the whole comparison, and it is worth being precise about, because $88 is real money and the honest answer is not "the expensive one is better at everything". It is better at four systems, and it is the same device on the other eleven.

Ten columns, one grade sheet

Our capability index grades 442 handhelds on up to eighteen systems and carries a tracked street price for 375 of them. On that ten-system column, 165 devices hold a straight A on all ten. The Air X at $80 is the third cheapest of the 161 priced ones: the Pocket Air Mini is $70, the KONKR Pocket Block is $79, and then the Air X.

The one system the Air X adds on its own is the Sega Saturn at B, which makes it playable on eleven systems. Playable in this index means a B or better, the same line the site uses everywhere else. 170 devices reach that eleven-system tier and 165 of them are priced; the Air X is one of the five cheapest.

The RG406H takes the Saturn at A. That is the first column where the two differ, and it is also the last 2D system in the index where a cheap GPU still shows.

What the extra $88 buys

Four columns move, and one appears.

The Air X carries no Nintendo 3DS grade in the catalogue at all, while 435 of the 442 devices do, so treat that row as a "no" rather than a "weak".

Four of those five columns cross from below the playable line to above it. On the Air X, GameCube at C and PlayStation 2 at D are not slower versions of those systems, they are systems you cannot build a library around. On the RG406H they are B+ and B, both playable, and the Wii joins them at B. The Nintendo 3DS at B+ is the widest single jump in the table, five letter bands.

None of that is a coincidence about branding, and the hardware explains it. The Air X runs a Qualcomm Snapdragon 662: four Cortex-A73 cores at 2.1 GHz, four Cortex-A53 at 2.0 GHz, an Adreno 610, 4 GB of LPDDR4X and 64 GB of eMMC. The RG406H runs a Unisoc T820: one Cortex-A76 at 2.7 GHz, three more A76 at 2.3 GHz, four A55 at 2.1 GHz, a Mali-G57 MC4, 8 GB of LPDDR4X and 128 GB of UFS 2.2. The four systems where the grades separate are exactly the four that need a modern GPU driver stack and enough memory bandwidth to feed it: Dolphin for GameCube and Wii, the AetherSX2 line for PlayStation 2, Citra for the 3DS.

For scale on the catalogue: 131 of the 442 graded devices are playable on the PlayStation 2, 144 are playable on the Nintendo 3DS, and 144 are playable on the GameCube. Those are not rare feats any more, which is why the next section matters.

The screen decides more than the grades do

The Air X has a 5.5 inch 1920 x 1080 panel in 16:9. The RG406H has a 4.0 inch 960 x 720 panel in 4:3, and it is a touchscreen. Both weigh about the same — 286 grams against 265 — and both carry a 5000 mAh battery. We do not publish measured runtimes for either device, so we will not pretend to know which lasts longer.

What we can say is which library looks right on which panel, and it is not the library the grade sheet would suggest.

The PSP renders in 16:9. On the Air X it fills the screen; on the RG406H it letterboxes, with black bars above and below a 4:3 window. The Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, SNES, PlayStation and Nintendo 64 all render in 4:3 or narrower: on the RG406H they fill the panel, on the Air X they sit in a pillarbox with black bars left and right. Dreamcast is 4:3 as well, which surprises people who remember it as a widescreen console.

So the two devices divide on era rather than on price. If the games you actually play are 4:3 cartridge and disc systems, the RG406H wastes no pixels and the Air X wastes a quarter of its panel on every session. If the PSP is the last system you care about, the Air X has the right shape and the RG406H has the wrong one, whatever the letters say.

What $168 buys elsewhere

Here is the part that hurts the RG406H's case rather than the Air X's.

128 priced devices are playable on all fifteen systems the RG406H covers. The cheapest is the Retroid Pocket Classic at $114, then the Retroid Pocket 4 at $149, the RG406V at $155, the KT-R2 at $159, the Mangmi Air Y Pro at $160 and the Gameforce ACE at $162. The RG406H, at $168, is the tenth cheapest of the 128. It buys the tier; it does not buy the cheapest seat in it.

The single-system floors are lower still. Across the whole index, the cheapest PlayStation 2 playable device is $114 and the cheapest Nintendo 3DS playable device is $70 — the Pocket Air Mini, at a B. If one specific late system is the reason you are shopping, neither of these two devices is the cheapest way to get it.

Which should you buy

If your library ends at the PSP and the Saturn, buy the Mangmi Air X at $80. It is the same ten A columns as the RG406H, it has the 16:9 panel for the last system on that list, and the $88 buys nothing you will use.

If you want GameCube, Wii, PlayStation 2 or Nintendo 3DS on the device, the RG406H does all four at a playable grade — but look at the Retroid Pocket Classic at $114 and the RG406V at $155 first, because both cover the same fifteen systems for less money.

If you specifically want a 4:3 panel in an Anbernic shell with 8 GB of RAM, the RG406H is the answer and the grade sheet is the reason it costs what it costs. That is a real preference, not a rationalisation: aspect ratio is the difference you feel on every single session, and it is the one spec nobody puts in a comparison table.

Switch and PlayStation 3 are F on both devices. Neither price changes that, and no amount of storage or RAM will.

Sources

• Mangmi — official product page for the Air X, the source of the Snapdragon 662, the 5.5 inch FHD display, the hall-effect sticks and the battery claim: mangmi.com
• Mangmi (China) — the manufacturer's own Air X specification page: mangmi.cn
• Qualcomm — Snapdragon 662 mobile platform specifications, the source of the four Cortex-A73 and four Cortex-A53 core configuration and the Adreno 610 GPU: qualcomm.com
• UNISOC — T820 platform page, the source of the Cortex-A76 and A55 core configuration: unisoc.com
• Joey's Retro Handhelds — RG406H review with the full spec sheet: 4 inch IPS at 960 x 720, Unisoc T820, Mali-G57, 8 GB LPDDR4X, 128 GB UFS 2.2, Android 13, 5000 mAh: joeysretrohandhelds.com
• Fun-Esports — retail listing for the RG406H confirming the 6 nm T820, the 1 x A76 at 2.7 GHz plus 3 x A76 at 2.3 GHz and 4 x A55 at 2.1 GHz layout, the Mali-G57 MC4 at 850 MHz and the 5000 mAh battery: fun-esports.com
• Retro Handhelds — Mangmi Air X review, covering the 1080p panel, the software situation and where the 662 tops out: retrohandhelds.gg
• Lost In Consoles — the per-system grades in this comparison are the frozen values published on the Mangmi Air X and RG406H device pages, recomputed over all 442 graded handhelds and 375 tracked prices in the capability index.