Anbernic is opening pre-orders for its PlayStation Vita inspired handhelds on 2026-03-23 at 6 AM EDT (3 AM PDT). The RG Vita and RG Vita Pro will be available at early bird pricing of $100 (€92) and $110 (€101) respectively for the first 72 hours, with prices jumping to $140 (€129) and $150 (€138) after the pre-order window closes.
The standard RG Vita features a 13.9 cm (5.46 inch) 1280 x 720 display, UNISOC Tiger T618 processor with Mali-G52 MP2 graphics, 3GB RAM, and 64GB storage running Android 12. The Pro model upgrades to a 14.0 cm (5.5 inch) 1920 x 1080 screen, RockChip RK3576 processor with Mali-G52 MC3 GPU, 4GB RAM, and dual-boots Android 14 and Linux. Both pack 5,000mAh batteries rated for 8 hours of runtime, Wi-Fi connectivity, and microSD expansion, though only the Pro includes USB-C display output and dual-screen support.
Reaction to the standard RG Vita has been mixed, particularly around the challenge of emulating PS Vita games on hardware that mimics Sony's handheld design. The Pro model is generating more interest thanks to early developer support from custom firmware projects ROCKNIX, KNULLI, and GammaOS, which should provide optimized software alternatives to Anbernic's stock firmware at launch. The Pro ships with Anbernic's partnership with Gamma already in place for its 64-bit Linux implementation, while community firmware developers received early hardware units to begin porting efforts. The RK3576 itself gained initial mainline kernel support in Linux 6.12, with H.264 and H.265 video decoder support merged in Linux 7.0 as of February 2026, though device-level support depends on additional factors including bootloader access and peripheral driver availability.
The RK3576 chip in the Pro brings quad-core ARM Cortex-A72 processors running at 2.2GHz alongside four Cortex-A53 efficiency cores at 1.8GHz, plus a 6 TOPS neural processing unit for AI workloads. This represents a significant jump over the standard model's Tiger T618, which uses dual Cortex-A75 cores at 2GHz with six Cortex-A55 cores.
