TL;DR — the picks
- Best value, and purpose-built for SNES: BATLEXP G350 — £94.90, 3.5″ 4:3 screen. SNES is one of the two systems the device is genuinely built around.
- Best all-round 4:3 handheld: Anbernic RG353V — £149.90, the same 3.5″ 4:3 panel with dual-boot firmware and plenty of headroom above SNES and NES.
- Best premium SNES and NES experience: Anbernic RG405M — £199.90, the largest 4:3 screen in the range at 4.0″.
All three are in stock and dispatched from the UK. Every price is live on the day this was written.
What actually makes a good SNES and NES handheld
Here is the part most guides skip, and for SNES and NES it is the opposite of what you might expect.
The chip barely matters. SNES and NES emulation is lightweight. By 2026, every retro handheld in this price range runs the full SNES and NES libraries at full speed — including the most affordable one. This is the one buying decision where you do not need the fastest processor. A £94.90 device plays Super Nintendo games just as smoothly as a £214.90 one. What separates them is everything around the chip.
The screen shape decides how the game looks. SNES and NES output at a 4:3 aspect ratio. Put that on a 4:3 screen and the image fills the display edge to edge, exactly as it looked on a 1990s television. Put it on a 16:9 widescreen panel and you get black bars down both sides, with the picture floating in the middle. For SNES and NES specifically, a 4:3 screen is not a nice-to-have — it is the single biggest thing that decides whether the experience feels right.
The screen size decides how comfortable it is. SNES games were built for a living-room television, and they are full of small sprites, fine text and detailed backgrounds. On a 3.5″ panel the action is perfectly playable; step up to a 4.0″ panel and the same game becomes noticeably easier on the eye.
The configuration decides whether it has actually been set up. This is where a factory-imported handheld and an optimized one part company. SNES and NES emulation has real choices baked into it — the aspect-ratio lock so the image is not stretched, the scaling so pixels stay crisp, the optional CRT shader for that soft cathode-ray-tube look, the save-state behaviour, the controller mapping. A device that boots a SNES game and a device that has had those choices made and tested per platform are two different things.
The picks in detail
Best value, purpose-built for SNES — BATLEXP G350 (£94.90)
The G350 is the most affordable device I sell, and SNES is one of the two systems it is genuinely built around (the other being PS1). Where on most devices SNES is simply one platform among many, on the G350 it sits at the centre of what the device does well. It has a 3.5″ IPS panel at a 4:3 aspect ratio and 640×480 resolution, so SNES and NES games fill the screen the way they should.
Because SNES and NES are the G350’s sweet spot rather than its ceiling, this is the one device on the page where spending less does not mean compromising on the thing you came for. If the 16-bit and 8-bit eras are your target, this is the device that delivers them for the least money. If you want to climb into N64, Dreamcast or PSP, read on.
- 3.5″ 4:3 IPS screen, 640×480
- SNES and PS1 are its strengths; lighter overall ceiling
- See the G350
Best all-round 4:3 — Anbernic RG353V (£149.90)
The RG353V shares the same 3.5″ 4:3 panel as the G350, but it is a more capable machine underneath. It is dual-boot — it runs ArkOS (Linux) and GammaOS (Android) — which matters less for SNES and NES than it does for heavier systems, but it gives you flexibility if your appetite grows.
SNES and NES are flawless here, and the headroom goes a long way past them: N64, Dreamcast and PSP all run, with PSP in particular performing well once it is tuned. I will be honest about the ceiling — a handful of the heaviest Dreamcast titles do not hit full speed on every game — but for SNES and NES specifically this is a device that does them comfortably and keeps going.
- 3.5″ 4:3 IPS screen, 640×480, multi-touch
- Dual-boot ArkOS + GammaOS-RK3566
- Comfortably past SNES and NES into N64, Dreamcast, PSP
- See the RG353V
The Anbernic RG353M (£169.90) is the RG353V’s metal-bodied sibling — the same internals and the same 4:3 screen, in a premium aluminium shell. The SNES and NES experience is identical; the difference is build and feel.
Best premium SNES and NES — Anbernic RG405M (£199.90)
If SNES and NES are the main reason you are buying and you want the most comfortable screen for them, this is the pick. The RG405M has the largest 4:3 screen in the range — a 4.0″ IPS panel — so the detailed sprites and text of 16-bit games have more room to breathe than on any other device here.
It is also the most powerful 4:3 handheld I sell, with a UNISOC T618 chip that takes the experience well beyond the 16-bit era into PS1 (with wobble correction and double-resolution rendering), NDS and further. For SNES and NES specifically you are paying for the screen and the build, not the chip — but if you want the best 4:3 panel and the headroom to go further, this is it.
- 4.0″ 4:3 IPS screen, 640×480 (largest 4:3 panel in the range)
- Excellent SNES, NES, PS1 and NDS, and the power to go further
- See the RG405M
What about the RG DS, the Retroid and the RGB10 MAX 2?
The Anbernic RG DS (£144.90) runs SNES and NES — I configure both deeply, including the aspect-ratio and scaling settings. But the RG DS is a twin-screen clamshell built around the Nintendo DS, and SNES plays on the top screen of a two-screen device. If SNES and NES are your main reason for buying, a single-screen 4:3 handheld is the more natural fit. If NDS is the priority and SNES is a bonus, the RG DS is the one.
The Retroid Pocket 3 Plus (£214.90) is tied with the Anbernic RG405M as the most powerful handheld I sell, but it is a 16:9 widescreen device designed around PSP and Dreamcast. That means a SNES or NES game — natively 4:3 — sits letterboxed with bars down both sides. You get the sharpest screen in the range, but not the fullest one for 16-bit and 8-bit games. I would not buy it for SNES and NES specifically.
The PowKiddy RGB10 MAX 2 is also widescreen, so it has the same letterboxing trade-off, and it is in its final run as I write this. I would not buy it for SNES and NES either.
How to choose
- Tightest budget, SNES and NES are the target: G350.
- SNES and NES today, room to grow into N64, Dreamcast and PSP: RG353V.
- The best 4:3 screen and the headroom to go further: RG405M.
Why a configured handheld plays SNES and NES better than a factory one
Every device on this page has had the factory SD card removed and replaced with a brand-name card from SanDisk, Samsung or Kioxia, and every one is covered by my Lifetime SD Card Guarantee — if the card fails or its data corrupts, I replace the card or restore it. A failed card is the single most common way a retro handheld dies, and it takes your saves with it. I wrote about exactly why that happens, and how I remove the risk, in Why Do Retro Handheld SD Cards Keep Failing?.
Beyond the card, each device has the per-platform tuning described above — the aspect-ratio lock, the scaling, the shader choice, the controller maps, the save-state testing — applied before it leaves me. That is the difference between a device that boots a SNES game and one that plays it properly. The full picture of what changes between a factory handheld and one of mine is on The K-TEC Difference.
The short version
For most people buying specifically for SNES and NES, the answer is the G350, because the 16-bit and 8-bit eras are exactly what that device is built around — you spend the least and give up nothing on the thing you came for. If you want the same 4:3 screen with room to grow into later consoles, the RG353V is the safe choice, and the RG405M gives you the largest 4:3 panel if screen size matters most. If you are unsure which fits you, contact me and I will point you at the right one.
