The price of a handheld matters less over time

Like with any purchase in our hyper-capitalist world, people continuously ask if something is worth the money. Reddit is full of these kinds of posts but I wanted to take the RG DS as an example of this. It’s an Anbernic handheld designed to look like a DS Lite in New 3DS XL’s clothing. It has dual screens, can play DS games, and now has a slightly better stock OS although the better options are ROCKNIX or Gamma OS. Initial reviews were quite scathing. Retro Game Corps called it a “half-baked mess” before custom firmware spruced it up and it was another example of Anbernic focusing more on style than substance. But now that it’s more enticing and people have warmed to it, prospective buyers want to know if they should take the plunge. It’s usually around £/$100 which is a fair price given the specs and performance. After seeing the millionth “is the RG DS worth it?” post, I realised how meaningless that kind of question becomes when it comes to handhelds. Sure, it’s an investment but…