u/cyberkewl

Air Y - Earlybird - 89.99 / Regular - 94.99
Air Y Pro - Earlybird - 4GB+64GB - 145.99 / Regular - 159.99
Air Y Pro - Earlybird - 8GB+128GB - 175.99 / Regular 189.99

Earlybird Promo - Aug 12 7PM PDT to Aug 15 7PM PDT.

Prices are pretty awesome if you ask me! I will be getting the Pro 8+128 GB for sure!

Courtesy of techdweeb: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg7wzfQ-RfU
I will be purchasing it for my channel for review: https://www.youtube.com/@ckretrotech

Hi everyone,

This is CK from CyberKewl's Retro Tech. Initially I wanted to create a youtube video on my channel - https://www.youtube.com/@ckretrotech to review and show the features and capabilities of GammaOS 1.4 on the RG rotate.

I was very excited for 2 reasons.

1. My RG rotate had a weird issue (as with a few other individuals) where if the Rotate goes into a deep sleep mode (when you just press the power button to put the device to sleep or flip the screen downward), or if you charge it for a while - either g.co.app (google play services) would fail, and every other app you open would not function anymore and required a reboot, OR worse -> you cant wake the RG rotate up and have to do a force restart or battery pull. I had hoped GammaOS would fix this issue, thinking this was a software issue. Unfortunately - it does not. But GammaOS DOES have a function in the notification shade to turn OFF deep sleep, so that this wont happen. Built-into the OS - so that's a good thing at least.
2. This being my first android handheld where I had installed a custom ROM, having installed custom ROMs for more than 10 years now on many of my android tablets & phones ranging from the first ASUS TF101 (Transformer Tablet+Keyboard), to Galaxy Note 3, Galaxy Note 9, Galaxy S4 Mini, Galaxy Nexus..and more...so I'm no stranger to flashing ROMs but this will be my very first time flashing a ROM for a handheld. Process wise its similar, just get the right set of tools, follow the instructions and you're good.

Read on...long read...but might be good info for some who want to try to venture or act as a warning...

FIRST BOOT
The first boot took longer than usual, about 1-3 minutes - expected for most custom roms as its typically slower to boot up to initialize the new OS stuff. It boots into GammaOS nano - this interface is really nice with its XMB like / style interface. Very responsive, fluid. I didn't play around much with it, because I wanted the FULL FAT android with Google Play services. So i went to boot into android from the shutdown menu.

The first boot into full fat android was slow...really slow. So slow to the point that I dont understand why it took so long to get into the OS, but when i was finally in it - I noticed 2 things. One is the brightness seems a bit off - maybe that's due to the custom OS, ok I managed to get the brightness to where I think it was before on stock OS.

Then I noticed when i flick the rotate upward when the screen was off (to reveal the physical buttons), it wouldn't show the screen. But oddly enough - you can drag your fingers on the screen or touch it and it would respond. Its as though the screen was turned on but invisible...

Tried a few times to flick it back (downwards), it goes into sleep but after a while - about 5 seconds - dimming the screen slowly, and you can still interact with the screen but its very weird...you can set this to immediate in the handheld settings under GammaOS toolbox, so it doesnt dim slowly but just immediately turn the screen off...

Then I tried logging into google play services, it did login, but when i try to install an app - it asked for my credentials again..so i typed it..and it says..account already exist..ok...not sure why, but the app managed to install despite that...

Take note the next part is the most annoying part - even AFTER disabling deep sleep...

Then I got random crashes, so many random crashes to the point that its not funny anymore. I even when back to nano hoping it would work - then it just crashed out while in nano AFTER it boots into it just 2-3 seconds, the screen goes off and i cant turn it back on...then I had to do a battery pull because all my previous "tricks" to get the unit to start back up failed (but then Gamma apparently replied to my other thread, stating that i should use long press power+down to force reboot - that seems to work after I did the battery pull..no matter - learned something new there)

Then it kept crashing multiple times until I managed to get back to the OS, and did a factory reset. Then back to the full fat OS...and...it crashes again, but before that the OS was soooo slow to a crawl.

Mind you I had practically ONLY installed Brotato Premium..nothing more. It is sooo slow.

CONCLUSION
GammaOS is still not fully cooked/baked for the RG rotate. I do NOT recommend you to try it, but while playing around I did notice it had some cool features but also issues that I hope Gamma can fix for the next version.

1. The DPad / Analog stick toggle on the notification works but the shortcut which is actually bound to the "switcher" button below the RG Rotate's power button doesnt work UNLESS you remove one of the custom binding in the GammaOS settings section that does a "F10" -> ALL Applications or something of similar name. I can't remember the name right now as I am back in stock OS as I type this, but removing that would allow you to press the switcher button to toggle between DPAD and Analog stick mode. That's really nice - but there's NO notification at all (no message, no vibration or indication). The only way you can tell is to swipe the notification bar and check the status if it's ON or OFF. I hope the next version of GammaOS can at least put a notification for this toggle so we know (like stock OS does when you press POWER+Volume Up.
2. There's lots of cool button remapping options in the GammaOS settings area, which is similar to the app that I mentioned in the Video I made here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pwb7vccGgOw although not as robust, but still pretty good to see it baked into the OS level. I didnt get to try much of it other than a simple long press of the switcher button on the rotate to launch an app - that works at least.
3. There looks to be a screen mapping tool built into GammaOS - i didnt try it, but that's pretty neat. The stock OS has it too which is not talked about a lot - but the implementation is pretty janky as I recall - it wont detect the app / game you are running and you need to load your saved screen mapping presets manually. Not sure the one in GammaOS has a better implementation, but know that there's one for it.

And that's pretty much it. I didnt get to explore too much of it due to the slowness of the overall OS and the crashes. I have even tried the splpatched file that Gamma recommended in his release notes (in fact my PAC file is already fully splpatched - ums512_1h10_rg_rotate_gammaos_1.4_full_splpatched).

TLDR; Don't bother trying GammaOS (at least not the full fat version with Google Play services) - you will waste a lot of time troubleshooting, hitting into random reboots and so on. Unless you're OK with nano (which might work I believe, but I didnt go there so i cannot comment on the stability of it), but if you're like me and want to use full fat android with google play services - dont even bother. I'm not sure if the Lite version without Google Play services (but fat android) would be better, so if you did try it - please comment here.

I'm not hating GammaOS btw in case wondering - i think Gamma is doing a fantastic job - I am impressed by the sheer number of options he added to the OS coming out of the "stock" LineageOS, it's just amazing. Coming from a single developer - I'm just at awe.

I do hope to see a future iteration of GammaOS that will make things a lot better especially getting rid of the random crashes, the weird screen issue where it won't show the screen when flipped (but yet the screen can be touched or swiped to reveal the screen), and all the other stuff I mentioned above.

Hope that helps someone who wants to try GammaOS on the RG Rotate. I've spent about 5-6 hours today just to mess around with it, and now I've gone back to stock OS.

As per title, just sharing that it plays really well on the RG Rotate although a little bit laggier than the free version but it is less Grindy and has more areas to battle. I know it is missing the online part that makes the game replayable infinitely in the free version but I just feel the special edition is worth the 10 cents even though it's a tad slower than the free version due to its higher resolution.

Pro tip: go to the settings > advanced after starting the game and select medium graphics as it defaults to low and the text is very pixelated. High is slower on the rotate so medium is a good middle ground.

Shadow fight 2 special edition

If you love fighting games you won't regret this, but take note it does NOT support controllers out of the box, so I use mantis gamepad pro few years ago for a lifetime payment of 3 to 4 bucks (paid in app purchase) to set it up. There's a built in on screen to controller mapper tool in the RG rotate but I never use it as I feel it's a bit finicky and prefer to use mantis. You can try if the built in mapper works on the free version before 'splurging' on the special edition of shadow fight 2.

Hi,

Just sharing a PSA as I bought my black RG rotate from Aliexpress and tried to get support from Anbernic's official support on anbernic.com, and they said they cannot provide support from 3rd party stores (even though I bought it from their Anbernic Official Store on Aliexpress).

My RG rotate has an issue where during charging, or when heat is introduced - the moment the screen is turned off (and wait for a few seconds to likely try to kick in android's deep sleep), triggers a situation where either:

1. The entire OS hangs, pressing the power button doesn't wake the handheld up
2. I am able to unlock, but g.co.app (Google Services) hangs and then a domino effect of every other app that I run (first or 3rd party), crashes and only solution is to restart.
3. After restarting, if there is a reasonable amount (not a lot) of heat present, it will still behave with either 1 or 2 above
4. Getting support from anbernic.com yielded the "We cannot support you as you purchased from a 3rd party store)" situation. The official anbernic store support on Aliexpress was not very good and had asked me to initially tried to take out the battery (and reconnect it) and try with a 1AMP charger (which doesnt make a difference). Then it gave me an update.zip and the update failed (likely because I had the same dated update as the zip which is 15th May 2026), then it even gave me an RG DS update image through Tiktok video/download and google drive (which was totally incorrect, luckily I didnt try as the moment I saw the filename it was incorrect). This was after I asked them to give me a non baidu.com link for the update.zip (which I managed to figure out how to download it luckily).
5. My current workaround that i'm experimenting (pending monitoring the impact on battery drain) is to always have something running in the background - ex: playing a video/sound (on youtube) that has silence. Currently experimenting with this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VUKfrA9oLQ to see if it works. I think either my ROM is broken or there's some hardware issue on mine where the moment it triggers deep sleep, it doesn't want to wake up or puts the processor in such a lower power state that it cannot be woken up until you force restart (which works most of the time, but sometimes i have to force restart a few times for it to work, or even after restarting, g.co.app (google services) will crash and then a slew of domino effect on any other app running after that crashing until you restart the handheld again)
6. I really like this handheld but I hope anbernic can fix this if it's the ROM/firmware related, or i'll just have to give gammaOS a try once it comes out.

Just wanted to share above with you guys, in case someone faces similar issue like me and dont want to go through the headache i've gone through, just to figure out what (sort of) works and what doesn't. And also to warn those that buy from Aliexpress - you get faster delivery and likely cheaper (saving on shipping) but you don't get the official warranty from anbernic's site directly.

Edit 7 June: Found a better workaround than playing a YouTube video in the background: You can try the trick that I just found out which is to install an app called "Wake lock revamp" (by darken) or "Wake lock - CPU Awake" (by taximet) and see if it helps. That's better than my original approach which is to play a silent video in the background on YouTube. However this (along with playing a silent video in YouTube in the background) will use anywhere between 2-2.5% of battery per hour because it keeps the CPU alive at the lowest speed at 614 Mhz. The plus side that I accidentally found out, was that when in the Wake lock mode (CPU at 614 Mhz instead of deep sleep) - the handheld wont be woken up through the shoulder buttons, so it makes it good to prevent accidental presses when its in a bag or pocket. If you use Wake lock revamp - choose "processor" as the Wake lock.

Original post in case interested: https://www.reddit.com/r/ANBERNIC/comments/1tu8tfq/black_rg_rotate_overheats_and_crashes_android/
Video of the issue in action:
https://streamable.com/0aftkm