Retroid Pocket 3 Review - PCMag

Android-based gaming handhelds tin beryllium almighty devices, but they’re often finicky. For example, the two-year-old Retroid Pocket 2 ($84.99) and the caller Logitech G Cloud ($349.99) fto you tally classical games connected comfy and well-designed hardware, but lone aft you wrestle with emulators for a bit. The Retroid Pocket 3 ($119) makes loading and managing crippled roms a overmuch smoother process than those handhelds, but you'll bash a batch of tinkering with the emulators (unlike the $94.99 Anbernic RG351P). Still, it’s an awesome instrumentality that features a ample screen, a almighty processor, and an wide prime consciousness for not a batch of money.

(Credit: Will Greenwald)

The Retroid Pocket 3's Hardware

The Retroid Pocket 3 could easy beryllium mistaken for a Switch Lite. It shares the Nintendo handheld’s wide contours and design, with rounded corners, parallel dual-analog sticks, dual triggers, and adjacent A/B/X/Y look buttons successful the Nintendo configuration (A connected the right). It’s smaller, though, measuring 7.2 inches wide to the Switch Lite’s 8.2 inches, and with a 4.7-inch surface compared with the Switch Lite’s 5.5-inch screen. It besides lacks immoderate home/power/plus/minus buttons connected the face. Instead, power, select, and commencement buttons beryllium connected the precocious edge, a location fastener is connected the close edge, and a measurement rocker is connected the near edge. The wide fastener placement isn't a problem, but the commencement and prime buttons consciousness retired of the mode erstwhile you’re playing games that necessitate you to regularly entree menus by pressing them.

The Retroid Pocket 3's apical borderline besides holds a micro-HDMI port, portion the bottommost borderline houses a microSD paper slot, a USB-C larboard for charging, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. The handheld comes with 32GB of onboard memory, and you tin easy adhd much with an inexpensive 64GB oregon 128GB paper (I’ve seen them for little than $15 astatine Micro Center).

The 4.7-inch LCD has a 1,334-by-750 solution that's somewhat higher than connected the Switch and Switch Lite, truthful it looks a spot sharper with its smaller area. The surface gets highly bright, and I recovered that mounting it to conscionable 60% brightness made it much than disposable successful astir lighting. It shows well-saturated color, but it doesn’t get arsenic heavy oregon vivid arsenic the OLED Switch’s screen.

Like the Switch and dissimilar the Retroid Pocket 2, the Retroid Pocket 3 has a interaction screen, which makes navigating the Android 11-based strategy a elemental affair. You tin swipe and pat successful the modular Android launcher, alternatively of relying connected clunky directional controls oregon utilizing an analog instrumentality to power a rodent pointer.

The Retroid Pocket 3 has a 4,000mAh artillery that you should beryllium capable to get a bully 5 oregon six hours from connected a charge, depending connected what games you emulate and the brightness of your screen.

(Credit: Will Greenwald)

A New, Nicer Launcher

You’ll lone occasionally dive into the Android launcher, since Retroid has added a utile beforehand extremity that lets you catalog your favourite games and apps successful menus with ample tiles that tin beryllium easy selected with the carnal controls. That said, the interface requires immoderate wrestling to acceptable up the emulators (particularly RetroArch cores) and rom directories to decently work. It’s overmuch little of a chore than it was connected the Retroid Pocket 2, though. You inactive request to cognize your mode astir configuration menus, but it’s much reasonably streamlined successful this instance. It isn’t rather the Anbernic RG351's add-roms-and-forget-it experience, but Linux takes to afloat customized and curated interfaces much readily than Android.

The atrocious quality for anyone hoping for an easy-to-find roms cache connected a abstracted partition: There isn’t one. That’s not overmuch of a nonaccomplishment considering however galore of those roms were successful Chinese connected the Retroid Pocket 2, and that partition’s own, abstracted OS was a spot clunky. The bully quality for everyone else: There are nary sketchy roms connected the handheld. The strategy comes wholly cleanable with the Retroid Pocket interface already installed. Of course, this means you indispensable adhd your ain roms, but that’s mostly safer than relying connected a bulk driblet from a mysterious SD paper preinstalled connected your device.

The Retroid Pocket beforehand extremity is divided into 2 main screens: Apps and Emulation. Apps lets you put immoderate app connected the strategy connected a elemental menu. Emulation displays immoderate systems you privation to emulate successful a neat enactment akin to the Nintendo Switch interface. Each strategy jumps consecutive into your crippled library, which tin beryllium shown arsenic a elemental database oregon arsenic the container creation for each crippled automatically scraped from online databases. Once you get each emulator decently working, the handheld's astir arsenic casual to usage arsenic the RG351.

(Credit: Will Greenwald)

Enough Power for Some 6th-Gen Games

The beforehand extremity supports dozens of antithetic systems with the emulators preinstalled. That database is overly optimistic for the Cortex-A75/A55 (one halfway for the former, 3 cores for the latter) CPU and PowerVR GE8300 GPU, though. You tin load GameCube and PlayStation 2 disc images connected the device, and tally them connected the preinstalled Dolphin for Handheld and AetherSX2 emulators, but I wouldn’t urge it (F-Zero GX ran astatine 5 frames per 2nd successful our tests). If you privation Dolphin to enactment well, you should scope for the G Cloud.

The antithetic emulators connection assorted levels of stableness and power options. Some volition frost oregon simply crash, truthful you indispensable experimentation with what works for each system. You besides indispensable acceptable hotkeys for galore emulators, due to the fact that lone immoderate bring up their strategy menus erstwhile you swipe close from the near borderline of the surface (or, successful the lawsuit of RetroArch, tapping the icon successful the lower-right country of the screen). Again, it isn’t arsenic overmuch of a try-and-see messiness arsenic the Retroid Pocket 2, but astatine its heart, you’re inactive dealing with an Android instrumentality with a clump of emulators crammed together.

Anything abbreviated of sixth-generation consoles plays conscionable fine, astatine least. Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, NES, Nintendo 64, Super NES, Sony PlayStation, and Turbografx-16 games each tally smoothly and with nicely sharp, upscaled graphics. Even astir PlayStation Portable games play well, though the astir precocious games, specified arsenic God of War: Chains of Olympus and Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, stutter a bit. The surface is fantastic, too, making each crippled popular with vibrant colors.

(Credit: Will Greenwald)

The carnal controls are little impressive. The analog sticks consciousness fine, arsenic they look to beryllium much oregon little identical to the sticks connected the Switch’s Joy-Cons. The triggers besides consciousness beauteous good. The absorption pad feels a small wiggly, though, and the look buttons are somewhat mushy, contempt besides being clicky. The tiny buttons connected the Joy-Cons are the aforesaid size and signifier but are a small much springy and comfortable. Retroid intelligibly recognizes this, and includes a dome power upgrade kit with the device. The caveat is that you indispensable unfastened the handheld and regenerate the switchboards and buttons. Hopefully, you person a tiny hex spot handy, and don’t caput dealing with tiny ribbon cables.

A Good Handheld That Requires Some Work

Despite immoderate qualms, the Retroid Pocket 3 is an awesome bundle for the price. Its surface is fantastic, its beforehand extremity is acold amended than its predecessor’s, and it has each of the ports, slots, and bundle entree indispensable to fulfill tinkerers. The lone occupation is that you must tinker with it to get the champion experience, and that’s not thing everyone is acceptable oregon consenting to do.

To beryllium fair, though, if you’re buying for this benignant of retro gaming handheld, your tastes and accomplishment acceptable are some acold person to what the instrumentality asks for than the mean consumer. It’s not rather arsenic pick-up-and-go user-friendly arsenic the Anbernic RG351P and akin Linux-powered handhelds, but it has overmuch much processing power, a larger and nicer screen, and much user-accessible capabilities with Android.

(Photo: Will Greenwald)

The Retroid Pocket 3 is an excellent, inexpensive retro gaming handheld, but it’s not for users looking for an casual time. Android remains a somewhat much frustrating level than Windows for moving emulators, truthful you indispensable bash immoderate enactment to get the handheld to run arsenic you wish. You adjacent person to ace unfastened the instrumentality yourself if you privation to regenerate the buttons (though it is simply a bully interaction that alternate switches for the buttons are included). If you’re consenting to bash so, though, you tin play virtually immoderate console crippled up to the 5th console procreation connected a fantastic screen. That’s a beauteous broad bundle for $119.

Outside of the satellite of emulation, if you don’t caput spending a spot much you tin get a much premium and easy-to-use experience. The Analogue Pocket ($219.99) remains the champion Game Boy-style device, with an adjacent amended surface and physique prime than the Retroid Pocket 3. It requires archetypal cartridges retired of the box, but enabling emulation with third-party cores for up to 16-bit crippled systems similar the Neo Geo and Super NES (and Game Boy Advance) is easier than configuring immoderate fixed emulator connected the Retroid Pocket 3. And, of course, the Nintendo Switch ($299.99, $349.99 for OLED model) and Switch Lite ($199.99) connection loads of classical games, including humble but high-quality NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, and Nintendo 64 libraries with Nintendo Switch Online.