Retroid Pocket 4 Pro Review Overview

Hey everybody, this is Russ from Retroid Gamecore. Today we're going to do an updated review of the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro. It's been about 8 months since it released if you can believe it. Now this is probably one of my favorite handhelds of the year and it's easily the most recommended device that I give in that whole mid-range price point. Basically anything between $100 and $200. this is usually the one that I would recommend for newcomers. Now I was thinking about this device the other day and I realized that even though I mention it quite often, I don't really do dedicated videos for it. It's kind of like the Steam Deck where it's so good in its price point that it's an easy to recommend device, but I don't make a lot of content about it in the first place. And so that's what I want to cover today. We're going to talk about all the things that make this device so good, especially at that price point, and then also a few things that could be better. And then of course we'll try to figure out whether or not it's going to be a good fit for you, especially in light of other alternatives out there on the market, but then also the fact that we probably have another Retroid Pocket device on its way at some point. Either way I think this will be a pretty fun review, so kick back, grab your favorite snack and drink, and let's go ahead and get started. Okay let's start by talking about what the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro is in the first place. And this is what I would consider to be a middle-tier Android-based retro handheld. And there are actually two different models. There's the Retroid Pocket 4, which comes with a Dimensity 900 chipset. And then we have the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro with a Dimensity 1100 chip. And for the most part, other than the chipset and the fact that the Pro has a little bit more RAM, the only other big difference is the fact that the Pro model is $50 more. The standard Retroid Pocket 4 will be $150 before shipping, and then the Pro will be $200. And in this video, we're going to focus on the Pro model because I think that the upgrade in terms of performance power is well worth it for that $50. Some other standardized features between these Retroid Pocket 4 devices is the touchscreen, which is going to be 4.7 inches and 16 by 9 aspect ratio with a resolution of 1334 by 750. It also has Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 and also a 5000 milliamp hour battery. Everything else is going to be the same, including the controls and whatnot. And I've covered a lot of these details in my initial review which came out back in January. I'll have that link down below. Next I want to talk about some of the updates that we've seen on this model since launch. Let's start with the hardware updates because some of these are pretty significant. The first issue has to do with the triggers when they first launched. Essentially in the first month after the device came out, a lot of people were reporting that triggers were no longer functioning properly. And I actually had the same thing happen on my review unit right here. You can see that it just kind of flops down and there's no sort of spring to it. And so this has to do with the spring mechanism inside and as soon as Retroid noticed it, they fixed it. On top of that, they extended the warranty on the triggers by two years for any of the devices that were released before the fix was found. And so nowadays it's kind of a moot point because it's been like seven months that they've had it fixed. But if you have one of those early release units, then you may have that problem. And if so, they will fix it for you. And my understanding is that they'll just send you a full new back shell, which will include the trigger. So you just have to swap them out. Now, the other thing they fixed on the hardware side is that they've retuned the screen. I'm not sure if they just got entirely new screens now, but if you remember previously in my other review, there were some issues with the screen itself being a little bit on the green side in terms of the overall color balance. Now for the older panels, they have a software fix. So essentially when you boot up the device after a couple of moments, it'll switch over to the correct color balance. And you can see this kick in with the Retroid logo when it starts to boot up. However, with these newer screens, it's just the correct color balance the entire time. Another thing I've noticed is that the system seems to boot up faster. I'm not sure if that's because it doesn't have to run whatever software script it's running in order to fix the screen. At the end of the day, I don't think it's a huge deal one way or another, because by the time you actually start playing the device, the color will be fixed either in software or the hardware, but it is nice to see that they followed up and also fixed it on the hardware level. On the software side, I haven't seen a ton of updates. I think there have maybe been 3 or 4 updates since launch. But one of the bigger things they fixed is that they got RetroArch to play nicely with the screen so that it was a more stable 60 frames per second. They've also recalibrated their three performance profiles as well as their fan curves, and so now these make a lot more sense in terms of just the overall sound and noise that comes from them. As it stands, these fans are super quiet and I've never had any complaints about them even at the highest sport setting. In fact, the fan is so quiet that it's hard for my microphone to pick it up, but I'll let you hear it right now. So chances are you weren't able to hear a difference there at all. And so really when it comes down to it, those are the major changes that I've noticed with the Retroid Pocket 4 and 4 Pro over the past eight months. So now let's move into why I think this device is so good in the first place, and why I think it is the best $199 handheld you can find right now. And I think first and foremost is the fact that this device is so compact and easy to use, but it's also super portable. In terms of shape and feel, it's very reminiscent of a Nintendo Switch Lite, but as you can see here, it is quite a bit smaller. In fact, even though this is a relatively comfortable device just to hold in general, I would also consider it to be pocketable. When it comes down to it, it's about the size of a large cell phone, although it does have those triggers on the back that do make it protrude a little bit more. But I think this really checks a lot of boxes for me in the sense that it is quite powerful but then also is small enough to be able to take around easily. And so just in terms of overall size I found this to be really handy. It's a little bit smaller than a Nintendo Switch but a lot smaller than something like a Steam Deck but then still quite comfortable to hold. And if you want to make the device more comfortable they sell a $15 silicone grip and so this is pretty easy you can just kind of slide it right into place and then that will make it just a little bit more ergonomic and comfortable to use. Another thing I like about the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro is that it is highly customizable. To start, we have six different color options to choose from, and I think that any of them actually are pretty great. I'm partial to the 16-bit as well as the clear options, but I honestly think that each of them look pretty great. I don't have every single color, but I do have three. The green one here is my Retroid Pocket 4, and then I've got my two different Pro models. And I love just how different each of these look and feel compared to the other. The plastic on the solid color options feels really great. It's got a little bit of texture to it, but is also a little bit slick as well. And the clear models are similar, but I would say a little bit more grippy. And on top of that, there's a whole DIY section on their website, which will allow you to buy new buttons or joysticks and even a new backplate. And so if you want to further customize your device, maybe changing out the color of the buttons, you can do that as well. Okay, another aspect I really like about the Retroid Pocket 4 include the controls. Now, Retroid has always made pretty good controls for most of their devices, but often they have had some sort of screw up, either on the design phase or just the overall implementation. And I have to say that with the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro, I basically have zero complaints at this point. We've got a small dome switch D-pad, which feels a lot like a PS Vita's D-pad. Really soft and nice to the touch, and super accurate, so I love this. I also really like these face buttons. They are rubber membrane, but have nice shallow travel to them and are very easy to press down on. So I think these are a great compliment to the D-pad. I also think these analog sticks are excellent. They're the same ones you can find in the Retroid Pocket 2S and the Odin 2 and the Odin 2 Mini. So they're a little bit on the small side, but they give you a full range of motion and they're hall sensor. And so I still really like these sticks. I also like that we have dedicated back and home buttons. I'm not a huge fan of having this start and select here on the bottom right, but I've just gotten used to it over time. And then finally, I do like these bumpers and triggers. The bumpers are easy to press down on and the triggers are analog, and they give you a full range of motion as well. So just from a control standpoint, I've really enjoyed using this device. I like that it's D-pad centric and that this is up top. It makes it really great for classic gaming, but it's really easy to shift your hand down to be able to use the analog stick as well. Now, when it comes to playing modern games, we have to use dual sticks in the triggers. It's not the best ergonomics, but I think that's where this grip comes into play. So for example, when I'm streaming like Xbox onto this device, then I just put the grip on, and that usually will just solve all my problems. It's not quite as good as using like a dedicated controller. but it's still a lot better than not using the grip. Now the next thing I really like about this device is probably the one that puts it head and shoulders above the others, and that has to do with the performance for the price. Like I mentioned earlier, at $200 plus shipping, this is one of the most performant options that you have even today. Now bear in mind this is an Android-based device, and you can use it for Android gaming, but I'm going to focus mostly on emulation in this section here. So let's run down the list of all the different systems you can play on this device and how that experience is going to play out. Now of course when it comes to your really lightweight stuff, you know, Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, all these are going to play great. Like with any other 16x9 system, playing Game Boy and Game Boy Color is going to be a little bit odd because of the squarish aspect ratio, but playing something like Game Boy Advance which has a wider aspect ratio is really amazing. It's going to be a similar story when it comes to 4x3 systems, you know, things like Nintendo, Super Nintendo, and Sega Genesis. All these will absolutely play just fine, but they are going to be 4x3, which means that you will have some black bars on the left and right. Personally, considering that this is such a compact experience in the first place, I don't really mind having those black bars on the left and right with the Retro Bucket 4 Pro. And some systems really do benefit from having a wider aspect ratio, including Nintendo DS. This one you can play both screens side by side, and they both will still be relatively large. You can do the same thing with Nintendo 3DS, although I generally put the bottom screen to the right and a little bit smaller. And in terms of performance, this will do pretty well. In fact, for the most part, I will play games in 2 or a 3X resolution upscale. But I found that my best 3DS experience comes from playing games where you can just focus on one single screen. That allows me to blow it up to almost fill the entire screen and I think it looks amazing. And so these in general are the games I prefer to play on 3DS even though this is a touch screen so you could use it with a full 3DS experience side by side. Now once we get into the higher tier of systems, things like Dreamcast, Nintendo 64, PS1, and Sega Saturn. All these systems are going to play great too, and you can generally upscale them to at least 720p, if not 1080p for the most part. But I think that these systems really shine when you apply widescreen hacks, and most of them are going to be compatible. So personally, I do enjoy playing my Dreamcast games and even Nintendo 64 games in 16x9 if the game allows it. Some games like Star Fox 64 will have a little bit of artifacts on the left and right, but I've also found that in the heat of the moment, I don't really mind those either. And it is surprising how many games are becoming more and more compatible with these widescreen patches and cheats. And so for the most part, I have been focusing on the more 16 by 9 aspect ratio games on this device. Now other systems like Sega Saturn don't really play nicely with widescreen hacks, so you will have to play them in 4 by 3. But the nice thing here is that this chipset on the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro does have enough juice to be able to play most of these games. Not only can it play these games, but it can generally play them with the Beedle Saturn core, which is going to be highly accurate. So I do consider this to be a Sega Saturn machine, with the small caveat that you might have to switch between different emulators depending on the game. Now probably my favorite system to emulate overall is going to be PlayStation Portable. And there's a couple reasons for that. First and foremost is that performance on this chipset, even at a 3x upscale, which is going to max out the resolution on the screen, is still amazing. And so no matter what game you throw at it, as long as it's compatible with the emulator, it's going to run great on this machine. In addition, among all the handhelds that I own, this one feels very close to the PSP in terms of just overall aesthetics. It's a super compact handheld with the d-pad up top and also a somewhat rounded shape. And so the Retroid Pocket 4 and 4 Pro line remains my favorite way to play PSP games across the board. However, I would say the biggest appeal of this machine on the performance side has to do with the fact that I also consider it to be a fully capable GameCube and PS2 emulator as well. There are going to be some games that require some modification in terms of tweaks and hacks, and then also there may be some games that have compatibility issues with the emulator at large. But for the most part, I would say that this is very close to a plug and play experience at that $200 price point, which is just kind of crazy. When it comes to Nintendo GameCube, I just generally set it to the Vulkan graphical backend and then a 2x upscale. In addition, you can also apply widescreen hacks to games that support it as well. Now for some games, I do recommend dropping it down to a native resolution just to make sure everything is running smoothly like with F-Zero GX. Regardless, even eight months later, I'm still amazed every time that I boot up a random GameCube or PS2 game on this device, and then it just runs even at a 2x upscale. It's going to be a very similar story with Nintendo Wii. The vast majority of these games are going to play at a 2x resolution upscale with no further tweaks. And by the way, a 2x upscale is well beyond the actual resolution of the screen, so there is no benefit to going any higher. Now thankfully performance is basically identical on PlayStation 2 as well. Again, I just set this to the Vulkan graphical backend and then a 2x upscale. And again, as long as the emulation compatibility is there, the performance will usually follow suit. And I'm not just talking about lightweight games, I'm talking about more 3D based games, you know, things like Dragon Quest 8, or even Ratchet and Clank, even God of War 2 will play at a 2x upscale with very minimal slowdown. And so this is probably one of the main reasons why the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro is my most recommended device because I get a lot of questions from people saying I just want something that will play up to GameCube and PS2. And even though there are plenty of other handhelds that can do a pretty good job with those systems, this one is relatively plug and play, which I think most people are looking for. And for someone like me who really enjoyed the generation six systems like GameCube and PS2, this is a wonderful companion device. Now the last thing I wanted to talk about in terms of emulation performance is Nintendo Switch using the Yuzu emulator. As you probably know, development on this particular emulator stopped in March when everything got taken down, but even those March builds still work pretty well on the Retro Pocket 4 Pro. Now to be clear, there is definitely a performance limitation. You will find that cap pretty quickly. I would say for the most part you're going to be relegated to lightweight and indie titles, and you're also going to need to play these games in handheld mode as opposed to docked mode so that it's not so taxing on the system. But I think that even then, on this screen in particular, it still looks very good. In addition, some of those lightweight Switch titles are just a joy to play on these controls. For example, this is one of my favorite ways to play Celeste, because the controls themselves are just so tight. And so I found this to be an excellent fit for me, especially when it comes to lightweight PC ports that are available on Switch. And in terms of performance cap, I would say that once you get into 3D-based titles, you will definitely see some slowdown. About the Macs that I'm comfortable playing are going to be games like Super Mario 3D World as well as Super Mario Wonder. Both of these games are not going to play at a full 60 frames per second. It's going to hover between 30 and 60 most of the time. And you will feel that slowdown every once in a while, especially when shaders are compiling. However, I like to repeat levels when playing these two games in particular. And often, the second time you play a level, it's going to be a lot smoother. And so whether or not you consider these games to be playable is totally... It's going to be up to you, but I do happen to enjoy playing these games on this device. But just bear in mind that when it comes to Nintendo Switch titles, you're going to want to stick with the more lightweight ones. And finally, in wrapping up this whole performance section, another thing worth noting is that this is an excellent streaming handheld as well. You could stream this from your PC or your PlayStation or Xbox or even use a cloud service like GeForce Now. But I do have two words of caution here, which I will talk about later in the what could be better section as well. The first is that when playing more modern games that generally are made for larger TVs, it's going to be a little bit hard to see some text. That's because this screen is only 4.7 inches, and so depending on the game that you're playing, it might be a little squinty. In addition, like I mentioned before, if you're going to be playing analog, stick, and trigger-centric games, I do recommend picking up that grip for $15. This will definitely enhance your overall gameplay experience, especially when it comes to streaming. Okay, and finally, the last thing I wanted to talk about in terms of what makes this device so good has nothing to do with the device, but rather just Android in general. And that's because we have a new front-end that's come out since launch, and it's called Emulation Station Desktop Edition. I've already made a couple videos about this front-end, but I did want to mention that this has really transformed my overall experience with basically every Android-based handheld, including this one. And that's because it's the first front-end that I really feel console-izes the device to the point where it feels like a retro handheld, and not necessarily just an Android phone with some controls slapped onto it. And so I really do enjoy the overall Emulation Station experience, and then I can navigate through my games, I can scrape my box art, I can even have videos playing as a preview as I go and navigate through my systems. And so just in general, if you haven't checked out Emulation Station Desktop Edition before and you have an Android based device, I would highly recommend it. And once you get pretty deep into Emulation Station, you can get some really good features out of it, including the fact that you can navigate through Android apps and games directly in the system. There's also been a recent update that allows you to set Emulation Station as your home app, which means that it'll boot directly into it. Also, if you want to go further down the rabbit hole, there's a whole custom collections option as well. In fact, I probably need to do an updated video on Emulation Station just to be able to compile all this together. But I will say that this custom collections is a really neat way to customize your overall experience. You can see here that I've set up quite a few. I've got 2D platformers, 3D platformers, driving games, and so on. And if we go into any of these, you can see that I've curated the games list for my favorite games in whatever category. And so sometimes I'm just in the mood to play a Retroididvania, and here I can navigate through them and then pick one up and then just start playing it right then and there. And so I love the cross-pollination that you can do with these customized collections. In addition, there are a ton of different themes that you can choose from, and these keep getting better and better. This one here is called Horizon, and I've been using it on my Retroid Pocket 4 Pro. I really like the simplicity of the overall experience. I've also really been enjoying this one called Game OS. This one has a bit more of a carousel experience. So you can navigate both horizontally and vertically through the games list. And then as you get to each game, you can navigate through them horizontally as well. And so I have found this to be a really nice theme just in terms of being kind of robust feeling and giving you a lot of navigation freedom. And finally, one more I wanted to show off is this one called Iconic. I really like the images here. I think this NES one really pops. And also the navigation experience on this is also pretty great. We can cycle through. And then same thing, if we hover over the game for a moment, it's going to give us a video preview as well. And so just in general, I've really enjoyed the Emulation Station experience over the past few months, and it has transformed the way I feel about Android-based devices like this one. So now let's move over and talk about some of the things that I think could be better with the RetroY Pocket 4 Pro. Like with every other device, it's not perfect. My first point is that it does get relatively warm on the back, especially right here where the CPU is. And it'll be especially noticeable when you're playing Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 2, and GameCube. Those three systems in particular I usually will put in high performance mode. Now thankfully it's pretty easy to negate all of this by turning on the fan in sport mode. And like I mentioned before, the fan itself is relatively quiet, and so even when it's running in sport mode I rarely will notice it. If anything I'll just feel the air moving behind my fingers as I'm playing, and that's just about it. Now unfortunately, the big downside of using sport mode and high performance mode is that it will be relatively taxing on the battery, which is the next thing that I'm not really a big fan of on this device. I think that 5000 mAh is still decent on any handheld, so I don't really have any complaints about it. But I will say that when really pushing the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro's chipset, which is the Dimensity 1100, it will drain the battery pretty quickly. As an example, when playing PlayStation 2 and Nintendo Switch games in high performance mode with the fan turned on sport, I will generally get about two hours of gameplay, sometimes a little bit less and sometimes a little bit more. And so depending on your expectations when it comes to the high end systems, that may not be enough time. You may want something with a bigger battery like the Odin 2. However, given the fact that my own experience is usually mixed, especially when it comes to like PlayStation Portable games or widescreen Nintendo 64 games, those aren't going to be as taxing. And so in general, I usually will get somewhere between four and six hours of battery life. I would really only consider this to be an issue if you're going to dedicate your time really pushing that chipset. And another benefit of using an Android based platform like this is that it is capable of fast charging. And so often I will just plug it in and within maybe 20, 30 minutes, it will be usually 60% charged. And so even though the battery does drain a little bit more quickly than I'd like when playing PS2 and Nintendo Switch, it will charge up very quickly too. Additionally, one other thing I think could be better on the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro has to do with the screen. I think it's just a little bit too small at 4.7 inches. I think the sweet spot here would have been 5 inches. Here is the TrimUI Smart Pro which has a 4.96 display. Now the size difference between the two is not massive, especially when trying to show it here on screen. But I will say that when playing the TrimUI Smart Pro, I never get the feeling like I wish the screen would be larger. On the other hand, with the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro, especially when playing more modern games that have smaller text, I do find myself wishing that it was a 5 inch display instead. It's not quite enough to prevent me from actually playing the device. I think it's still an amazing display, but I do wish it was just slightly larger. And I think that even better might be five and a half inches. That's going to make it a little bit bigger of a device like the size of a Nintendo Switch Lite or the Amberdink RG556 as you can see here. So I do think that increasing the size even up to five and a half inches will make the device slightly larger, but that's a compromise I'm willing to live with. At the end of the day, like I mentioned, it's not enough to actually turn me away from the device, but I do hope that in future iterations of this handheld, we do see it at least at 5 inches and maybe up to 5.5. I think it would be even better if they used a 3x2 aspect ratio display instead of 16x9. That's going to be the native aspect ratio of Game Boy Advance, which is also going to scale really well for 4x3 and 16x9 content. And so in a perfect world, I'd love to see a screen that has a 3x2 aspect ratio and is about 5 inches in size. Okay, so that's a quick roundup of all the things I love about this device and some of the things that I wish could be better. Let's now start talking about whether or not this is going to be the right fit for you. And I think right up front, I want to say that yes, this is probably the easiest recommendation I can make at that $200-ish price point. And that's because there is no other handheld that gets so many things right like the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro at this price. However, I do think there are some alternatives worth considering, especially if you have other priorities, including price as well as screen. So let's talk about those examples and why they might be a better fit than this one. Let's start by saying that maybe the price point is a little bit too high for you. You want something that's a lot less than $200. And I think that if you want something that gives you a similar gameplay experience, especially when it comes to retro games, then the TrimUI Smart Pro might be my overall pick. As you can see, these have a very similar form factor and size. In addition, I really like the screen on the TrimUI Smart Pro. I think it's great. Just bear in mind that there will be a lot of compromises when it comes to the overall performance. The TrimUI Smart Pro is going to work really well when it comes to retro gaming, basically everything up to PS1. However once you get past that to Nintendo 64, Dreamcast, and even PSP, there's going to be a lot of compromises. I just recently did an updated review on this device so you can check it out if you'd like, but the big draw for this one is that it's a fraction of the price of the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro. You can generally find this device for somewhere between $60 and $70 online. And so if you're mostly focused on more retro type games, then the TrimUI Smart Pro is definitely going to be worth it in that regard. Now let's say you want an experience very similar to the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro, but you don't want to spend the full $200. Well I think in that case it might be worth considering the Retroid Pocket 4. This one is going to save you $50 and it'll still do really well all the way up through PSP. In fact, even PS2, GameCube, and Nintendo 3DS are still very decent on this device. I would say the big contrast here will be that you can probably play up to like 95 to 100% of PS2 and GameCube games on the 4 Pro, and you'll probably be able to play like 75% of the same games on the 4 non-Pro. And so if GameCube and PS2 are not a super high priority for you, then the 4 might be good enough. Just bear in mind that if you want to play lightweight Switch titles, then the 4 Pro is going to be a lot better than the 4. In fact, I don't consider the 4 to be capable of playing most Switch games at all. Either way, if you're looking to play more retro based systems all the way up through like PSP, then yeah, the 4 is going to be plenty good. Another Android device that's a little bit cheaper than the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro is the Amarnik RG556. This one comes out to about $180 before shipping, so you'll be able to save about $20. However, there are some things that this device does better than the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro. For example, I think the ergonomics and just overall hand comfort on the 556 is better. In addition, this has a 5.5 inch OLED panel with a 1080p resolution, which is amazing. However, there are quite a few compromises with the RG556, which I get into in my very in-depth reviews of this handheld. The number one thing here is going to be these analog sticks. They are Nintendo Switch style Joy-Cons, and they have not been calibrated correctly. And so unfortunately, as a result, I do not enjoy playing a lot of games on this device, mostly because of these sticks. For example, this would be a great device for game streaming if those sticks were a little However, if you want something that's OLED and with a larger screen, the 556 might be worth considering as well. Now let's say the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro is hitting most of the checkboxes that you have, but there are a couple things you would like for it to be better. Maybe a little bit bigger, more powerful, stuff like that. So let's talk about a couple of handhelds that cost more than the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro in case those are going to be a better fit. Let's start with the Odin 2. This is the only other Android device that I like better than the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro. And part of that has to do with the fact that this has a 6-inch 1080p display, so it's a lot easier to use. And it also has very similar controls between the two, which I really love. The other thing about the Odin 2 is that it is quite a bit more powerful. It's got a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 inside. That means it's going to be able to tackle basically anything on the Android platform, including all the emulated systems up through Nintendo Switch. There will be some heavyweight games that aren't going to play really well on it, but for the most part, those aren't the games I'm going to be playing anyway. And so for almost a year at this point, the Odin 2 has been my ultimate Android handheld, and that has not changed. However, the ultimate-ness of the Odin 2 does come at a price point. The starting price is $300 plus shipping, and the model that I prefer, which is the Pro model, is actually $370. So this is a device that is almost twice as expensive as the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro. So really when it comes down to it, you have to really want to have that upgraded performance and larger size to be able to spend that much. Now let's say that the Odin 2 is too big for you. But you still want to have a lot of performance compared to the retro pocket 4 Pro Well, I think the best alternative at that point is going to be the Odin 2 mini This one has the same chipset as the Odin 2 inside But as you can see it is quite a bit smaller and this one has some pretty significant PS Vita vibes to it as well The screen on this is also slightly larger than the retro pocket 4 Pro It is 5 inches and it's also mini LED and gets super bright. So if that's important to you as well This is pretty awesome. However, also bear in mind. This one is also expensive between 350 and $400 depending on the model that you buy. So again, this one is about twice the price of a Retroid Pocket 4 Pro. And so now you probably understand why I think the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro is so easy to recommend. It definitely has some competition out there, but I don't think that anything can really hold a candle to it at this price point. Okay, so now let's say you've gotten this far into the video and you are ready to pull the trigger and to buy this Retroid Pocket 4 Pro. I have one other thing I want to discuss before we wrap up. And so here I want to do a deep dive of all the different Retroid Pocket releases and when we can expect the Retroid Pocket 5 or some other device from this company. Just bear in mind this is 100% speculation, I have no insider information. So let's start in the very beginning, at least in terms of Retro Game Core, because I started this channel in August of 2020 and the Retroid Pocket 2 came out in September of 2020 as well. And so this is the first Retroid device that I personally experienced. Now, the next device that Retroid released was the Retroid Pocket 2 Plus. This one came out 15 months later in December of 2021. And this one was very similar to the Retroid Pocket 2, but with a couple different upgrades. For example, it had a new chipset and a touchscreen, and some of the buttons were tweaked as well. After that, nine months later, they released the Retroid Pocket 3, and I'm going to call this a half upgrade, and I'm going to label it in pink. And that's because this one used the same chipset as the Retroid Pocket 2 Plus, but just in a different form factor. And so this one was kind of a side grade more than an upgrade if you ask me. Now things got really wonky just three months later when they released the Retroid Pocket 3+. And this one was a very frustrating release because it was the exact same hardware as the Retroid Pocket 3 but with a new chipset. And there were a lot of people who bought a Retroid Pocket 3 who probably wouldn't have bought one if they had known that just three months later a more upgraded device would have been released. And so this caused quite a bit of controversy at the time. Now five months later, Retroid did another sidegrade. They released the Retroid Pocket Flip. This one had the same chipset as the Retroid Pocket 3 Plus, but in a new clamshell form factor. Four months after that, they released a new budget device. This one was a bit of a downgrade compared to the Retroid Pocket 3 Plus and Flip, but it was also very economical. And this was the Retroid Pocket 2S. This one was more like an up- upgrade of the original Retroid Pocket 2 Plus. It had a similar form factor, it was of a smaller size, and also quite cheap at around $100. And so I would also consider this one to be just a new addition to their overall catalog. And then next, five months later, we had the Retroid Pocket 4 and 4 Pro which came out in January of this year. And I think that Retroid learned their whole lesson from the Retroid Pocket 3 and 3 Plus thing because they released both models at the same time. This allowed people to choose between the high-end pro model at $200 and then the lower non-pro model at $150. And it's been about seven or eight months since then and we haven't heard anything new from Retroid other than a new dock that they released a few weeks back. And so if you just look at the cycle of releases that they make, this does lead me to believe that Retroid is probably on the hook to release something fairly soon. However, I don't actually think it's going to be a Retroid Pocket 5. If anything, I think it's probably going to be an upgrade to the Retroid Pocket 2S or maybe a clamshell form. Because if we look at the distance of time between the actual releases when we got a new form factor as well as a new chipset, each one of these releases have taken at least 12 months to come to market. And so I think in terms of buying a Retroid Pocket 4 Pro right now and having any sort of fear about a Retroid Pocket 5, at least in terms of my own speculation, I think we've got a little bit more time. I'm not really expecting to see any big upgrade to the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro until early next year. And so all this is really to say that if you are considering the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro, at least based on my own speculation and guesstimates, we've got a little bit more time until we see a new flagship model. However, at this point, who knows? There might be a new clamshell form factor announced next week, or there will be a more budget device that might be a better fit for you. And unfortunately, that's just kind of how it goes with these retro handhelds. You buy the one that's a good fit for you right now, and then we'll see what happens in the future. Anyway, that's about it for this video. Let me know what you think in the comments down below. Do you have a Retroid Pocket 4 Pro or are you still contemplating getting one? Like I said, I still think this is the best $200 device out right now, and I think it might be some time before we see anything that's going to knock it off that pedestal. If you want to learn more about the Retroid Pocket 4 or the 4 Pro, I'll leave my in-depth reviews down below. And I also released a Retroid Pocket Starter Guide this year, which will walk you through the entire setup process with these machines. As always, thank you for watching and be sure to like and subscribe if you found this helpful, and we will see you next time. Happy gaming.

this is usually the one that I would recommend for newcomers. Now I was thinking about this device the other day and I realized that even though I mention it quite often, I don't really do dedicated videos for it. It's kind of like the Steam Deck where it's so good in its price point that it's an easy to recommend device, but I don't make a lot of content about it in the first place.

And so that's what I want to cover today. We're going to talk about all the things that make this device so good, especially at that price point, and then also a few things that could be better. And then of course we'll try to figure out whether or not it's going to be a good fit for you, especially in light of other alternatives out there on the market, but then also the fact that we probably have another Retroid Pocket device on its way at some point. Either way I think this will be a pretty fun review, so kick back, grab your favorite snack and drink, and let's go ahead and get started. Okay let's start by talking about what the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro is in the first place.

And this is what I would consider to be a middle-tier Android-based retro handheld. And there are actually two different models. There's the Retroid Pocket 4, which comes with a Dimensity 900 chipset.

And then we have the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro with a Dimensity 1100 chip. And for the most part, other than the chipset and the fact that the Pro has a little bit more RAM, the only other big difference is the fact that the Pro model is $50 more. The standard Retroid Pocket 4 will be $150 before shipping, and then the Pro will be $200. And in this video, we're going to focus on the Pro model because I think that the upgrade in terms of performance power is well worth it for that $50.

Some other standardized features between these Retroid Pocket 4 devices is the touchscreen, which is going to be 4.7 inches and 16 by 9 aspect ratio with a resolution of 1334 by 750. It also has Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.2 and also a 5000 milliamp hour battery. Everything else is going to be the same, including the controls and whatnot. And I've covered a lot of these details in my initial review which came out back in January.

I'll have that link down below. Next I want to talk about some of the updates that we've seen on this model since launch. Let's start with the hardware updates because some of these are pretty significant.

The first issue has to do with the triggers when they first launched. Essentially in the first month after the device came out, a lot of people were reporting that triggers were no longer functioning properly. And I actually had the same thing happen on my review unit right here.

You can see that it just kind of flops down and there's no sort of spring to it. And so this has to do with the spring mechanism inside and as soon as Retroid noticed it, they fixed it. On top of that, they extended the warranty on the triggers by two years for any of the devices that were released before the fix was found.

And so nowadays it's kind of a moot point because it's been like seven months that they've had it fixed. But if you have one of those early release units, then you may have that problem. And if so, they will fix it for you. And my understanding is that they'll just send you a full new back shell, which will include the trigger.

So you just have to swap them out. Now, the other thing they fixed on the hardware side is that they've retuned the screen. I'm not sure if they just got entirely new screens now, but if you remember previously in my other review, there were some issues with the screen itself being a little bit on the green side in terms of the overall color balance. Now for the older panels, they have a software fix.

So essentially when you boot up the device after a couple of moments, it'll switch over to the correct color balance. And you can see this kick in with the Retroid logo when it starts to boot up. However, with these newer screens, it's just the correct color balance the entire time.

Another thing I've noticed is that the system seems to boot up faster. I'm not sure if that's because it doesn't have to run whatever software script it's running in order to fix the screen. At the end of the day, I don't think it's a huge deal one way or another, because by the time you actually start playing the device, the color will be fixed either in software or the hardware, but it is nice to see that they followed up and also fixed it on the hardware level. On the software side, I haven't seen a ton of updates. I think there have maybe been 3 or 4 updates since launch.

But one of the bigger things they fixed is that they got RetroArch to play nicely with the screen so that it was a more stable 60 frames per second. They've also recalibrated their three performance profiles as well as their fan curves, and so now these make a lot more sense in terms of just the overall sound and noise that comes from them. As it stands, these fans are super quiet and I've never had any complaints about them even at the highest sport setting. In fact, the fan is so quiet that it's hard for my microphone to pick it up, but I'll let you hear it right now.

So chances are you weren't able to hear a difference there at all. And so really when it comes down to it, those are the major changes that I've noticed with the Retroid Pocket 4 and 4 Pro over the past eight months. So now let's move into why I think this device is so good in the first place, and why I think it is the best $199 handheld you can find right now.

And I think first and foremost is the fact that this device is so compact and easy to use, but it's also super portable. In terms of shape and feel, it's very reminiscent of a Nintendo Switch Lite, but as you can see here, it is quite a bit smaller. In fact, even though this is a relatively comfortable device just to hold in general, I would also consider it to be pocketable. When it comes down to it, it's about the size of a large cell phone, although it does have those triggers on the back that do make it protrude a little bit more. But I think this really checks a lot of boxes for me in the sense that it is quite powerful but then also is small enough to be able to take around easily.

And so just in terms of overall size I found this to be really handy. It's a little bit smaller than a Nintendo Switch but a lot smaller than something like a Steam Deck but then still quite comfortable to hold. And if you want to make the device more comfortable they sell a $15 silicone grip and so this is pretty easy you can just kind of slide it right into place and then that will make it just a little bit more ergonomic and comfortable to use. Another thing I like about the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro is that it is highly customizable.

To start, we have six different color options to choose from, and I think that any of them actually are pretty great. I'm partial to the 16-bit as well as the clear options, but I honestly think that each of them look pretty great. I don't have every single color, but I do have three. The green one here is my Retroid Pocket 4, and then I've got my two different Pro models. And I love just how different each of these look and feel compared to the other.

The plastic on the solid color options feels really great. It's got a little bit of texture to it, but is also a little bit slick as well. And the clear models are similar, but I would say a little bit more grippy. And on top of that, there's a whole DIY section on their website, which will allow you to buy new buttons or joysticks and even a new backplate. And so if you want to further customize your device, maybe changing out the color of the buttons, you can do that as well.

Okay, another aspect I really like about the Retroid Pocket 4 include the controls. Now, Retroid has always made pretty good controls for most of their devices, but often they have had some sort of screw up, either on the design phase or just the overall implementation. And I have to say that with the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro, I basically have zero complaints at this point. We've got a small dome switch D-pad, which feels a lot like a PS Vita's D-pad. Really soft and nice to the touch, and super accurate, so I love this.

I also really like these face buttons. They are rubber membrane, but have nice shallow travel to them and are very easy to press down on. So I think these are a great compliment to the D-pad.

I also think these analog sticks are excellent. They're the same ones you can find in the Retroid Pocket 2S and the Odin 2 and the Odin 2 Mini. So they're a little bit on the small side, but they give you a full range of motion and they're hall sensor.

And so I still really like these sticks. I also like that we have dedicated back and home buttons. I'm not a huge fan of having this start and select here on the bottom right, but I've just gotten used to it over time. And then finally, I do like these bumpers and triggers.

The bumpers are easy to press down on and the triggers are analog, and they give you a full range of motion as well. So just from a control standpoint, I've really enjoyed using this device. I like that it's D-pad centric and that this is up top.

It makes it really great for classic gaming, but it's really easy to shift your hand down to be able to use the analog stick as well. Now, when it comes to playing modern games, we have to use dual sticks in the triggers. It's not the best ergonomics, but I think that's where this grip comes into play. So for example, when I'm streaming like Xbox onto this device, then I just put the grip on, and that usually will just solve all my problems.

It's not quite as good as using like a dedicated controller. but it's still a lot better than not using the grip. Now the next thing I really like about this device is probably the one that puts it head and shoulders above the others, and that has to do with the performance for the price. Like I mentioned earlier, at $200 plus shipping, this is one of the most performant options that you have even today.

Now bear in mind this is an Android-based device, and you can use it for Android gaming, but I'm going to focus mostly on emulation in this section here. So let's run down the list of all the different systems you can play on this device and how that experience is going to play out. Now of course when it comes to your really lightweight stuff, you know, Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, all these are going to play great.

Like with any other 16x9 system, playing Game Boy and Game Boy Color is going to be a little bit odd because of the squarish aspect ratio, but playing something like Game Boy Advance which has a wider aspect ratio is really amazing. It's going to be a similar story when it comes to 4x3 systems, you know, things like Nintendo, Super Nintendo, and Sega Genesis. All these will absolutely play just fine, but they are going to be 4x3, which means that you will have some black bars on the left and right.

Personally, considering that this is such a compact experience in the first place, I don't really mind having those black bars on the left and right with the Retro Bucket 4 Pro. And some systems really do benefit from having a wider aspect ratio, including Nintendo DS. This one you can play both screens side by side, and they both will still be relatively large.

You can do the same thing with Nintendo 3DS, although I generally put the bottom screen to the right and a little bit smaller. And in terms of performance, this will do pretty well. In fact, for the most part, I will play games in 2 or a 3X resolution upscale.

But I found that my best 3DS experience comes from playing games where you can just focus on one single screen. That allows me to blow it up to almost fill the entire screen and I think it looks amazing. And so these in general are the games I prefer to play on 3DS even though this is a touch screen so you could use it with a full 3DS experience side by side.

Now once we get into the higher tier of systems, things like Dreamcast, Nintendo 64, PS1, and Sega Saturn. All these systems are going to play great too, and you can generally upscale them to at least 720p, if not 1080p for the most part. But I think that these systems really shine when you apply widescreen hacks, and most of them are going to be compatible.

So personally, I do enjoy playing my Dreamcast games and even Nintendo 64 games in 16x9 if the game allows it. Some games like Star Fox 64 will have a little bit of artifacts on the left and right, but I've also found that in the heat of the moment, I don't really mind those either. And it is surprising how many games are becoming more and more compatible with these widescreen patches and cheats. And so for the most part, I have been focusing on the more 16 by 9 aspect ratio games on this device.

Now other systems like Sega Saturn don't really play nicely with widescreen hacks, so you will have to play them in 4 by 3. But the nice thing here is that this chipset on the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro does have enough juice to be able to play most of these games. Not only can it play these games, but it can generally play them with the Beedle Saturn core, which is going to be highly accurate. So I do consider this to be a Sega Saturn machine, with the small caveat that you might have to switch between different emulators depending on the game. Now probably my favorite system to emulate overall is going to be PlayStation Portable. And there's a couple reasons for that.

First and foremost is that performance on this chipset, even at a 3x upscale, which is going to max out the resolution on the screen, is still amazing. And so no matter what game you throw at it, as long as it's compatible with the emulator, it's going to run great on this machine. In addition, among all the handhelds that I own, this one feels very close to the PSP in terms of just overall aesthetics. It's a super compact handheld with the d-pad up top and also a somewhat rounded shape.

And so the Retroid Pocket 4 and 4 Pro line remains my favorite way to play PSP games across the board. However, I would say the biggest appeal of this machine on the performance side has to do with the fact that I also consider it to be a fully capable GameCube and PS2 emulator as well. There are going to be some games that require some modification in terms of tweaks and hacks, and then also there may be some games that have compatibility issues with the emulator at large. But for the most part, I would say that this is very close to a plug and play experience at that $200 price point, which is just kind of crazy. When it comes to Nintendo GameCube, I just generally set it to the Vulkan graphical backend and then a 2x upscale.

In addition, you can also apply widescreen hacks to games that support it as well. Now for some games, I do recommend dropping it down to a native resolution just to make sure everything is running smoothly like with F-Zero GX. Regardless, even eight months later, I'm still amazed every time that I boot up a random GameCube or PS2 game on this device, and then it just runs even at a 2x upscale.

It's going to be a very similar story with Nintendo Wii. The vast majority of these games are going to play at a 2x resolution upscale with no further tweaks. And by the way, a 2x upscale is well beyond the actual resolution of the screen, so there is no benefit to going any higher. Now thankfully performance is basically identical on PlayStation 2 as well. Again, I just set this to the Vulkan graphical backend and then a 2x upscale.

And again, as long as the emulation compatibility is there, the performance will usually follow suit. And I'm not just talking about lightweight games, I'm talking about more 3D based games, you know, things like Dragon Quest 8, or even Ratchet and Clank, even God of War 2 will play at a 2x upscale with very minimal slowdown. And so this is probably one of the main reasons why the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro is my most recommended device because I get a lot of questions from people saying I just want something that will play up to GameCube and PS2.

And even though there are plenty of other handhelds that can do a pretty good job with those systems, this one is relatively plug and play, which I think most people are looking for. And for someone like me who really enjoyed the generation six systems like GameCube and PS2, this is a wonderful companion device. Now the last thing I wanted to talk about in terms of emulation performance is Nintendo Switch using the Yuzu emulator.

As you probably know, development on this particular emulator stopped in March when everything got taken down, but even those March builds still work pretty well on the Retro Pocket 4 Pro. Now to be clear, there is definitely a performance limitation. You will find that cap pretty quickly. I would say for the most part you're going to be relegated to lightweight and indie titles, and you're also going to need to play these games in handheld mode as opposed to docked mode so that it's not so taxing on the system. But I think that even then, on this screen in particular, it still looks very good.

In addition, some of those lightweight Switch titles are just a joy to play on these controls. For example, this is one of my favorite ways to play Celeste, because the controls themselves are just so tight. And so I found this to be an excellent fit for me, especially when it comes to lightweight PC ports that are available on Switch. And in terms of performance cap, I would say that once you get into 3D-based titles, you will definitely see some slowdown. About the Macs that I'm comfortable playing are going to be games like Super Mario 3D World as well as Super Mario Wonder.

Both of these games are not going to play at a full 60 frames per second. It's going to hover between 30 and 60 most of the time. And you will feel that slowdown every once in a while, especially when shaders are compiling. However, I like to repeat levels when playing these two games in particular. And often, the second time you play a level, it's going to be a lot smoother.

And so whether or not you consider these games to be playable is totally... It's going to be up to you, but I do happen to enjoy playing these games on this device. But just bear in mind that when it comes to Nintendo Switch titles, you're going to want to stick with the more lightweight ones.

And finally, in wrapping up this whole performance section, another thing worth noting is that this is an excellent streaming handheld as well. You could stream this from your PC or your PlayStation or Xbox or even use a cloud service like GeForce Now. But I do have two words of caution here, which I will talk about later in the what could be better section as well.

The first is that when playing more modern games that generally are made for larger TVs, it's going to be a little bit hard to see some text. That's because this screen is only 4.7 inches, and so depending on the game that you're playing, it might be a little squinty. In addition, like I mentioned before, if you're going to be playing analog, stick, and trigger-centric games, I do recommend picking up that grip for $15. This will definitely enhance your overall gameplay experience, especially when it comes to streaming.

Okay, and finally, the last thing I wanted to talk about in terms of what makes this device so good has nothing to do with the device, but rather just Android in general. And that's because we have a new front-end that's come out since launch, and it's called Emulation Station Desktop Edition. I've already made a couple videos about this front-end, but I did want to mention that this has really transformed my overall experience with basically every Android-based handheld, including this one. And that's because it's the first front-end that I really feel console-izes the device to the point where it feels like a retro handheld, and not necessarily just an Android phone with some controls slapped onto it. And so I really do enjoy the overall Emulation Station experience, and then I can navigate through my games, I can scrape my box art, I can even have videos playing as a preview as I go and navigate through my systems.

And so just in general, if you haven't checked out Emulation Station Desktop Edition before and you have an Android based device, I would highly recommend it. And once you get pretty deep into Emulation Station, you can get some really good features out of it, including the fact that you can navigate through Android apps and games directly in the system. There's also been a recent update that allows you to set Emulation Station as your home app, which means that it'll boot directly into it.

Also, if you want to go further down the rabbit hole, there's a whole custom collections option as well. In fact, I probably need to do an updated video on Emulation Station just to be able to compile all this together. But I will say that this custom collections is a really neat way to customize your overall experience. You can see here that I've set up quite a few.

I've got 2D platformers, 3D platformers, driving games, and so on. And if we go into any of these, you can see that I've curated the games list for my favorite games in whatever category. And so sometimes I'm just in the mood to play a Retroididvania, and here I can navigate through them and then pick one up and then just start playing it right then and there.

And so I love the cross-pollination that you can do with these customized collections. In addition, there are a ton of different themes that you can choose from, and these keep getting better and better. This one here is called Horizon, and I've been using it on my Retroid Pocket 4 Pro.

I really like the simplicity of the overall experience. I've also really been enjoying this one called Game OS. This one has a bit more of a carousel experience. So you can navigate both horizontally and vertically through the games list.

And then as you get to each game, you can navigate through them horizontally as well. And so I have found this to be a really nice theme just in terms of being kind of robust feeling and giving you a lot of navigation freedom. And finally, one more I wanted to show off is this one called Iconic. I really like the images here. I think this NES one really pops.

And also the navigation experience on this is also pretty great. We can cycle through. And then same thing, if we hover over the game for a moment, it's going to give us a video preview as well. And so just in general, I've really enjoyed the Emulation Station experience over the past few months, and it has transformed the way I feel about Android-based devices like this one. So now let's move over and talk about some of the things that I think could be better with the RetroY Pocket 4 Pro.

Like with every other device, it's not perfect. My first point is that it does get relatively warm on the back, especially right here where the CPU is. And it'll be especially noticeable when you're playing Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 2, and GameCube. Those three systems in particular I usually will put in high performance mode.

Now thankfully it's pretty easy to negate all of this by turning on the fan in sport mode. And like I mentioned before, the fan itself is relatively quiet, and so even when it's running in sport mode I rarely will notice it. If anything I'll just feel the air moving behind my fingers as I'm playing, and that's just about it.

Now unfortunately, the big downside of using sport mode and high performance mode is that it will be relatively taxing on the battery, which is the next thing that I'm not really a big fan of on this device. I think that 5000 mAh is still decent on any handheld, so I don't really have any complaints about it. But I will say that when really pushing the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro's chipset, which is the Dimensity 1100, it will drain the battery pretty quickly.

As an example, when playing PlayStation 2 and Nintendo Switch games in high performance mode with the fan turned on sport, I will generally get about two hours of gameplay, sometimes a little bit less and sometimes a little bit more. And so depending on your expectations when it comes to the high end systems, that may not be enough time. You may want something with a bigger battery like the Odin 2. However, given the fact that my own experience is usually mixed, especially when it comes to like PlayStation Portable games or widescreen Nintendo 64 games, those aren't going to be as taxing. And so in general, I usually will get somewhere between four and six hours of battery life.

I would really only consider this to be an issue if you're going to dedicate your time really pushing that chipset. And another benefit of using an Android based platform like this is that it is capable of fast charging. And so often I will just plug it in and within maybe 20, 30 minutes, it will be usually 60% charged.

And so even though the battery does drain a little bit more quickly than I'd like when playing PS2 and Nintendo Switch, it will charge up very quickly too. Additionally, one other thing I think could be better on the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro has to do with the screen. I think it's just a little bit too small at 4.7 inches. I think the sweet spot here would have been 5 inches.

Here is the TrimUI Smart Pro which has a 4.96 display. Now the size difference between the two is not massive, especially when trying to show it here on screen. But I will say that when playing the TrimUI Smart Pro, I never get the feeling like I wish the screen would be larger.

On the other hand, with the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro, especially when playing more modern games that have smaller text, I do find myself wishing that it was a 5 inch display instead. It's not quite enough to prevent me from actually playing the device. I think it's still an amazing display, but I do wish it was just slightly larger. And I think that even better might be five and a half inches.

That's going to make it a little bit bigger of a device like the size of a Nintendo Switch Lite or the Amberdink RG556 as you can see here. So I do think that increasing the size even up to five and a half inches will make the device slightly larger, but that's a compromise I'm willing to live with. At the end of the day, like I mentioned, it's not enough to actually turn me away from the device, but I do hope that in future iterations of this handheld, we do see it at least at 5 inches and maybe up to 5.5.

I think it would be even better if they used a 3x2 aspect ratio display instead of 16x9. That's going to be the native aspect ratio of Game Boy Advance, which is also going to scale really well for 4x3 and 16x9 content. And so in a perfect world, I'd love to see a screen that has a 3x2 aspect ratio and is about 5 inches in size. Okay, so that's a quick roundup of all the things I love about this device and some of the things that I wish could be better.

Let's now start talking about whether or not this is going to be the right fit for you. And I think right up front, I want to say that yes, this is probably the easiest recommendation I can make at that $200-ish price point. And that's because there is no other handheld that gets so many things right like the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro at this price. However, I do think there are some alternatives worth considering, especially if you have other priorities, including price as well as screen. So let's talk about those examples and why they might be a better fit than this one.

Let's start by saying that maybe the price point is a little bit too high for you. You want something that's a lot less than $200. And I think that if you want something that gives you a similar gameplay experience, especially when it comes to retro games, then the TrimUI Smart Pro might be my overall pick. As you can see, these have a very similar form factor and size. In addition, I really like the screen on the TrimUI Smart Pro.

I think it's great. Just bear in mind that there will be a lot of compromises when it comes to the overall performance. The TrimUI Smart Pro is going to work really well when it comes to retro gaming, basically everything up to PS1. However once you get past that to Nintendo 64, Dreamcast, and even PSP, there's going to be a lot of compromises.

I just recently did an updated review on this device so you can check it out if you'd like, but the big draw for this one is that it's a fraction of the price of the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro. You can generally find this device for somewhere between $60 and $70 online. And so if you're mostly focused on more retro type games, then the TrimUI Smart Pro is definitely going to be worth it in that regard. Now let's say you want an experience very similar to the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro, but you don't want to spend the full $200.

Well I think in that case it might be worth considering the Retroid Pocket 4. This one is going to save you $50 and it'll still do really well all the way up through PSP. In fact, even PS2, GameCube, and Nintendo 3DS are still very decent on this device. I would say the big contrast here will be that you can probably play up to like 95 to 100% of PS2 and GameCube games on the 4 Pro, and you'll probably be able to play like 75% of the same games on the 4 non-Pro. And so if GameCube and PS2 are not a super high priority for you, then the 4 might be good enough. Just bear in mind that if you want to play lightweight Switch titles, then the 4 Pro is going to be a lot better than the 4. In fact, I don't consider the 4 to be capable of playing most Switch games at all.

Either way, if you're looking to play more retro based systems all the way up through like PSP, then yeah, the 4 is going to be plenty good. Another Android device that's a little bit cheaper than the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro is the Amarnik RG556. This one comes out to about $180 before shipping, so you'll be able to save about $20. However, there are some things that this device does better than the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro. For example, I think the ergonomics and just overall hand comfort on the 556 is better.

In addition, this has a 5.5 inch OLED panel with a 1080p resolution, which is amazing. However, there are quite a few compromises with the RG556, which I get into in my very in-depth reviews of this handheld. The number one thing here is going to be these analog sticks. They are Nintendo Switch style Joy-Cons, and they have not been calibrated correctly. And so unfortunately, as a result, I do not enjoy playing a lot of games on this device, mostly because of these sticks.

For example, this would be a great device for game streaming if those sticks were a little However, if you want something that's OLED and with a larger screen, the 556 might be worth considering as well. Now let's say the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro is hitting most of the checkboxes that you have, but there are a couple things you would like for it to be better. Maybe a little bit bigger, more powerful, stuff like that.

So let's talk about a couple of handhelds that cost more than the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro in case those are going to be a better fit. Let's start with the Odin 2. This is the only other Android device that I like better than the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro. And part of that has to do with the fact that this has a 6-inch 1080p display, so it's a lot easier to use.

And it also has very similar controls between the two, which I really love. The other thing about the Odin 2 is that it is quite a bit more powerful. It's got a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 inside. That means it's going to be able to tackle basically anything on the Android platform, including all the emulated systems up through Nintendo Switch. There will be some heavyweight games that aren't going to play really well on it, but for the most part, those aren't the games I'm going to be playing anyway.

And so for almost a year at this point, the Odin 2 has been my ultimate Android handheld, and that has not changed. However, the ultimate-ness of the Odin 2 does come at a price point. The starting price is $300 plus shipping, and the model that I prefer, which is the Pro model, is actually $370.

So this is a device that is almost twice as expensive as the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro. So really when it comes down to it, you have to really want to have that upgraded performance and larger size to be able to spend that much. Now let's say that the Odin 2 is too big for you. But you still want to have a lot of performance compared to the retro pocket 4 Pro Well, I think the best alternative at that point is going to be the Odin 2 mini This one has the same chipset as the Odin 2 inside But as you can see it is quite a bit smaller and this one has some pretty significant PS Vita vibes to it as well The screen on this is also slightly larger than the retro pocket 4 Pro It is 5 inches and it's also mini LED and gets super bright.

So if that's important to you as well This is pretty awesome. However, also bear in mind. This one is also expensive between 350 and $400 depending on the model that you buy. So again, this one is about twice the price of a Retroid Pocket 4 Pro.

And so now you probably understand why I think the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro is so easy to recommend. It definitely has some competition out there, but I don't think that anything can really hold a candle to it at this price point. Okay, so now let's say you've gotten this far into the video and you are ready to pull the trigger and to buy this Retroid Pocket 4 Pro.

I have one other thing I want to discuss before we wrap up. And so here I want to do a deep dive of all the different Retroid Pocket releases and when we can expect the Retroid Pocket 5 or some other device from this company. Just bear in mind this is 100% speculation, I have no insider information. So let's start in the very beginning, at least in terms of Retro Game Core, because I started this channel in August of 2020 and the Retroid Pocket 2 came out in September of 2020 as well.

And so this is the first Retroid device that I personally experienced. Now, the next device that Retroid released was the Retroid Pocket 2 Plus. This one came out 15 months later in December of 2021. And this one was very similar to the Retroid Pocket 2, but with a couple different upgrades.

For example, it had a new chipset and a touchscreen, and some of the buttons were tweaked as well. After that, nine months later, they released the Retroid Pocket 3, and I'm going to call this a half upgrade, and I'm going to label it in pink. And that's because this one used the same chipset as the Retroid Pocket 2 Plus, but just in a different form factor.

And so this one was kind of a side grade more than an upgrade if you ask me. Now things got really wonky just three months later when they released the Retroid Pocket 3+. And this one was a very frustrating release because it was the exact same hardware as the Retroid Pocket 3 but with a new chipset. And there were a lot of people who bought a Retroid Pocket 3 who probably wouldn't have bought one if they had known that just three months later a more upgraded device would have been released. And so this caused quite a bit of controversy at the time.

Now five months later, Retroid did another sidegrade. They released the Retroid Pocket Flip. This one had the same chipset as the Retroid Pocket 3 Plus, but in a new clamshell form factor.

Four months after that, they released a new budget device. This one was a bit of a downgrade compared to the Retroid Pocket 3 Plus and Flip, but it was also very economical. And this was the Retroid Pocket 2S. This one was more like an up- upgrade of the original Retroid Pocket 2 Plus. It had a similar form factor, it was of a smaller size, and also quite cheap at around $100.

And so I would also consider this one to be just a new addition to their overall catalog. And then next, five months later, we had the Retroid Pocket 4 and 4 Pro which came out in January of this year. And I think that Retroid learned their whole lesson from the Retroid Pocket 3 and 3 Plus thing because they released both models at the same time.

This allowed people to choose between the high-end pro model at $200 and then the lower non-pro model at $150. And it's been about seven or eight months since then and we haven't heard anything new from Retroid other than a new dock that they released a few weeks back. And so if you just look at the cycle of releases that they make, this does lead me to believe that Retroid is probably on the hook to release something fairly soon. However, I don't actually think it's going to be a Retroid Pocket 5. If anything, I think it's probably going to be an upgrade to the Retroid Pocket 2S or maybe a clamshell form. Because if we look at the distance of time between the actual releases when we got a new form factor as well as a new chipset, each one of these releases have taken at least 12 months to come to market.

And so I think in terms of buying a Retroid Pocket 4 Pro right now and having any sort of fear about a Retroid Pocket 5, at least in terms of my own speculation, I think we've got a little bit more time. I'm not really expecting to see any big upgrade to the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro until early next year. And so all this is really to say that if you are considering the Retroid Pocket 4 Pro, at least based on my own speculation and guesstimates, we've got a little bit more time until we see a new flagship model.

However, at this point, who knows? There might be a new clamshell form factor announced next week, or there will be a more budget device that might be a better fit for you. And unfortunately, that's just kind of how it goes with these retro handhelds. You buy the one that's a good fit for you right now, and then we'll see what happens in the future. Anyway, that's about it for this video.

Let me know what you think in the comments down below. Do you have a Retroid Pocket 4 Pro or are you still contemplating getting one? Like I said, I still think this is the best $200 device out right now, and I think it might be some time before we see anything that's going to knock it off that pedestal.

If you want to learn more about the Retroid Pocket 4 or the 4 Pro, I'll leave my in-depth reviews down below. And I also released a Retroid Pocket Starter Guide this year, which will walk you through the entire setup process with these machines. As always, thank you for watching and be sure to like and subscribe if you found this helpful, and we will see you next time.

Happy gaming.

Transcript for:Retroid Pocket 4 Pro Review Overview

Transcript for:
Retroid Pocket 4 Pro Review Overview