Retroid Pocket 2 Android Handheld Game Console, Dual Boot for Android Retro Game Console Multiple Emulators Console Handheld 3.5 Inch Display 4000mAh Battery Retro Gaming System (Retro)

just good

Do you like retro games? Do you want to take them with you? This device does it. Pro: +Butttons have a great click. +Screen crisp and just the right size +Do-it-Yourself Interface: User GUI works well and tons of options to customize. +Bluetooth: Wireless Controllers and Headphones work well with this. +Wi-Fi +Great community support! +Mini-HDMI out: Hook up to your TV Con: -Do-it-yourself Interface: Requires a little bit of software knowledge to get it running the games you want. -Wi-Fi: ONLY 2.4Ghz -Little outdated Android OS: Not bad but some more experience users will notice. Pros outweigh the cons. I have enjoyed mine for awhile now and turn to this one before my Switch!

tl;dr: I got this for about $100 and I wanted to love it but overall, I am just not satisfied. Lots of good to it; it's light, feels sturdy and durable. Decent screen, nice brightness level, great for playing in the house on the couch with no lights on (don't think I have ever tried playing in natural light, tbh). It has a pretty nice built-in OS that makes it REAL easy to hop in and start playing. The built-in ROM shop is also really convenient for getting ROMs. I don't remember ever worrying about the battery life either, I feel like it was really solid but I was also never far from a charger, so perhaps a grain of salt with that pro. I'm no retro video game expert or anything, but I think the games all ran pretty well. The cons are what really hurt the overall experience with this device; I want to break the cons into two major categories. Retro-gaming: I want to address this upfront, I might just not like these old games as much as I think I do. I get all excited about these games I played for HOURS as a child and spend hours looking for them and getting them on the device, then I go to play them and it's awesome for 5 minutes, then I jump to a different game, then a different one...then I just kind of shut it off and move on. I think nostalgia has me remembering the games as being better than they were or it might just be Quality of Life improvements that have rolled out over the last twenty years for gaming (you know how annoying it is to not be able to easily look around in GoldenEye?!). That's not the fault of the device though. Issues with the device, these were the issues that really hurt my overall opinion of the Pocket 2; the face buttons (A, B, Y, X) are too small and "mushy". Navigating with the Home, Select buttons is a real labor and constantly makes me mess up. The tactile feel is just not there. It feels like an old-school NES controller but lacks the "crispness" (or something) that the NES had. The Pocket 2, at least to me, should be held like you would an old-school NES controller, with your thumbs on the face buttons and your index fingers curled under the device, almost pinching the device in your hands. Holding it like that, the analog sticks are not in good locations, the design of the device makes it awkward to hold the device with your left thumb on the analog stick (at least for my hand). The shoulder triggers (LZ & RZ) are a little too far back and are hard to get to (again, maybe for my hand), the shoulder buttons (L & R) are practically unreachable for me. For instants; the mushy, small buttons make it hard to hold down the run and press the jump button. I died on Super Mario World, world 1, stage 2. If you don't immediately remember that game and the stages, it's basically the first level (I hate to admit it, but this was a MASSIVE blow to my ego). That was kind of my overall experience with the device, it looks nice, feels nice but then when I am in there actually trying to do it... it just falls short. I would not recommend this at $100, there are much better options out now, some even by Retroid. Shop around a bit and don't think ergonomics doesn't matter! Ergonomics REALLY matter anymore! In regards to the Built-in store: it's an utter nightmare to navigate through, not only is it REALLY slow but names are often in different languages, or the name doesn't match the screenshot games are definitely not named what I was looking for so the search is nearly worthless. The store could, and probably should, really get its own review as I think a lot of it is due to avoiding copyright concerns. This isn't a review of the store though, so this didn't factor in to the overall review.

I picked this up a few weeks back on a flash sale before flying out on a business trip. So far I have been happy enough with it for the low price. I would like a bit more but I am enjoying revisiting some very old games from when I was a young man. Pros: Classic colors and design. Long battery life. Low price. Great compatibility using the latest RetroArch Included a SanDisk 32gb microSD card, microHDMI to HDMI cable, and screen protector Cons: D-Pad is in a poor position - Would be better with a PlayStation style setup. Installed software is garbage. No touch screen. (Switching the controls from Mouse Mode using L-Analog stick to Gamepad mode has some really odd consistency issues with triggering necessary on screen controls in Android 6.) Other: I quickly gave up on dual booting with the "RetroidOS." Nothing that was installed with it would run and it couldn't download anything else. Similarly the DIG app seemed to be a waste of time and space. I didn't try any of the other installed emulators for Android as everything on on it or on the Appstore require payments for full features. There is no way I am installing my Google account on this thing to transfer my paid for emulators like PPSSPP Gold... I have no way to verify the security of the OS. I made good progress using the installed RetroArch app and even played some games for a couple hours. However, I found out that this was either from the Play Store or was a customized version that brought its own issues. (Couldn't install certain cores, lacked a way to remove unwanted cores, etc.) I finally just installed FDroid, pointed it to the Libretro software sources, refreshed, and installed the latest RetroArch. I was able to move my savestates and other files over to the new latest RetroArch without issue. Now, please note that I didn't have ANY experience using RetroArch before getting this device. There are some complaints about the difficulty of setting it up. Sure, there were a few things that threw me at the beginning like where the location of some required files but once I was over this I was off and running. I installed images for a handful of games to keep me entertained on my flights and hotel stay for a week. GB, GBC, GBA, and PS1 all seem to run great. (Get the right core for RetroArch and configure it properly.) PSP is pushing the system too far and runs at about 25% - 50% speed. (Not that I care because I only tried it at a test.) On a flight playing PS1 I was able to get 2 hours of playtime with wifi off and full screen brightness using only about 25% of the battery. For the people commenting that X,Y,A, and B are swapped, well, no they aren't... they are using Nintendo's standard not Microsoft's. It would be nice if the case had Circle, Square, Triangle, and X for Sony's standard printed on the case next to the buttons as my little kiddo's don't know anything about the button layouts between systems. Overall I am pleased with the purchase and that I don't have to have my phone polluted with extra apps with either awful onscreen controls or terrible laggy bluetooth controllers.

Great handheld, great game compatibility considering the hardware, but the stock android os loaded onto these is dreadful and slow, if you buy one of these its almost essential that you use SPflash to install lineage os onto it. would i recommend this over the pocket 2 plus? oh god no def get that one instead, or you could be a smoothbrain like me and just get one of these and plan to get the upgrade pcb later on down the line when their finally no longer in pre-order status. Retroarch is your bread and butter on this device in terms of emulation but n64 benefits from using an older version of mupen64plus fz, steam link is kinda crap but moonlight works amazingly. I use a AMD graphics card and moonlight has no problems connecting to Sunshine, its open source alternative, for best performance go into sunshines web settings and lower the max reported resolution and limit the fps to either 60 or 30 "i use 30, looks fine tbh" speaking of game streaming you WILL have trouble having your buttons and joysticks binded using these apps, best way to go is to keep your retroid pocket 2 in ps3 controller mode and going into each game/emulator and making sure everythings binded, and in standard android controller tomfoolery the L2/R2 buttons don't immediately work, youll have to use something like xpadder or joy2key to get use out of those. Steam link also has this nice funni bug where ittl ALWAYS bind your joysticks to obscure ass buttons in everything...except its own software because OF COURSE THE JOYSTICK WORKS IN THE MENUS. TLDR - amazing lil handheld, great feel, compatibility okay but you need to tinker with it. - Get the Retroid Pocket 2 Plus instead, same price but 3x the power.

This is everything in one. And I can take it everywhere. I haven't modded it since I bought it. So I'm running the early firmware. But I've had it for a couple of years now and I have played all of my favorite games from when I was a kid. It plays up to PS1 games on mine. It could probably run dreamcast depending on what software you use. This is definitely for a retro gamer that has a little knowledge on electronics.