Received the new screen and want to share my impressions about the device.
New screen
For those unaware of the screen drama, I’d suggest to read this article first.
Once Retroid announced they will send free new screen replacements, I immediately filled a request for one. They prioritized US citizens due to upcoming tarifs, so I had to quite some time until they shipped mine.
It arrived in a Retroid Pocket 5 box - looks like they just reused existing packaging. I saw some people on Discord got theirs in a Retroid Pocket Mini box instead. The package includes a full black shell, since that’s the only color they offer. So, owners of other colors now have a black RP Mini with different button colors 😄
But honestly, black is the best color for this device. Combined with the OLED screen, it makes the letterboxing practically invisible, which is perfect for retro gaming.
The replacement process was easy for me. I just followed their official video. It’s not very optimal, though. Sticks and fan disassembly is completely unnecessary, you can skip those. I also occasionally checked this disassembly stream recording.
The screen has rounded edges, but I actually like it. The taller screen (31:27) makes Android interface less painful.
But most importantly, it plays nicely with most retro games. In RetroArch I enabled Integer Scale and set Integer Scale Scaling to Smart. This way games will use overscale, but fallbacks to underscale if when the image is cropped too much. Retro games was designed with overscan in mind, so no important content is cut, the image occupies maximum possible space and everything is pixel perfect. I usually don’t enable integer scaling on high resolution screens like this, but it works great for this specific device.
No surprise, GB, GBC and Pico8 looks great. They won’t take fullscreen with integer scaling, but it’s very close.
But the best systems to play for me are actually SNES and NES! They were played on 4:3, but their actual aspect ration is close to a square. So for SNES9x core I set the aspect ratio to Uncorrected and for Mesen (NES) I set it to No Stretching. I know they were developed with 4:3 in mind, but this way they occupy the entire screen and look pixel perfect!
Systems like Dreamcast and PS1 look exactly the same, I don’t have to turn integer scaling off, they take all horizontal space.
In Dolphin, widescreen hacks work well with the taller screen, so you can fill the entire display. However, I usually play Dolphin on my Steam Deck, since the Android version doesn’t support RetroAchievements.
PS2 widescreen hacks don’t work well with this screen, but it still looks fine in 4:3 - identical to how it looked before the screen swap, except with now properly aligned pixels.
PSP isn’t a great fit for this device, but thanks to the OLED and black color, the letterboxing is barely noticeable. I’ve seen some people stretch the image, but I’m not a fan of that.
Device
Here’s what I like about it:
- Great battery life when using Android. I usually leave a game running, and it barely drains any battery while idle. This makes it easy to earn RetroAchievements in hardcode mode.
- Pocketable. The sticks protrude a bit, but I found it pretty comfortable to carry in my jacket.
- The stock OS is fairly clean, though I do wish I could install LineageOS.
- It can run mainline Linux.
- Powerful enough to handle all my favorite games.
- Ergonomic. I can play for hours without my hands hurting.
- And now it also has a great screen.
However, I would’t recommend this device. Here is why:
- ABXY buttons feel awfull. It’s hard to explain, but I simply don’t like pressing them. Even swapping to more quite PSX-style buttons from Etsy didn’t help. I think it’s because of the membrane and glass front. Controls are very important for me.
- Glass front looks nice, but it’s marky. Also dirt easily accumulates on edges on edges and its hard to remove it. I prefer to keep my devices clean.
I ordered the Retroid Pocket Flip 2 after asking for a screen replacement, and somehow they managed to deliver it earlier. But I’m enjoying it much more - it’s more pocketable, has a bigger screen, and avoids the drawbacks of the Mini. And it’s only $20 more.
Have you tried Rocknix on this Retroid? I have a Retroid 3 but I never use it because Android is bad at being a handheld gaming device. (Boot is slow and just letting it sleep means it’s dead in 3 days.)
I love Retroid hardware so I’m intrigued that it says you can run Linux.
Yes!
Unfortunately, audio through the 3.5mm jack only works if you power on the console with headphones already plugged in.
Also, the setup is opinionated. For example, it stores save games alongside ROMs, while I use the default emulation directories on my PC. This makes syncing saves more difficult and it’s not something you can disable in the emulator setting, they hardcode these directories via scrips.
Lastly, the idle battery life is significantly worse, which matters to me since I prefer to put the device to sleep.
got a RP5 and I can use rocknix on it.
tbh it’s really not worth all the hype unless you want to take the 100-300 hours to set it up properly and ensure all the boxart is there.
there are some people who can do it and it looks great, but I personally don’t have the time to mess with it when all I want to do is play some games.
the problems I’ve had with it might be related only to the RP5 but here they are:
there’s some others that are minor gripes but those are the major ones that cause me to not use it anymore.
If it takes you that long to hit the start button, select “Scraper”, select “Scraper Settings”, and put your username and password in, hit the back button, and then hit “Scrape Now” then there is something wrong.
Rocknix is great and takes much less time to configure than a bunch of different android apps.
Plus you get all the ports from https://portmaster.games/ which is the best benefit of a linux distro on these handhelds.
P.S. Aside from the lack of a libmali gpu driver, the retroid pocket flip 2 is the best retroid device out there.
So Rocknix isn’t as developed like Emuelec and all the other Linux gaming front ends? Because fixing boxart was one of the huge hassles on the Retroid 3+. The Retroid front end got 90% of the art but fixing that last 10% took hours. In comparison my Anbernic and Miyoo Mini were perfect. And customizing it was trivial because I could stick the SD card in my PC and move the files around. The Retroid front end didn’t let you do that. The other hassle was some of the emulators on the Retroid had their own menus so entering and exiting games wasn’t a single button push like Linux emulators.
your assessment is spot on. Don’t get me wrong, I love my RP5 but the UX leaves much to be desired.
it doesn’t bother me much since I use it more as a streaming handheld than retro.