The Retro Pocket 3: A Comprehensive Review

As I embark on this review, I want to emphasize that the Retro Pocket 3 is a powerful handheld device that can deliver an impressive gaming experience. The device's native Android operating system allows for seamless integration with various gaming platforms, including the Google Play Store.

One of the standout features of the Retro Pocket 3 is its built-in on-screen mapper. This feature enables users to create custom mapping solutions for games that don't natively support controllers. With the on-screen mapper, users can set up their own controls and map them to physical buttons or other inputs. For instance, I was able to use this feature to set up a custom button layout for Dead Cells, which proved to be quite useful.

In addition to the on-screen mapper, the Retro Pocket 3 also boasts an on-screen FPS counter floating window. This feature allows users to track their frame rate in real-time, providing valuable insights into the performance of their device and games. Furthermore, the device features a built-in RAM cleaner, which can help alleviate issues with low system resources. With only three gigs of RAM, it's essential to have tools like this available.

When it comes to playing popular games like Minecraft, the Retro Pocket 3 proves to be an excellent choice. The game is well-optimized for the device, and I was able to enjoy a smooth gaming experience even at higher graphics settings. However, I did notice that the frame rate wasn't locked at 60 FPS, with an average of around 35 frames per second.

Another exciting feature of the Retro Pocket 3 is its ability to stream games from external sources. The device features five gigahertz Wi-Fi, which should provide a fast and stable connection for cloud gaming or streaming services like Google Stadia and Game Pass. I tested the device with G-Force, and while it wasn't perfect, the experience was still usable. However, if I were to play in a tournament setting, I would opt for a wired connection to minimize latency.

Streaming games from my own PC using Steam Link has also been an enjoyable experience. By connecting my PC to Ethernet, I can ensure a stable and low-latency connection. This feature is particularly useful when playing with friends or participating in online gaming sessions.

In conclusion, the Retro Pocket 3 is a powerful handheld device that offers an impressive range of features and capabilities. While it may not be the most powerful device on the market, its strengths lie in its ability to deliver a great gaming experience, thanks in part to its well-optimized games selection and streaming features. At $120-$130, this device may seem pricey, but for those who know what they're getting into, I highly recommend it.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey what's going on everybody it's eta prime back here again today we're going to be taking a look at the brand new retroid pocket three now before we get started i do want to mention that this is actually a pre-order that i put in the day they announced the pre-order this is the three gigabyte model but since then they have reached out and they're sending over a review unit now on paper it says that that one's gonna be a two gigabyte unit so we can definitely take a look at the quality of the review unit versus this one here which was just a basic pre-order that i put in with my own money so i've actually been really excited about the pocket three and these are definitely marketed as retro gaming consoles but one of the main things that i wanted to do on this was game streaming be it moonlight steam link xcloud geforce now and even ps5 streaming and we've got a 4.7 inch 16x9 ips display which would be great for playing pc games on this before we go any further i do want to address the elephant in the room there's definitely been some controversy behind the retroid pocket 3. this handheld was actually supposed to be released in november 2021 but i do want to draw your attention to taki udon's video link for it will be in the description but basically he's been testing the retroid pocket 3 since 2020. he's got a ton of hours into the handheld he's given the company lots of feedback but a couple weeks before this was supposed to launch in november 2021 he found an issue with the screen so it came down to the lcd driver where if you go to 30 brightness the screen would flicker uncontrollably now if it was just on the prototype he was using it'd be okay they could go back and swap out that lcd driver chip but here's the deal they already did a mass production run using that driver chip and they told them that they would go back and replace it but there is a big chance that some people are going to receive some of these units with the older driver chip that gives you that issue and really when it comes down to it they should have went through and replaced that driver chip in every single one of them and we're not exactly sure if they did he also voiced some concerns about software bugs that he found and the company claimed that they're going to fix these in an ota update so i would highly recommend checking that video out he spent more time with the retro pocket 3 than anybody else has and if you're interested in these handhelds he's got a lot of great videos over there so i'll leave a link to the channel and the video in the description but for this video we're going to be taking a look at the retro pocket 3 just like it is right out of the box this is a pre-order that i put in the day the pre-order was announced and i've had a few days to spend with this unit and so far i'm actually really enjoying it now i will admit that most of the stuff that i've been using on this is game streaming so playing pc games from my main pc or my ps5 geforce now or xcloud on this unit but we will be taking a look at some native android gaming and emulation because after all this is touted as a retro emulation handheld when i put my pre-order in there wasn't much information about the cpu they're using here or if they were using conductive pads or dome style behind the d-pad and the buttons but it looks like this is actually using the same exact cpu as the retro pocket two plus so we've got the unisoc tiger t310 quad-core cpu and out of the box it is using the dome style buttons and d-pad just like you'd find in the ps vita but they also include the conductive pads and the pcbs so you can swap over if you want to it would have been nice to have this out of the box but to tell you the truth i don't mind these dome styles on a handheld like this it's not a deal breaker to me but just keep in mind if you want the conductive pads you'll have to do it yourself at least at launch i'm not sure if they're going to change this down the road so when it comes to the specs of the pocket 3 for that cpu we've got the unisoc tiger t310 this is a quad-core arm cpu we've got one a75 core at two gigahertz and three a55 cores at 1.8 the gpu is the powervr ge 8300 at 800 megahertz you can pick this up with either two or three gigabytes of ram both of them are going to have 32 gigabytes of internal storage plus micro sd card support we've got a 4.7 inch ips display with a resolution of 750 by 1334 it is a 60 hertz display with a 16 by 9 aspect ratio it's got a 4 000 milliamp hour battery running android 11 and when it comes to pricing 119 for the 2 gigabyte model and 129 for the 3. in this video we're going to be taking a look at the three gigabyte model because that's the one i pre-ordered i wanted a little extra ram for android so straight off the bat first thing i noticed when i booted this thing up was the screen i really like the way this thing looks it's not a super high end display it is ips and we've got some really good viewing angles and it being a 16 by 9 aspect ratio isn't great for retro gaming because we'll have those black borders on the sides or you could always go through and use bezels but for native android gaming and game streaming this is the perfect aspect ratio as soon as you start the unit up it's going to give you a nice little walk through it'll ask you if you want to install some apps and google play services so we can get google play obviously i did it here and the way it looks right now we've basically got the aosp android launcher but they do have the retro pocket launcher built in for retro games and this is pretty cool allows you to configure many different emulators we can head over here to a section that i've already got set up let's do a gba and as you can see i've already got some games installed i just placed them in the correct location scanned for the games and automatically downloaded box art for me some of this stuff isn't finished downloading but it will do it on the fly so i'm just using the default location and i set it up for a micro sd card i've just placed a 400 gigabyte card in here and if we head over to my dreamcast section i haven't set this one up yet all i need to do is select roms choose add a directory we're going to go with the default location that's on my micro sd card it's going to scan that directory download metadata and box art for me and with all of these games we can set it up with a different emulator if you want to use retro arch that's totally fine or you could use a standalone emulator but uh the way i've got it set up right now for my low end stuff i'm running retro arch for the high-end stuff using stand-alone like ppsspp for psp i'm even using a standalone n64 emulator known as moo pen 64 plus and n64 does run really well on this device and one thing you really got to keep in mind is this does have a lower end cpu it's not a top of the line soc in this unit if you're looking for raw performance i would go with the odin pro or even the odin light both of those will outperform the cpu and gpu we have in the retro pocket 3. and as you can see on screen now we do have some proprietary settings built into android specifically designed for this device we can change the button layout i've got mine set up like an xbox or you could go retro with it it's up to you now we've got a touch screen built in on the retro pocket 3 here but they've still added the mouse function which might come in handy for some people actually really easy to set up we need to set up a hotkey so we're going to press two buttons at the same time and holding down for about three seconds this is just going to set our hotkey to turn that mouse function on and off and with it on we can actually navigate the full operating system from the analog stick and we've got a mouse cursor on screen it can be disabled or enabled at any time so yeah they've definitely added some really handy software here and there is a little more to it when we get into gaming i'll show you that in a second but let's go ahead and take a look at the i o and the buttons on the unit itself so down here at the bottom we've got our speakers we've got a micro sd card slot our usb type c for charging and syncing the unit up and a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack really nice to have that on an android device in 2022 over here on the right hand side we've got a physical android home button over on the left hand side we've got our volume rocker and one thing i had to get used to was the start and select button being up top here it's a little out of place but i mean you can definitely get used to it would have been nice to see them on the front of the unit itself but it does keep it nice and clean we've also got our power button and micro hdmi up here and moving around back got a nice clean look i really think they did a great job with the design i love the way this thing looks jumping right into some initial retro gaming first up we've got gba and with this cpu we've got more than enough power for the low end stuff nes snes pc engine you want to do some neo geo cps one two three obviously we've got some gba working really well here using the drastic emulator nds also runs really well and i've had really good luck with dreamcast using redream now you could always go with flycast if you want to but i've been using redream and it seems to perform pretty decently on this with no upscale now with flycast there's a chance we could upscale some fighting games but with this one here even using marvel vs capcom 2. i'm just at the native resolution and with this one i always like to test out the d-pad now remember i've still got the domes here i haven't swapped out to the conductive pads and that might feel a lot better to some people the d-pad does move a little more than i'm used to with these domes so maybe later on down the road i will swap it out but for now it does work another system that runs really well on this handheld is n64 so i'm using the standalone version of 64 plus fz you can get it from google play or you could always use retro arch if you want to but i've had a pretty good experience with n64 using this emulator on the device even something like 007 goldeneye is playable and i do want to mention that with everything that i've tested so far i haven't had to map any of the controls redream retro arch and moo pin 64 plus fz just automatically had it set up for me but with the higher end stuff like dolphin and aether sx2 for ps2 you will have to go in and map the controls or do automatic mapping with ether sx too i also wanted to show off a little bit of psp emulation and this was the first system i started noticing some issues with when i move over to higher end games i'm using the standalone version of ppsspp vulcan back in 1x resolution tekken 6 which i consider a mid-range game to emulate it does run really well but moving over to the harder to emulate stuff like the god of war series killzone and even midnight club i did have to turn frame skip on and this is where it comes back again that we have a lower end cpu remember we've got four cores and only one of them is running at two gigahertz now it's great for the low end stuff and even a lot of psp games at 1x but with the harder to emulate stuff you may have to turn frame skip on i'm personally not a huge fan of it but it does work out if you have to play that game and the final emulator i wanted to show off at least for this video was aether sx2 for ps2 emulation this is crash bandicoot the wrath of cortex it's actually an easier game to emulate on arm right now from the preset we're at fast or unsafe mode with ether sx2 and i've got the resolution set to 0.5 so we're at half native resolution and unfortunately we're just not getting great performance out of this one lots of frame skip or cycle skips going on because i'm in unsafe mode and another one i tested was gran turismo 4. now don't get me wrong there will be some rpgs in 2d games that'll probably run at full speed with the ps2 emulator on this device but i wouldn't run out and buy one of these specifically for ps2 3ds gamecube or wii and again i will admit i'm sure there's some games that will run with each of those emulators given your settings and tweaks you do but it's just not got the power to go out and buy it specifically for those systems now it's time to move over to some native android gaming but before we jump into it i did want to show you a couple more features they have built in here once you launch a game you can swipe over from the right hand side and from here we've got a few different things that we can do for games that don't natively support controllers we've got a built-in on-screen mapper we can set these anywhere we want and in turn we can map it to a physical button we've also got an on-screen fps counter floating window here we can move it anywhere we want we can also set up to show the network and we've got a ram cleaner which does come in handy because after all we've only got three gigs of ram and two if you opt for the two gigabyte model with other apps running in the background it would definitely help out by killing some processes and since i was already messing around with dead cells i figured i'd go ahead and show it off running unfortunately it won't hit 60fps i don't have high resolution on or anything like that and from the settings we can lock this at 30 but i wanted to see how high we could get it i'd say we get an average of around 35 out of this game next up we've got minecraft obviously this has been on mobile for a while now and is very well optimized i'm at six chunks i do have fancy graphics off and it's running pretty decently we can't quite lock it right at 60 but it's still an enjoyable experience playing minecraft on this device like i mentioned at the beginning of the video one thing i was most excited for on this unit was cloud gaming or even streaming from my own pc it's got five gigahertz wi-fi built-in and in the future hopefully we get something in this form factor with wi-fi six it would definitely make streaming a little better but where i am right now i've got a pretty decent internet connection and when it comes to cloud gaming i haven't run into many issues i've tested g-force now stadia and game pass we're going to go with mk 11 real quick and i'm not a huge fan of playing fighting games on the cloud but when i'm facing off against the cpu i'm not really worried about it if i was playing in a tournament or something like that i'd never go cloud gaming it's still usable like this i wanted to test one more here one of my favorite racing games forza horizon 5 streaming from the cloud using the game pass app here not bad and like i mentioned i do have a pretty decent internet connection and that definitely helps out with cloud gaming but one thing i've been doing with this handheld quite a bit is using steam link on it you could also go with moonlight but i've personally had much better luck with steam link i've got my main gaming pc set up in the house it's ready to go and that pc is actually connected to ethernet so we've only got one device on wi-fi same goes for when i use this with a ps5 streaming been doing that a lot with it but yeah this has actually been working out really well and this is a bit different from cloud gaming because i'm on the same network that the pc is on so obviously latency will be lower you're still going to have a little bit of it because we're not wired to that pc right here but it's much better than cloud gaming and i've been able to play my favorite pc games on this device in the house with no issues at all so far i've been having a really great time with the retro pocket 3 and i haven't swapped over to the conductive pads yet i don't mind these dome style buttons and d-pad it actually feels pretty decent to me used to play in the vita like that and i personally haven't run into the screen flickering issue i've tried all brightnesses but you never know i mean quality control can be an issue when it comes to handhelds like this so you really gotta weigh your options before you put the money down at 120 to 130 dollars it's not cheap and you know if those issues aren't there then i could highly recommend something like this if you know what you're getting into it's not a super powerful handheld but there's still a lot of stuff that can get done with this but that's going to wrap it up for my first look at the retro pocket three i will have at least one more video coming up in the next few days i want to spend some more time with this i'll definitely be testing out some more high-end emulation and if there's anything else you want to see running on the pocket 3 just let me know in the comments below but like always thanks for watching\n"