Retroid Pocket 5 Review

Buy the Retroid Pocket 5 here: https://joeysrh.link/RP_5

Looking for the Retroid Pocket 5 Setup Guide? Find it here.

Specs & Price

The Retroid Pocket 5 has a Snapdragon 865 processor, allowing you to play a ton of Android games, and for emulation purposes, you can play all systems up to and including 3DS, GameCube, PS2 and Wii U, upscaled and for the most part, minus the problematic games, worry free, and then some Nintendo Switch if you want.

I’ve actually done dedicated showcase videos on a lot of these systems already, in-depth and long so you can see how a ton of games play – I’d suggest checking those videos out.

The price is $219 US dollars, plus shipping, directly from Retroid’s website, and there’s four different color options. I’ve personally preordered the GameCube one.

There’s 8GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage, both of which could be a problem. Since the retail update, I haven’t been able to crash games by adding HD texture packs, like I did pre-update, so the RAM seems to have been adjusted for retail. It’s also lower while idling, mostly staying in the 2.2 to 2.4gb range with nothing happening.

The 128GB of internal storage is a bigger limitation, as GameCube/Wii, PS2 and Switch emulators all need to use the internal storage, as well as Android games. Android games can be 20+ GB in size, especially the popular ones, and if you run HD texture packs for the other emulators, or if you don’t have your Switch games combined, and are still installing updates and DLC separately, you can hit that 128GB internal cap pretty quick.

For your reference, Zenless Zone Zero takes up roughly 28GB and Honkai: Star Rail about 18GB.

Screen

The highlight of this device is the 5.5” 1080p AMOLED screen, which is gorgeous and carries this handheld quite a bit. The blacks blend in nicely if you’re running 4:3 content with black in it, and it gets super dim as well as extremely bright. It’s not as good as an Odin 2 Mini outside, but it’s better than most IPS displays I’ve seen.

Note: Camera adds ten pounds, or in this case, makes the RP5 look better outside, but in person, the Odin 2 Mini definitely has a better panel for outdoor usage.

The screen passes the UFO test for 60hz, confirmed in RetroArch as well and I haven’t noticed any input lag or added input lag compared to previous Retroid products.

The Retroid Pocket 5 has Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth, with Wi-Fi 6 being a great choice for streaming – both remote and local and I found that the range and throughput were both very good in comparison to Anbernic devices.

Battery Life

On the battery front, the lowest battery that I saw was 215 minutes or 3 hours, 35 minutes in Android games like Honkai Star Rail or Switch emulation, with essentially everything maxed out. Weirdly enough, this was also the case in GameCube and PS2 games. I actually did this test twice because I wasn’t trusting the findings, and it was the same both times. So, the worst-case scenario, should be around 3 hours 35 minutes.

But then Game Boy Advance saw a big increase over the pre-release update, as I was able to clock it at 11 hours.

Standby drain, so basically keeping the device in sleep mode, with nothing happening, I clocked at 5-8% over a 24-hour period. That’s pretty average for an Android device.

Keep in mind the bottom of this page, for my testing methodology here. Brightness will affect battery life, likely, and upscaling will also – the GameCube and PS2 tests were done at 3x upscaling, so once again in line with my methodology of worst-case scenario tests.

Comfort, D-pad, Sticks & Face buttons

With the many hours of using this device, I found that it’s more comfortable than the previous Retroid 4 Pro and 3 Plus, but the positioning of the d-pad is tough to use in a lot of stick heavy games. You can see my thumb cramping or crunching in a lot of the showcases I’ve done, and that doesn’t feel great.

To me, the Odin 2 Mini is a better design, with stick top in this same size form factor – and if you’re going to do stick bottom, it needs to be inset a lot more like a Dualshock or Dualsense controller does.

The d-pad is the same great Vita styled Retroid d-pad that we’ve seen in almost all their devices now, loose and accurate, and the sticks themselves are the same idea, with no major issues on them.

The face buttons are slightly more muted compared to the recent Mini release, but still on the louder side for those worrying about it. The shoulders and other buttons can be quite loud as well, if that’s a deal breaker for you and you can hear the device with gameplay in each of my showcase videos.

Audio, Thermals & Software

The speakers are a tad disappointing – they’re not great, but they’re not bad either, they’re solely in the middle and I wish more thought would be put into speakers.

The handheld does have active cooling, that you can adjust in the software, but I found that it doesn’t seem to get quite hot at all, no matter the task. The fan didn’t seem to kick on that often, but if you do throw it on Sport mode, it will be loud.

Otherwise, the software is like most Retroid builds with small additions, like a slider for the joystick LED’s, the usual performance toggles, swapping between Nintendo and Xbox layout and so on.

Performance

Performance wise, we talked about it before, but I have dedicated showcase videos on PlayStation 2, GameCube, 3DS, Wii U, Switch and even Game Boy Advance. Lots of games tested and so I’m confident in saying that you’re pretty well set to play most any game on any system besides Switch with the usual caveat of games that just don’t emulate well. I show examples of those in those specific videos.

Retroid Pocket 5 vs. Anbernic RG556/406V/H

Let’s talk comparisons now. There’s the Anbernic RG556 and new Anbernic RG406H – both cheaper than the Retroid Pocket 5, with the 556 sharing a similar OLED screen while the 406H is using an IPS display, the 556 has worse sticks, while the 406H has the newer Anbernic sticks which are a clone of Retroid’s with different caps, much worse performance – the T820 struggles with upscaled GameCube, 3DS and PS2 and requires tweaking for them, quite a bit of it, worse d-pad and so on. Even at a cheaper price point, I would spend the extra for the Retroid Pocket 5 in both scenarios – both of the Anbernic devices will have you wanting more.

Retroid Pocket 5 vs. Retroid Pocket Mini

The Retroid Pocket Mini is another alternative, and I think if you have a size requirement that’s in line with the size of the Mini, then it’s a great option. However, I find the 5 to be perfectly sized for portability and use in comparison to the Mini, so this will be a personal preference decision for most people. The 5 fits more of my needs.

Retroid Pocket 5 vs. AYN Odin 2 Mini

Then we have the Odin 2 Mini and the Odin 2. In comparison to the Odin 2 Mini, the Retroid Pocket 5 has a much better screen, better battery life and cooling and is much cheaper, while the Odin 2 Mini is much more powerful, has a better layout with stick top and I find it to be more comfortable overall. Unless you need the extra power, of which Switch games become a lot more playable, as well as Winlator emulation use cases, and upscaling past the screen for docked play, I would stick with the Retroid Pocket 5 instead as that’s what I’m doing.

I don’t consider the Odin 2 and Retroid Pocket 5 to be competing devices, but it would be very similar to the Odin 2 Mini points, except the Odin 2 has a much worse display than both, with a lot of visible ghosting, and it’s a much larger handheld, removing the portability or a lot of the portability. I would instead consider the Odin 2 Portal to be a better option – and would say that it would depend on if you want a small device, like the Retroid Pocket Mini, or a medium sized portable like the Retroid Pocket 5, or a larger at home device like the Odin 2 Portal – only you can answer that.

For me, the large sized devices slot is taken up exclusively by an x86 handheld, like my ROG Ally X.

My Thoughts

Overall, the Retroid Pocket 5 is close enough to what I’m looking for in a companion handheld and so easily became a daily driver for me, even with its flaws. Given it’s the end of year and I’m thinking about best handhelds of the year, it will likely be a 1-2 with the Ally X and Retroid Pocket 5.