Buy the Retroid Pocket Flip here: https://joeysrh.link/RP_FLIP2
What is the Retroid Pocket Flip 2?
Just right off the bat, what’s special about this specific handheld is a few things.
First, it’s a clamshell, a form factor that we really don’t see many of in this hobby so it’s rare, but secondly this has all the same power as the Retroid Pocket 5 – meaning, you can easily play Nintendo 3DS, GameCube, Wii, PlayStation 2, Switch and more on this.
I actually did videos on most of these systemwares, full showcases of a lot of games to show how they run and with the exception of Switch, you are pretty well set on the other systems and upscaled.
Throw in an AMOLED screen, smallish overall size, offset controls and you have the best Android clamshell that you can buy right now at $229 US dollars, directly from Retroids website.
Now, it’s not perfect, and we’ll talk about the issues I have with it – but by way of having no actual competition of any other clamshells in or around this price range that can do PlayStation 2, GameCube and so on, this ends up being your defacto choice if you can live with the cons it has.
Important Specs
So let’s dive right in to the review and let’s start right off with a quick look at the specs.
If you’re familiar enough with the Retroid Pocket 5, this is all the same except in a clamshell form factor, and we’re using the same Snapdragon 865 processor which we talked about earlier performance wise and aside from Switch emulation, it’s essentially perfect for current Android emulation.
Snapdragon just comes out way ahead compared to Dimensity chips and it’s great to have it here again, but you get the benefits of using Linux if you want to, Windows emulation, proper HD texture pack support with DDS files and so much more.
There’s the usual suspects of 8GB of RAM, Android 13, 5000mAh battery which we’ll talk about later and so on.
128GB Storage Concern
One point to mention, this unfortunately has only 128GB of internal storage and for many of you, that will be fine, but there’s a few use cases of things that cannot be put anywhere except the internal storage on Android devices.
For example, Android games, have to be on the internal storage and those can be 20 to 30 GB each for the popular ones, HD texture packs for both GameCube and PS2 have to be put on the internal storage, and lastly, if you don’t have your Switch games combined with the DLC and updates, then your DLC and updates are installed to the internal storage.
All in all, I keep hoping that we’ll move on from 128GB as it’s limiting, but unfortunately still a thing here.
Tour, Size & Plastic
Taking a look at the actual handheld and the first thing you’ll realize if you didn’t have a Flip 1 is the size – it’s a lot smaller than expected, which is basically the whole selling point of clamshells and why they’re great.
Small size, protected with a built in case, you can throw it around anywhere and be fine.
Happy to report that, at the very least with the GameCube colored retail unit I have here, the plastic feels very good and normal and the device itself feels sturdy.
I can’t make comments on any other colors as my only experience is the Ice Blue with the engineering sample I had, but to be safe, I am only going to recommend purchasing the solid colors as that’s all I have here and all I can personally recommend.
The GC I have here does not feel cheap, or creaky or less sturdy or anything like that in comparison, it’s very well made and feels great.
The top design
The design on top is unfortunate, I went from not caring too much about it at the start, to really hating it with every fibre of my being.
It makes no sense, I wish there was some reason it needed to exist, but it doesn’t.
The SD card door
Just quickly, this isn’t a large nitpick, but I think this might be one of the worst SD card reader trays or whatever you want to call it ever.
First, you struggle to actually open the door of it, but then it’s so short and you can barely even get to the SD card, which as usual requires something else to pop it out or push it in, but my annoyance is the little door not giving you any breathing room.
Small nitpick, thankfully once you put in an SD card, you never have to remove it since you can wirelessly transfer.
Controls
Continuing on to the controls, and I’m a big fan of this layout scheme.
It’s very comfortable, much more than the Retroid Pocket 5 thanks to the offset controls and where I struggled with stick heavy games on the Pocket 5, I don’t have that problem here.
In fact, even playing something like Call of Duty felt good to me, just ignore all the dying I do.
I find the inset sticks to be pretty good here, enjoyable and grippier stick caps that they’re using.
The dpad and buttons feel roughly the same as the Retroid Pocket 5 from what I can tell and overall, these are great.
I wish they were bigger
I do wish the dpad and buttons were bigger, there is a lot of room to use here and I’m not sure what’s going on under the hood, but I would have loved larger ones here as a nitpick.
They’re likely just using the same parts because it’s easier and cheaper of course, so it’s not a big deal – the Retroid dpad and buttons still feel great to me as usual, but I can dream of bigger.
Lack of M1/M2 & Home/Back
I’m disappointed in the lack of M1 and M2 buttons like the Flip 1 had, they were super useful for a lot of things and they’re gone here on the Flip 2.
The power button is also in the most unfortunate of spots, right next to the home/back combo button and I found myself pushing that instead of home/back a lot of times.
No personal issues with home/back being a single button, that’s always worked for me as I use L3 as my hotkey enable button in emulators since you should never be exiting emulators using the home button.
Triggers
Now on the back, is the shoulders and triggers and the shoulders themselves are nice and clicky, loud as well if you care about that sort of thing, but the triggers are unfortunate and we’ll talk about that now along with overall comfort.
My main problem with the triggers is how they’re sloped.
With how you naturally hold the device, the triggers highest points are at the sides of the device meaning that you feel a tall part and then it slopes down towards to the middle of the device.
It’s extremely not ergonomic and uncomfortable.
They should have been curved or sloped upwards towards the center or anything besides what they did here.
I find myself having to hold the device differently than I want to, in a more uncomfortable position because of the triggers and this it even just for hotkey usage, nevermind using them for actual shooting or gaming where it feels worse to me.
Comfort
And that sort of ties into my overall thoughts on comfort and ergonomics because while I love the control scheme, I found the device to be uncomfortable with my hands.
I don’t have large hands, so the blocky nature of the sides has made it difficult for me to hold this device in a single position for any sort of time.
If I have to use the triggers at all, I’m constantly going between positions, and a lot of time trying to softly hold the device with like a baby cradling sort of scenario.
This seemed to change depending on where I was and how I was sitting.
At a desk doing a livestream? It all felt great and I think I’m realizing that talking about ergonomics and comfort on a livestream isn’t great because having something to rest on really changes things.
But on my couch lying down as I normally play, it was tough to use or just having the device free in the air.
I do want to point out that I don’t have that problem or issue with the original Flip 1, as it’s a bit smaller, lighter and more comfortable to me, but it did affect my enjoyment here and it’s unfortunately something that got worse over time instead of better.
I think those with larger hands, will likely be fine here, but it’s been a struggle for me.
So I think just to recap and make it clear here – I think the layout of everything is fantastic, I really like the sticks top, I like the offset controls, I think all of that is something they nailed, but it’s the physical chassis of the device and the blocky nature that I’m struggling with to use those awesome controls.
Hinge Thoughts
Just quickly on the hinge, I can’t talk about long term reliability as I simply have no idea, but I will say everything that I’ve personally seen and used with this hinge seems to be great.
I think they nailed it, but that’s only visually and going off feel, we will have to see long term how it holds up.
AMOLED Screen
Like the Retroid Pocket 5, this is using the same gorgeous 5.5” AMOLED 1080p 60hz screen.
It’s a great screen in every way – the brightness slider has the proper ranges for lowest to highest, it’s essentially exactly 60hz when testing the refresh rate, and no weird discoloration at any percentages.
For those that worry about PWM dimming, this uses DC dimming instead which is a pro to anyone that’s susceptible to that.
For those that haven’t used a Flip 1, it’s not a major problem, but you will find yourself having to swipe down multiple times sometimes as the lip on the top can get in the way of you using the very top of the screen, but it’s a minor issue.
Otherwise, the entire screen is just gorgeous, no complaints at all here for the price and what you’re getting.
Battery
On the battery front, I did a few tests as I usually do and the results were pretty much the exact same as my Retroid Pocket 5 review.
Battery life is fantastic here, which shouldn’t be a shock to anyone, and nothing that stands out as a problem or an issue at least with the tests that I did and the time that I’ve been using this.
Over 10 hours for GBA is fantastic in every way.
Speakers
But let’s talk about sound and audio, as this is where my biggest issues with the Flip 2 are – aside from the overall comfort and ergonomics.
On the speaker front, they’re disappointing – in the same way that most Retroid’s are, including the 5, and it’s no different here.
For the Flip 2, the sound is muffled or it has a very underwater feeling which is hard to describe, but you can hear the difference instantly compared to any other handhelds.
The Portal has a fuller, richer sound whereas the Flip 2 is more muffled and it sounds like or feels like the speakers are pointing inwards into the casing instead of outwards, but they aren’t.
The speakers are in phase, I made sure to test, so this could just be a simple EQ fix with an over the air update, but I have no idea if that’s something they will do.
I will say the Retroid Pocket 5 has been waiting for a similar update because of its speakers, and that shipped November 14th, so about six months ago.
Hopefully, we don’t have to wait six months for this fix.
Sound using the device
Overall, for me personally, only the shoulder buttons can be loud – but I also don’t have a problem with the Retroid Pocket 5’s button noise, or the Odin 2 Portals or anything like that.
I find all of that to be overblown, but thats just my opinion.
I think the Flip 2’s buttons sound roughly the same as the 5’s, if that helps you understand where it falls.
The fan
But we get to one of my actual dealbreakers with the device, and it’s the fan.
Now, it’s rare to need to care about or talk about a fan on these types of devices – on my 5, I kept it on quiet mode and never had to use it.
Unfortunately, there’s some weirdness with the Flip 2 and the fan noise on Quiet mode is a lot louder, and also has a coil whine effect which shouldn’t be there.
Quiet mode, on all devices, should be inaudible and the fan is spinning in a low RPM state to cool the device without you hearing it.
With the Flip 2, that’s not the case and if you are susceptible to coil whine, or that sort of ringing, you will hear it here.
If you turn off the fan, in a lot of my scenarios, I felt the device heating up and getting warm and making my hands sweaty, even in small scenarios like Game Boy Advance with fast forward or DS with fast forward nevermind upscaled PS2, so that’s not a solution.
This is also something that can likely be fixed by an over the air update, but who knows how long that might take and what the negatives of that will be if the heat changes due to a slower fan or if they will actually do it.
To me, besides the comfort problem, this was the biggest issue I had using the Flip 2 as I normally use my devices.
Software & Sleep
On the software front, a lot of everything is still the same as the Retroid Pocket 5, so if you’re familiar with that, you’d be familiar with this.
Retroid does not include games with their devices, so no SD card full of games, which is great.
They do have an option to use their preconfigured emulators, which are all out of date, so you’d want to use my setup guide to get you going here and I have that in the description.
Otherwise, essentially everything you need is here – you can control the stick LED’s if you want to change colors, turn them off and so on, control the fan, control your layout from Nintendo to Xbox and so on.
Nothing special really to talk about on the software front.
The device does go to sleep if you close the lid, and in the case of many emulators, it will bring you right back to the game you were playing if you had it open at the time.
This won’t be across the board, but I tested a few overnight and they were just fine booting right back.
Games & Performance
Performance wise, we talked about it before, but you are pretty well set here with optimizations and performance.
Obviously all retro systems are going to play just fine and perfectly – Super Nintendo, the Game Boys, PlayStation 1, Nintendo 64, Dreamcast, PSP and so on and with no issues, upscaled if you want.
GameCube and PS2 would be a great reason to purchase this – again I have full videos on both, but minus the few games that just have trouble being emulated, you can get away with the vast majority of each’s catalog with little to no tweaking.
If you want a device that you can just install Dolphin or NetherSX2, setup your controls, upscale and click play – this is that in a lot of scenarios.
And so, no real reason to do a deep dive here into performance thanks to the many videos that already exist on the Retroid Pocket 5, all of that applies here, but for those of you that want pocketable PS2 and GameCube, you have that here.
Versus the Retroid Pocket 5
For those that want a quick thought on this versus the Retroid Pocket 5, the answer is I’m not sure.
Both have their pros and cons currently, I think overall the Flip 2 is better, especially for stick heavy games and maybe overall comfort, but it’ll depend on the person’s hands.
I don’t know, I don’t have an answer for this one unfortunately.
Wrapping up, who is this for?
I do want to start to wrap things up here, and start to give my thoughts on things.
Overall, for what you’re getting for $229 US dollars, there’s a lot to like here.
A lot of people will be happy, I think this checks and nails a lot of boxes and I think this is a good update to the Flip 1 in a lot of ways.
It’s a pretty easy recommendation across the board and generally – and a lot of that is just due to the fact that if you want a powerful clamshell like this, you have no other options, it’s this or nothing.
I think if you value speakers, or if you have an issue with fan noise like I do, then you may want to wait to see how the updates shake out – if there are any. If you’re concerned about comfort, and didn’t find the Flip 1 comfortable, I don’t think anything here will change your mind as I think that part has regressed between devices for me personally.
My personal thoughts & use cases
And that sort of brings me to my actual personal thoughts here, and I don’t know how to say all of this without inciting a riot, but I want to be clear these are my personal thoughts on this device and my own use cases and doesn’t necessarily reflect you or the average person watching this.
As someone who has been waiting for the Flip 2 for years now and I think overall, I’m not blown away and it hasn’t hit the right notes for me.
To the point where I actually think, for my uses and to me, the Flip 1 is a better fit.
Yeah I’m aware how that sounds, but the Flip 1, to me, is just wildly more comfortable and honestly, all I wanted was the new upgrades in that same chassis, which was already rounded and comfortable.
To be super clear here, I’m only speaking of myself right now, but on paper the Flip 2 should have been everything I wanted – in reality, it isn’t.
I think they should have done a lot better on the ergonomics here, which could just be my hands, but this control layout is too good to be held back by the casing and blockyness of this.
The Flip 1 is better to me
The Flip 1, to me, feels a lot better in the hands in comparison even if in every single way it’s a downgrade spec wise – I think it being smaller, works a lot better for my hands, which makes it a lot more comfortable.
The screen, performance and all of the upgrades don’t mean much if I don’t find the device comfortable to hold, but I also wasn’t clamoring for performance either.
The performance upgrades, to me, are a bonus – not what I personally needed for an on the go companion device like this.
This would be a companion device to the Odin 2 Portal, something that I can bring with me on the go in my sling bag and take out when needed and I think even in that scenario, with the limited playtime that would get, it still isn’t the right fit for me.
I can say with certainty though, if I didn’t have the Portal, this would not be my single device for use – I wouldn’t be able to use this and be comfortable with it for how long my gaming sessions are, as I tend to play long sessions at once.
I can live with the speakers not being super great, that’s pretty much a usual scenario in our hobby, but I can’t live with the fan noise.
A lot of my gaming is muted, with fast forward on and I found myself having a tough time even playing this for review due to the whining from the fan.
This, I think can be fixed thankfully, but it isn’t right now. It wouldn’t solve my comfort issues, but it’d be the second last dealbreaker removed at least.
Final Thoughts
So overall, unless you’re special like me, I think a lot of people will like this device quite a bit and be happy with it.
I think with how personal comfort and ergonomics are, my experience shouldn’t be a dealbreaker for you and you’d likely have to grab one to test if it fits your hands.
For me, I have my Flip 1 here and I’ll be using that on the go until someone does it better.
The Flip 2 just isn’t what I was looking for from a sequel to a device that I hold in very high regard.