The Retroid Pocket 5 is the handheld I’ve been waiting for
How does someone choose which handheld to buy when better, cheaper hardware comes out almost every week? The answer (finally) is the Retroid bag 5. But just like solving a good math problem, it’s important that I show my work.
For the past two years, I’ve been stuck in a cycle I like to call the Handheld Buyer’s Dilemma. A YouTube channel – like my love Retro Game Corps – would introduce a new, incredible handheld that emulates virtually every console and platform released before the PlayStation 2. I would open the store page in a new tab and spend a week worrying about the cost of the gadget and the time it would take to customize it to my taste. When I was finally ready to open my wallet, I opened YouTube instead, and the loop started all over again when I discovered a new video about a new handheld that promised to be even better than the last.
Abundance should be a blessing. Companies like Anbernic, Retroid and Ayaneo have flooded the market with handhelds that appeal to almost every type of gamer. Do you want a re-creation of yours? favorite retro handheld? Or maybe you prefer something like powerful as a gaming PC? Or maybe something boxy but beautiful? Fierce competition drives prices down year after year.
The rush to lower prices and offer more options, instead of the best option, is my problem. Handheld manufacturers prioritize different features for each handheld. Some have great screens but messy controls. Others have a lot of graphics power, but weak batteries. The handhelds that look the best can feel uncomfortable to play, and the handhelds that feel comfortable – well, you know what I mean.
The Retroid Pocket 5 broke me out of this cycle. Compared to its competitors, Retroid releases fewer new handhelds in a given year, and that focus shows. In the case of the Pocket 5, the system looks as good as it feels. It’s small enough to throw in my carrying bag yet has a big, beautiful OLED screen that reminds me of the original PlayStation Vita and the Nintendo Switch OLED. It’s powerful enough to run everything I throw at it, from Atari to Dreamcast, and it took less than an hour of tinkering to get it working reliably – thanks to the plentiful YouTube tutorials, of course.
It’s so portable, so light, so fun to play. The plastic casing feels light and cozy in the hand, and games load in a flash. Even the touchscreen proved reliable with Vita emulation. I spent my holidays revisiting retro games that I hadn’t taken out of storage in decades. For the first time in years, my Steam Deck was collecting dust. And when I returned to it – as great as Valve’s handheld is – it felt big and heavy. So I streamed games I used to play on my Steam Deck to Retroid Pocket 5 using the handheld’s access to Android’s Google Play Store.
However, the cycle I mentioned above did not stop. After ordering my handheld, I learned about the Anbernic RG 406H, the Odin2 Portal, the TrimUI Brick, the Ayaneo Pocket DMG, and the Anbernic RG 34XX. Some are more powerful than the Retroid Pocket 5. Others look better. But for me, with my new handheld, the porridge is just right.
So do I recommend the Retroid Pocket 5 to snap readers out of their own portable paralysis? Not quite. While I love my new little device, I’ve come to realize something else: I would have happily owned any other handheld I could have bought in the past two years of downtime. And that’s two years of not playing any games I would have enjoyed.
The real takeaway should be that each modern handheld is sufficient. Handheld gaming YouTubers don’t lie. Each of these is great just in its own way. If you just want a handheld to play older games – via ROMs of the games you own – then you can close your eyes, throw a dart and hit a great option.
Or, I guess you can just keep watching YouTube videos. It’s almost as much fun and a lot cheaper.
