What you need to know
- The Retroid Pocket Classic has been officially announced, with most of its specs being revealed.
- This upcoming retro handheld will feature a 3.92-inch AMOLED display, and is powered by a “Qualcomm 4nm” chip.
- Retroid has yet to share pricing or exactly what processor the Pocket Classic will feature, but it could be the Snadragon 4 Gen 2.
Late last month, Retroid announced the Pocket Flip 2, a clamshell handheld powered by Android. At the time, a second device was seen in the original announcement renders, but no other details were provided. Now, not only do we know that the Retroid Pocket Classic is on the way, but the company recently revealed most of its specs.
The most surprising aspect of the Pocket Classic is that Retroid is set to use a 3.92-inch AMOLED display with a 1240 x 1080 resolution. Most of the time, these retro handhelds rely on panels from older devices, and that’s likely the case here. Rumors suggest that Retroid is sourcing display panels from the LG Wing, which is a blast from the past in its own right.
Besides that, Retroid shared that the handheld is equipped with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of expandable storage, and it even ships with Android 14. Not to mention that it comes with a huge 5,000mAh battery and active cooling, which is honestly a bit of a shock.
Once released, we’ll have a total of six different color options to choose from, each of which pays homage to various consoles from our childhood. There is one that stands out from the rest, as the “Classic 6” is modeled after the Sega Saturn and is the only one to include six buttons. The other five models all sport the traditional four-button ABXY layout.
We don’t exactly know why, but Retroid stopped short of naming the specific chip that it plans to use with its latest gaming handheld. Instead, the marketing material only says that it’s a “Qualcomm 4nm” processor. After doing a bit of research, we could be looking at the Snapdragon 4 Gen 2, a processor released in 2023 and is found in a lot of great budget phones like the Redmi 12 5G, Poco M7, and others.
Unfortunately, we also don’t yet know what Retroid plans to price the Pocket Classic at. Based on the specs and the lack of any joysticks, which puts a ceiling on what systems you can comfortably enjoy, we wouldn’t be surprised if it comes in around $150.
Then again, this is the first vertical handheld from the company since the original Retroid Pocket was released in 2019. That handheld launched at $99, so if Retroid wanted to get a bit “cute,” we wouldn’t put it past them to open pre-orders for the Pocket Classic at that price.
