DISCLAIMER: All of the tests in this review were performed with the FPS Display enabled. I do not believe it changes the results by too much of a factor, just want to be as transparent as possible.
DISCLAIMER 2: None of the images of the device featured in this article belong to me. They are the property of Retroid or whoever I state they came from.
I received a Retroid Pocket 3 Plus in transparent blue for Christmas just 2 days ago, I had been considering buying one but was on the fence about it. After my experience, I would absolutely recommend anyone pick up the Retroid Pocket 3 Plus or the Retroid Pocket 4/4 Pro.
Purchase Link for 3+: here
Purchase Link for 4/4 Pro: here
Unboxing Experience
The unboxing experience is quite nice and elegant. It is a white box printed with Retroid branding on it. It also has magnets which give it a very high quality feel.
The following images are taken from an Ebay listing by Daily Grind10
The unboxing experience is overall very nice, apart from a plastic-like bag which the device was in which was a bit underwhelming. Would have liked to see the instruction manual below the device as well as it not being in a bag. Reason: There is a window to see the device. Anyways, that is just the unboxing.
First Boot
You power on the device by holding the power button, top left edge of the device, for a couple of seconds until you see it turn on. When it boots, you will be prompted with a first time setup for the device. When you have all of that configured, it will ask you if you want to use the Retroid launcher or a third party launcher. It will also ask if you want Google Play Services and preinstalled emulators/apps. I went with Google Play Services and some preinstalled emulators and PojavLauncher (Minecraft Java Edition for Android). One important thing I realized: Some of the applications were not up to date, such as PojavLauncher. PojavLauncher was very far behind the latest version and I would not recommend using the setup wizard to install apps. I uninstalled and reinstalled PojavLauncher and it worked a lot better and had up-to-date tutorials. However, I could see a lot of effort was made with this installer. I loved how you could choose not to have Google Services installed.
Benchmarks
In my testing on the Extreme performance preset in Geekbench 6 CPU I got a single-core score of 473 and a multi-core score of 1368. However, it is very important to note that I have seen people get scores upwards of 1500 in multicore. From what I can tell the single-core score I got was above average, however.
Geekbench 6 GPU benchmark OpenCL. I achieved a score of 1145.
Android Gaming
On Call of Duty: Mobile at medium graphics and high framerate (60hz) on the Extreme governor preset I was able to get a locked 60hz in most gamemodes. In Battle Royale it could dip down to 50 FPS sometimes. For controls I was using the on screen touch mapper since Call of Duty: Mobile does not have native controller support for anything but main-brand controllers.
In addition, Minecraft Java Edition, through PojavLauncher ran at at least 30 fps at most time on versions such as 1.12.2 at 2 chunks. I installed Fabric and a lot of performance enhancing mods to see what I could get it up to. On 1.18.2 I was able to get about 50 fps most of the time on 2 chunks. With the Zink renderer I was able to use Pojav’s own shaders. With Pojav’s chocopic shaders I achieved a framerate of about 20 on 2 chunks. Overall very impressive for a $125 device.
Game Streaming
I actually had a lot of fun with SteamLink streaming from my computer. It worked flawlessly around my entire house and could get a connection over 100mbps. Input latency was very very low.
Conclusion
I really, really like this device. It may have some flaws, like some button placement and MicroSD Card slot, but it is fantastic. It is absolutely amazing for the money and is very compelling if do not have enough for a switch or are a fan of open source software or android gaming. Some things I would have liked to see: Xbox-style thumbstick placement, unlocked bootloader, and analog triggers. I really like this device and I would recommend picking one up, but, the pocket 4 is out now and I would just get that. I would like to review one but I do not have the resources for that.
