Retroid Pocket 2S Review with video – A retro gaming handheld where nostalgia meets modern

Retroid have gone back to their original Pocket 2 design with the 2S model, featuring a few updates and a Tiger T610 CPU instead of the T618. In our Retroid Pocket 2S review we find out if the choice of CPU is worth the money for this retro gaming handheld.

Retroid Pocket 2S Review Video

Unboxing the Retroid Pocket 2S

We start our Retroid Pocket 2S review with a brief unboxing. Up first we have a card with some information on the device and the specs. No quick start guide included, but there is an app on the device going over all the info you need.

Underneath is the Retroid Pocket 2S classic gaming handheld itself which we will show in more detail shortly. And under that is a USB Type-C charge cable. 

Retroid Pocket 2S Overview

Continuing our Retroid Pocket 2S review with an overview of the device. The Retroid Pocket 2S measures around 6.1 x 3.14 x 1.1 inches at its largest  (15.5 x 8 x 2.8 cm) and it weighs around 196g. It is available in six colours; Clear Green and 16bit both shown here, as well as Retro, Black, Indigo and Clear Back. 

The display is a 3.5” touchscreen with a 4:3 aspect ratio and 640×480 resolution which is great for retrogaming and upscaling.

On the front we have a classic D-Pad with hall effect analogue sticks and the usual gaming buttons. Along the bottom of the portable gaming handheld there are three additional buttons for Home, Return and a custom button.

Along the top we have left and right shoulder and trigger buttons, a Micro HDMI port for outputting to the TV or monitor, Type-C port for charging, a volume rocker and the power button.

On the bottom there is a micro SD card slot with rubber cap, and a 3.5mm headphone port.

Retroid Pocket 2S Technical Specifications

CPU	UNISOC Tiger T610 Octa Core CPU 2x A75 up to 1.8GHz and 6x A55 up to 1.8GHz,
GPU	Mali G52 MC2 up to 614MHz
RAM	3GB or 4GB LPDDR4x @ 1600Mhz
STORAGE	32GB/128GB eMMC
DISPLAY	3.5 inch touch screen, 4:3 aspect ratio, 640×480 resolution 60Hz, 450 nits
WIFI	2.4G/5G 802.11b/g/n/ac
BLUETOOTH	5.0
GAME CONTROLS	D-Pad, Double-coloured mold injection gaming buttons, Analogue L2/R2 and dual 3D hall effect sticks for zero drift, improved accuracy, high stability and longevity
OPERATING SYSTEM	Android 11. Also includes: Newest official game launcher and emulator frontend and official OTA support for incremental software upgrade
TV OUTPUT	Supports 480p via Micro HDMI
BATTERY	4000mAh rechargeable battery
CASE COLOURS	16-bit, Black, Retro, Indigo, Transparent Black and Transparent Green
SIZE	4.52 x 3.17 x 1.10 inches (15.5 x 8.0 x 2.8 cm)
WEIGHT	200g

It has a 4000mAh battery which in our tests running Antutu on a loop got us around 5 hours 39 minutes battery life.

In our temperature test  we got around 46 °C while running Antutu on a benchmark. The device is passively cooled so there is no fan inside.

Retroid Pocket 2S Android Overview

The Pocket 2S runs on Android 11 which most of these handhelds usually run on. The Anbernic RG405V has set the trend running Android 12 though. We will spend a few moments with an overview of the Android OS for this Retroid Pocket 2S review.

The now familiar startup wizard greets you when first booting up and will go through a few setup steps such as connecting to WiFi and if you want Google Play Store installed. You can also choose which apps and emulators you want to install to the Retroid Pocket 2S for you. It’s a decent wizard and gives you the choice of a clean or partial setup install.

You have a choice of using the standard Android menu or the Retroid Launcher which does require some setting up to use. You can scan your storage for any games you have added and it will sort them into appropriate consoles and download the images etc.

You also have the overlay software which is very good. From here you can quickly and easily change various settings, take screenshots, record video and livestream. You also have the very good screen mapping software where you can map the game controls to on screen controls.

Top marks for Retroid and their Android handheld setup!

System Benchmarks

As part of our Retroid Pocket 2S review we are running some system benchmarks so we can compare the performance with other devices.

3DMark

We start the benchmarks with 3DMark, it tests the CPU and GPU working together for its performance. The Retroid Pocket 2S vintage gaming handheld is sitting roughly between the Pocket Flip and the Pocket 3 models with a score of 1482. 

Geekbench

Next we have Geekbench which tests single and multi-core CPU performance. For single core performance we see scores not far from the Tiger T618 processor. However in multi-core performance we can see a higher performance difference between the T618 and T610 in the Pocket 2S.

Antutu

And last but not least Antutu which performs your more day-to-day usage tasks from web browsing, UI performance and media playing.

We see great scores for the Retroid Pocket 2S, even beating the Pocket Flip portable gaming handheld. I am not sure what made the difference here, maybe the faster RAM speed but it definitely helped.

Emulator Performance

And of course we could not have a Retroid Pocket 2S review without the emulator performance. We know that the overall performance is a little lower than the Tiger T618 models but this won’t affect emulation performance so much up past the usual PlayStation 1 and Dreamcast era. 

We tried a bunch of PS1 and Dreamcast games and had no issues, everything was full frames and blue skies!

Moving on to the Dolphin emulator you will find some performance issues on some of the more demanding games. You can change the rendering resolution a notch or two down to improve the performance.

For PS2 you won’t have as much success as the T618 Android handhelds. We did see some performance issues in games that run fine on Retroid Pocket 3+ and Retroid Pocket Flip. Again you can lower the rendering resolution to improve performance but don’t expect amazing results.

We actually saw fairly good performance on the Citra emulator. Naturally you will have to  play most games through to generate the shaders, but after that we saw Sonic Generations and Ridge Racer running fairly well. You will see more often freezing than the T618 devices but overall it’s not bad performance.

Final Thoughts

We finish our Retroid Pocket 2S review with our thoughts on the device. Overall the Retroid Pocket 2S retro gaming handheld is a good addition to the Retroid range. It’s around 25% lower in cost, with around 22% lower performance than the Pocket Flip and Retroid Pocket 3+ models. It is decent value for money in terms of price versus performance. Essentially you are missing out on some of the higher demanding emulators which even on the T618 processors was not perfect.

We like the form factor of the Pocket 2S, it is comfortable to hold and definitely portable, maybe not quite as good as the 3+ model but it’s still nice. Having a newer version of Android, as well as the Retroid software is good to have, so no complaints there. 

The Retroid Pocket 2S classic gaming handheld is definitely worth considering if you are on a budget and not that fussed about emulators after the PlayStation 1 and Dreamcast era. 

You can buy the Retroid Pocket 2S here. Use the discount code RP2S5OFF for a 5% discount on the checkout. Please note the code is valid for 30 days of posting this video and it can not be used during a store sale or other promotion.

That wraps up our Retroid Pocket 2S review. Let us know in the comments what you think of it, would you buy one or spend a bit extra for the Pocket 3+ or Pocket Flip?