Retroid Pocket 4 Pro DOES IT ALL (3 Months Later Review)

there have been so many retro handheld releases this year and anck have been on the sort of role that reviewers dreams are made of who writes these scripts and I feel like the retroid Pucket 4 pro has been neglected to some extent in terms of how good it is and how lucky we are to have devices like this that exist in the world it's a sort of does it all device you see what I did there repeating the title in the introduction to trick you into thinking this is important so we're going to start this 3 months later review backwards by starting with a comparison of a bunch of devices which I usually do at the end I'm going to do it in the beginning which means my video is kind of backwards but you're going to watch it from start to finish anyway and you won't even noticed that so why am I even saying this so I've got all these devices we're going to look at them now but let's quickly do a message from my sponsor fear not because PCB way is here their comprehensive online ordering system makes it both easy and efficient to get a quote for your next custom project and if you get stuck they have an online live chat to guide you through the process step by step this is for novice electronic projects all the way through to commercial stuff so whether it's 3D printing custom pcbs and even CNC projects think of PCB way so I realized that a lot of these devices aren't in the same price bracket aren't in the same performance bracket but I want to kind of start with this to prove my does it all approach let's start with The ambic Arc so this is the first one on the list that um you know horizontal form factors that I have here in the studio this is one of the few on the list that really hold its own and the reason for that is that this is a very Niche and unique device and it does its own kind of thing it's got the six button layers it's got this floating d-pad it really is a special device and kind of holds its own as the Retro pocket 4 Pro but the point here is that the Retro pocket 4 Pro can do everything this can do and then some but again like if you have the Retro pocket 4 Pro and you sold this and you've got the money this would be a hard one to pass up because it is just so unique I know this doesn't 100% make sense but hear me out here then we've got the trim UI smart Pro this is quite a special device um a bigger screen than the retr pocket 4 Pro the the sticks aren't as good and this doesn't have much over the retr pocket 4 Pro apart from being maybe a little bit more more ergonomic and the bigger screen but you know it lacks power and it's got terrible terrible joysticks the retr pocket 4 Pro can do everything that this thing can do then there's move over to original hardware for a second we've got the 3DS now this is also a hard one to compete with because nothing really beats the 3DS my 3DS is a bit banged up but nothing really beats the 3DS the steam deck can maybe compete with the 3 3DS but in this argument um you're going to struggle but the thing is the Retro pocket 4 Pro as we'll see see later in this video does a lot of 3DS very very well and it looks exceptional on the screen so you know if you're looking for a specific game like someone said they could get Sonic Generations working properly on their device I just can't do it and so Sonic Generations is relegated to the original Hardware whereas if you're not very specific there are a lot of 3DS games that are going to play beautifully on the Retro pocket 4 Pro then you've got you know you've got your your Game Boy obviously the only you're losing here is the Nostalgia obviously nothing beats the original game boy but objectively you know you're not going to get an argument to say that this is better than the Retro pocket 4 4 Pro and and same for this is not original Hardware but my my funny playing Game Boy Color you're not really going to compete with that so done with that done with that done with that done with the 3DS then we've got the power Kitty RGB 10 Max 3 Pro LOL that is just a piece of crap then got the P Kitty rgb1 Max 3 the normal Max 3 this is one of my sort of hot tches for the year one of the best budget horizontal form factor devices with the nice grip so it's small and comfy that's the real selling point in this and it's got a great screen um runs Linux it's it's really really nice but again it's not going to compete against the Retro pocket 3 Pro 4 Pro I understand that all of these are cheaper but hear me out I'm going to make my point at the end and then actually I find this an interesting point is the Retro pocket 3 plus now you can't buy these new anymore maybe a few resellers have got some stock but uh this is a great secondhand deal if you're not wanting the extra power of the Retro pocket 4 Pro this was the device I think I made it my device of the year last year I'm not sure the year before but it is a very very good device still it feels good it's a little bit skinnier than the Retro pocket 4 Pro it's there's something very special about this device it's got that X Factor and so this is a great budget alternative but again not going to beat the Retro pocket 4 Pro in any sort of stretch of the imagination and then we've got the RG 556 now this is definitely a great Contender against retro pocket 4 Pro this is subjective as to which one is better depends on what you like this is bigger pros and cons to that got pretty good Triggers on it very nice plastic even though I mean it's a bit it's a lot cheaper actually than the retr pocket 4 Pro cheaper feeling great buttons and a little bit less power than the retr pocket 4 Pro actually quite a bit less power and then this screen is objectively better it's an OLED screen it's a very high resolution OLED screen but the thing is the Retro pocket 4 Pro screen isn't half bad they've tuned it to be like thank you you see playing Sonic Advance on the retroid pocket 4 display is kind of like having permanent locked interframe blending enabled at its worst moments it's like a video game equivalent of brushing flower across a cutting board it's so blurry that I can't even tell who this is is it Mario is it crash is it Darkwing Duck I can't tell and then a 3D game like golden ey you basically have permanent motion blur enabled which is Icky because everyone knows that real Gamers turn motion blur off look at this I can barely tell that this is Daniel Craig in the mirror it looks exactly the same as my actual Vision does after I've been up all night editing or playing golden ey and the reality is that the rp4 pro display is basically worse than everything else in its bracket especially when you compare it to the annick RG 556 with a silky smooth OLED display no blurriness or interframe blending effects there that's for sure you know that movie Limitless with Bradley Cooper that's kind of like what it feels like but like not in a good way instead of being psychedelic and fast it's just like Blurry and slow if that makes sense all things considered though this handheld is still pretty so my point is this device the Retro pocket 4 Pro can do everything that these devices can do and then some and I don't know I really like the screen there was a magenta ghosting on the screen when I first got it which seems to have been fixed with updates and I was talking to Tech wee about how good NES dark NES games look on the steam deck eared so I thought let me try it on here let me have a look and look how good these blacks are on the screen I'm going to try and make it look as it looks here in the studio in post- production but it's looking really really nice some people out there don't know who they are feel like there's something wrong with the screen but I like it they've tuned up the saturation they've tuned up the the contrast which makes it more olish it does also make it not so great for watching content like YouTube and Netflix and that sort of thing but that's not what we here for and that's okay with me so let's talk about things relevant to 3 months later and the one thing the main thing are the triggers so when this was first launched there was an issue with the triggers now my triggers which is one of the first batch anything before the 30th of January will have this trigger issue there was something wrong with the springs they were lower quality Springs and you can actually feel it this is very soft it doesn't have a very nice feeling response like the 5.56 it has a very nice resistance to it this doesn't have any decent quality device has got a good resistance to the analog triggers and this doesn't doesn't have that but if bought it past 30th of Jan I put the message that they sent out a while back and then I that's this same guy Chris I reached out to him today to confirm and he said yes the new triggers the new Springs do have a firmness to them that's better than this floppy nonsense that they released with the first batch and then other than that I haven't experienced any major quality concerns over the time that I've used it the d-pad feels good the sticks feel good these buttons feel good I'm not even seeing any body scrape on the buttons so overall quality is actually very very good like I said this plastic is better than the RG 556 for sure it's definitely a better quality plastic meaning it it's it's more flexible and it's not going to break as easily if you drop it and then retroid overall like I'm going to mention a couple of things later in the video but I like retroid they are a good company they've been up front there was some drama a while back with the release of the retroid pocket 3 and then immediately the retroid pocket 3 plus and so a lot of people were upset about that there were manufacturing issues that the three took really long to get out and then they released the plus and so it was a little bit sketchy on their part but as far as I understand they had to do it otherwise their business would have gone under and so they've been up front about these things whereas a lot of these Chinese manufacturers will simply just sweep it under the rug and hopefully nobody notices with these triggers they were upfront about it they've given a 2-year warranty on the triggers that were released before the 30th so it is there an okay company and that you find there's a passion behind the devices that they create this is where being a tester being a reviewer and having all these devices is good you know sometimes we get a little bit jaded because we get so many devices and we get fussy and all that sort of thing but the one really good thing is the fact that I can tell you if something has that sort of X Factor and that's why I say the rgb3 poy rgb1 Max 3 bloody all these names has that X Factor because I pick up a lot of these devices I picked that one up and I was like I'm going to enjoy this thing if if it was the only device I had I would really enjoy picking that up on a daily basis I don't think it quite has the star quality of the Retro pocket 3 plus I think that just it came out at the right time there was nothing like it on the market yet it was just very very special I don't think the Odin had come out yet so it was it was really unique on the market whereas this is comes in at a very competitive time but by the same token if you own this like for instance the RG 556 I'm already kind of getting bored of the the feeling of it whereas this I spent a little bit of time away from it I picked it up and it was like picking up picking up an old friend um it was like I felt good about having it in my hands again that also sounds bad you know what I mean it's it's just a a pleasant device there's a tactile Comfort to holding and using this device the plastic is a very very nice texture I really like the feeling of this plastic and then we've spoken about the triggers the triggers are great feeling so if you get the ones after the 30th of Jan um you're winning because the these are like these are more comfortable than the RG 556 they just don't have the resistance so with a bit more resistance these will be some of the nicest triggers that I own they brought these action buttons out with a retri pocket flip I just love them I absolutely love them they something about them the texture of them they are quite clackety clack actually not as clackety as the retr pocket flip but there's just something really special about them like I say there's no body scrape they're double injection molded so that the the lettering is actually injected into the plastic the d-pad is a dome switch d-pad so like it or lump but the thing is what's nice about a dome switch d-pad is it's very direct you know that you're get pressing up and up and sideways or down and sideways or whatever you know what you're pressing it's not as sort of fluid as a membrane d-pad for fighting games but it it definitely has a lot of Pros to it being a a dome switch d-pad then we've got these joysticks which are like real game changers for the sort of like mid to low range devices I was testing the RGB 20sx the RG 556 and then I went back to this and I was playing some Sonic I think it was just a pleasure playing with these sticks the the motion of them just the pure motion like forget about whether they're accurate or not just the motion of moving them from side to side is very soft and gentle and it feels really good in the hand to play and that's what I mean like this whole feeling in the hand thing to pick up and play does it feel good and and they really do feel great but then by the way they are very accurate and really really good their whole senses so they're very good my only gripe is uh these this this volume and power button it's just not as nice as the Retro pocket 3 plus okay their volume was on the side here but it was just just a better quality feeling button these sink into the body and just don't feel as premium it's just like a little Quirk you know and the only real major small gripe I would say is when you hold it in your hand the the chamfering around the edges of these two here and and the the volume holes is very sharp they did this with the metal case for the retr pocket 3 plus as well they're just very sharp and so you know for otherwise perfectly smooth and even the triggers under year where manufacturers often neglect a well shamp f it doesn't feel sharp this is sharp here at the bottom and it just doesn't feel nice so that brings us to the grip we need to talk about the grip this is an important part of if you're looking at this comparing it to the RG 556 and everything else retroid made a decision they decided let's stick with our ethos of pocket pocket friendly devices and this still is pocket friendly it's maybe not the most pocket friendly with these sticks that protrude and the triggers that jut out so much but we are getting the best of all the worlds and still remaining pocketable that is the idea behind this device and I know it's it's an extra cost for a grip but what it does is it gives you the options whereas to play Devil's Advocates against the RG 556 which does have these wonderful bulges on the ends this just isn't as travel friendly and they have that ridiculous Gucci style case which I did get because I know that my kids are going to want to take this on holiday with us this gives you the option you can check this in the bag it's also more sort of travel friendly because you can just squeeze it in any anywhere and you now have the option of sitting in beded at night nice and comfy or sitting on the couch while everyone's watching a series nice and comfy playing your games you can even stream talk about that just now but you get a pocket friendly device that also becomes an ergonomic device now let's quickly just while I'm here um you know this definitely wins the race in term actually this is the thing like I've never actually sat and just thought okay because I just assumed this is better but now that I'm here call me a liar but this feels better and that that's that's a big shock who big shock so I'm sort of having an argument with myself between the r556 video that I made where I said it's still you can still travel with it and you get the comfort and the nice big screen that is the benefit there and that's the argument to be made to buy that one but if pocketability and travel friendly is more of a priority for you then this is definitely the one to go for and then you're getting the benefit of more performance so it really is the perfect travel device given its size and its power it's it's lovely and then you know this has multi-port capability so we're going to just quickly plug in here and we're just going to quickly y so there you have it I'm just using my top down camera live on camera and uh there you go it it works as an HDMI port so with this cheap Amazon dongle I'll put the link below you can now dock this quite easily so this gives uh it's got HDMI arts and you can use this for your 2.4 GHz controller this is the power and off I go that is a console actually a very cheap very easy way to consolizer just lay it on the table plug in all your goodies and you're done I was away from this device for a while I was testing other devices I put it down and you know when I picked it up again and I looked at oh I need to update some of the emulators and I was fiddling around with it and I was just overwhelmed at how much I like this device the controls the screen don't listen to that other guy games like Sonic Colors Super Mario for 3DS and Wii it all really just comes together when you start getting picky obviously there's going to be games that don't play this is emulation but there are thousands of games that do play we never even touched on P P S2 emulation which is also improved from the 5.56 on here although this thing is pricey you're getting a travel friendly powerful device that plays lots of games and honestly it does it all then we got the oops come on man not we the game we and then obviously Darkwing Duck forever and ever and ever and ever they used the weave thingy

Channel: Adin Walls

Views: 40,653

Keywords: retroid pocket 4 pro review

Id: QKwpqS_4TDM

Length: 18min 0sec (1080 seconds)

Published: Fri May 17 2024