Retroid caused a bit of a kerfuffle recently when it announced the Pocket Duo Lite Plus shortly after opening pre-orders for the Pocket Duo and Pocket Duo Lite.

While it offered an upgrade system for people who had already ordered the original Pocket Duo Lite, that has now expired – and those who stuck with the first variant are reporting a disappointing experience from a performance perspective.

As reported by Retro Handhelds, the Qualcomm Dragonwing QCS6125 chipset, which powers the Pocket Duo Lite, simply wasn't designed for such a hardware setup.

This fact was highlighted by CarribeanGamerPR on the Retroid Discord, who said:

"So the Duo Lite is using a chip (Qualcomm QCS6125) that does not support dual screens (1x MIPI-DS) like the RG DS (that chip RK3568 does support dual screens 2x MIPI-DSi).

What Retroid did was use like a Bridge to get the image and use it as a second screen, all in one Shell. Is like the one they sell to use it as a second screen on the others devices.

Thats the reason is so laggy, stutters and it cant even multitask correcty. Really disappointed."

Qualcomm officially states that this chip supports only a single display, whereas the Q-7790 found in the Duo Lite Plus and Duo can handle two natively. That means the Pocket Duo Lite has to do extra work in software to make the dual screens work, which is why some users report input latency and general sluggishness.

This begs the question: why did Retroid release the Duo Lite when it knew the chipset wasn't up to the job? The ongoing RAM crisis may have played a part, and the speed of the Pocket Duo Lite Plus announcement suggests the company knew trouble lay ahead.

Did you order the Pocket Duo Lite? What are your impressions of the device? Let us know with a comment.