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Over the past few years, retro handhelds have felt less and less retro. Powerful new chipsets and drivers have pushed Android handheld performance into PC handheld territory, with widescreen panels to match.
The Retroid Pocket Nova ($244) is different. It combines the original vision for the handhelds - emulating old games - with real power. That combination has been the white whale of this hobby for years.
A big part of that is the new screen made specifically for this device over the course of the last year. It’s finally making its debut, and it was definitely worth the wait.
After spending a few weeks with the device, I am confident that this is the closest anyone has gotten to playing old games the way I remember them on a handheld.
A Small Return to Form
The first thing that stood out to me about the Retroid Pocket Nova was the size. It’s significantly smaller and more compact than I imagined from photos, and I mean that in a good way.
It’s not quite small enough to slip into a pocket, but it fits nicely in my medium-sized hands. The flat back is also surprisingly comfortable, and the plastic on my Crystal unit feels sturdy. Retroid sells a separate backing plate with ergonomic grips, but for something this size, it isn’t really necessary.
With most recent handhelds adopting a smartphone-style all-glass front design, it was refreshing to see a more toy-like plastic case on the Pocket Nova. It doesn’t feel cheap by any means, but it does keep some of the smudges and fingerprints under control.
The other advantage of an all-plastic build is that it removes any and all hard edges. Every corner and edge is rounded, which makes it very comfortable to hold, even for longer sessions.
That said, the Crystal colourway I tested looks significantly different in person than it does in photos. It’s far less glossy, which I like. Apart from the screen, this thing is impossible to smudge.
Complete, but Clicky Controls
As for the controls, it has the D-pad on top for retro gaming, and dual sticks on the bottom to cover more modern systems. The LED lights under the sticks are customizable in settings, but they look really awkward on the transparent model. I couldn’t turn them off fast enough.
The sticks themselves are small and relatively comfortable to use, but I did find my hands cramping after long sessions of twin-stick first-person shooters. Thankfully, they don’t get in the way of the rest of the controls.
The D-pad is the focus here, and unlike Anbernic’s retro offerings, it uses clicky microswitches. Personally, I prefer softer membranes, but the Pocket Nova’s D-pad eventually won me over. The inputs are very precise.
Strangely, the buttons are softer than the D-pad. I found them a little on the loud side, but the level of resistance is just right. Retroid also sells different button combinations on its website, so you can customise the look of your device. It’s a really nice touch, and one that I wish more companies would adopt.
The two shoulder buttons are also microswitches, and they wrap around the top of the device. Next to those are M1 and M2 buttons, which are perfect for programming hotkeys in RetroArch. Some handhelds force these to be back and home across all apps, but I was able to rebind them without issue here.
My only major complaint about the inputs is the triggers. Initially I was excited by the analogue inputs on the triggers, since previous 4:3 handhelds like the RG477M used in-line microswitches.
However, the triggers themselves have a strange pivot. Unlike most controllers I’ve used, the Pocket Nova requires you to squeeze the very edge of the trigger. It’s not a dealbreaker, but it’s also not the slam dunk I’d hoped when I first saw the design.
The front-facing stereo speakers are fine, but nothing spectacular. They don’t sound bad by any means, although they are placed in a way that is easy to muffle with your palm if you’re not careful. Thankfully, there’s a headphone jack on the bottom.
The Mortgage Pays Off
The screen, on the other hand, is the real deal. A full year ago, Retroid’s CEO announced he had taken out a mortgage on his house to develop and manufacture a new 4:3 OLED screen that didn’t exist anywhere on the market. The Pocket Nova is the first device to feature this “mortgage screen”, and it’s everything we’ve been hoping for.
The speedy 120hz AMOLED panel has spectacular colours, and it gets bright enough for me to use in the full Spanish sun. I find the colours a little too saturated for the retro aesthetics I remember, but it’s still the best screen of its type on any device.
And really, that’s the biggest story with this device. A year ago, Retroid couldn’t have known that the component crisis would make more powerful hardware increasingly expensive in 2026, but its investment in a new screen is extremely fortuitous.
RAM and storage are expensive, and it’s only going to get worse. Simply putting the next-generation processor into ever more powerful handhelds every year is no longer the move.
Some companies have explored unique form factors (like the RG Rotate or RG DS), but Retroid’s new screen opens new doors. Unlike RAM and storage, display panels have remained stable in price, or even gotten cheaper. I can’t wait for the company to put this display in a vertical Pocket Classic follow-up, or a dual-screen device without the awkward compromises in the RG DS or even the AYN Thor.
But returning to this device, it has everything it needs to take full advantage of the new panel. The 1280 x 960 resolution is as pixel-dense as it gets in a 4.5-inch panel, and it translates into phenomenal scaling for 4:3 systems.
That means 4x integer scaling for N64 and PS1, or 2x for Dreamcast, GameCube, and PS2. What’s more, it has more than enough power to comfortably play at those resolutions.
Power to Spare
The Pocket Nova packs a Qualcomm Dragonwing QCS8550 SoC, which is essentially a Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 without the modem. It’s the same chipset found on other powerful handhelds like the Retroid Pocket 6 or AYN Odin 2 Portal.
It ran every game I tested on every system up to and including the PS2 without a hitch. What’s more, it has enough headroom to run these systems without downloading specific drivers or tweaking settings. That’s absolutely not the case for most 4:3 handhelds.
Wii games are also playable, and some even feature native 4:3 output. Still, I don’t like playing Wii games on the Nova, or any handheld for that matter. Without a Wiimote, it isn’t a Wii. The Wii U has a similar problem, exacerbated by a relatively immature Cemu emulator build on Android.
The Retroid Pocket Nova has enough power to handle light Switch and PC emulation, but you’ll run into problems with aspect ratio and screen size. Most games force a 16:9 resolution, which is comically small (4.1 inches) after the intense letterboxing. Even PC games that do support 4:3 output typically have text and UI elements that are too small on this screen.
Native Android games fare better, but can still be hit or miss. My old favourites like Stardew Valley and Dead Cells work fine, while others don’t support the device, don’t understand the gamepad inputs, or default to awkward display ratios.
That might sound like a bummer, but I consider it a feature. This handheld is designed to play retro games, and it doesn’t make any unnecessary compromises for anything else.
The good news there is that the Pocket Nova supports video out via the USB-C port. You can adjust the output resolution in settings to widescreen, which is a much better solution for more modern games.
As for battery life, I got a solid 4-5 hours of PS2 game time on a single charge of the 5,000mAh cell, and 8-10 hours playing older systems like the SNES. It took less than an hour to charge from 5% to 80%, with options in settings to limit the max charge or charging speed to keep your device healthy in the long term.
A Frontend Slipping Further from the Forefront
On the software side, Retroid has made far fewer innovations. The setup process recommends installing some emulators, but many are out of date. I ended up reverting to my normal process for installing and setting up a retro handheld.
If this is your first Android handheld, that will be a learning process. Plenty of guides are online, but it won’t be as straightforward as a real first-party cartridge-based system, or even a budget Linux-based handheld with a custom UI.
Retroid includes its own frontend, RetroidLauncher, which acts as a kind of home screen for all your games. Frontends have come a long way in the past few years, with options like iiSU, RetroHrai, and Socket joining long-time champions like ES-DE, Daijisho, and Beacon.
But RetroidLauncher is pretty much the same as it’s always been. There’s a simple onboarding process that covers the basics plus a simple scraper for game art, but it’s just that, simple and basic. Retroid has built-in helpful tools like a sidebar for quick adjustments, with more available in the Android notification shade, but the default frontend lacks the aesthetic pizzazz and unique features of community-developed options.
Again though, that’s not a dealbreaker. Customising and tinkering is as much a part of this hobby as actually playing games is. For better or worse.
Retroid Pocket Nova Review: Should You Buy It?
If you want to play retro console games on a handheld, the Retroid Pocket Nova is the new handheld to beat. The combination of specs and the phenomenal new screen make this feel like a real gaming handheld rather than a device slapped together from phone parts.
For every system up to and including the PS2, this device is almost perfect. It’s not the only device of its kind, but it is the best.
Of course, it’s also the most expensive. At $244 for the 8+128GB version or $274 for the 12+128GB version, it’s well into premium territory. It’s a lot of money to ask when you can spend half that for performance that’s almost as good.
The biggest competition there is the Anbernic RG476H, which features a 4.7-inch 120Hz LCD panel with the same resolution as the Pocket Nova’s new panel. The colours aren’t quite as bright, and the Unisoc T820 chipset requires tweaks for reliable GameCube and PS2 gameplay, but it retails for $100 less - and it’s often on sale for even cheaper. If you’re not married to the idea of a 4:3 display, you have even more options.
But despite the cost, the Pocket Nova now sits at the top of its class. A full year of memes later, it’s now clear that the mortgage was a sound investment, and this screen could be Retroid’s new X Factor. It’s only a matter of time before it makes it into more devices, and personally, I can’t wait.