The Retroid Pocket Duo Is Finally Shipping, in All Five Colors

If you pre-ordered a Retroid Pocket Duo the day it went up, your tracking email may already be in your inbox. Retroid missed its October 21 ship date, but its delivery dashboard now shows Duos going out in all five colors. Most later orders are still waiting their turn.

Which orders have shipped?

Only the earliest ones. Retroid’s delivery dashboard shows how far each color has got: the latest order dates to go out, and when that batch shipped:

It moves color by color, so a September 12 order in Black went out nine days after the same day’s Clear Purple orders. If you ordered in late September or October, your dates aren’t on the list yet, and Retroid hasn’t said when they will be. I have a Duo on order myself.

How late is it?

Retroid first said mid-October, then gave October 21 as the date shipping would start. That came and went. Now the dashboard shows shipments into November. It’s later than promised, but it’s moving.

What do you get for $269?

The screens are the draw here. You get a wide screen on top and a smaller, DS-shaped one below, and both are AMOLED, so black is true black, and both run at 120 Hz. That puts it up against other dual-screen handhelds like AYN’s Thor and Anbernic’s RG DDS.

Inside is Qualcomm’s Dragonwing Q-7790, a version of the Snapdragon 7 Gen 4, with 8GB of RAM. The part you’ll feel is the sticks. They’re Hall effect, which read magnets instead of parts that rub, so they’re less prone to drift. The triggers are analog as well, so racing games get a proper throttle and brake.

One layout detail matters if you’ve held a Thor. The Duo puts the D-pad on top and the left stick below it, where the Thor puts the stick on top.

What about the Duo Lite and Duo Lite Plus?

They’re the cheaper models, and they’re on different schedules. The Duo Lite, with a slower chip and 60 Hz LCDs, started shipping in September. The Duo Lite Plus has the full Duo’s chip and memory but keeps the 60 Hz LCDs and digital triggers, at $219. Its rows on the dashboard are still empty. None have shipped yet.

Anything to know before it arrives?

Outside the US? Read the shipping notes at the bottom of the dashboard before your Duo lands. If it comes by DHL, you may owe import duty when it arrives, especially in Europe, and a remote address costs a flat $50 extra. Some countries, Brazil, Mexico and Korea among them, also need a tax or ID number on the order before it can ship. If that’s you and you left it off, email Retroid before your turn comes up.