Retroid Pocket Classic confirmed to feature new Qualcomm Snapdragon chipset on eve of launch

The Retroid Pocket Classic is set to go on sale on Monday alongside the more expensive Retroid Pocket Flip 2. So far, everything is known about Retroid's new Game Boy Color lookalike apart from its chipset, which the company continues to tease as a '4 nm Qualcomm' SoC.

Typically, Retroid would have confirmed this key piece of hardware by now. However, it has now clarified that it is under embargo from Qualcomm, which lifts on March 17 in the US. In short, the Pocket Classic will leverage a new Qualcomm chipset rather than older hardware as it has done in the past.

Currently, Retroid has not shared any other details about what could be in store for the Pocket Classic, although its sub-$150 price point renders it improbable that the device uses the same 'latest Qualcomm flagship chipset' as the forthcoming Ayaneo Pocket S2. Discord user Atheonyirh has offered some insights, though. Apparently, the Pocket Classic uses a chipset 'equivalent to the Snapdragon 4 Gen 2' that could be a 'slightly overclocked' variant of it.

Therefore, this could be the Snapdragon 4 Gen 3, which has been rumoured for some time. For reference, the Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 is a 4 nm chipset with two ARM Cortex-A78 cores clocked at 2.2 GHz and 6 Cortex-A55 cores limited to 2 GHz. While exact performance improvements remain unknown for now, even the existing Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 outperforms equivalents like the Anbernic RG406V (curr. $209.99 on Amazon), which contains the Unisoc Tiger T820 and a Mali-G57 MP4 GPU. With that being said, the Snapdragon 4 Gen 2 would need a huge boost to help the Pocket Classic outdo MediaTek Helio G99-powered gaming handhelds, of which there are now a few, like the KT-R1 and the ZPG A1 Unicorn.