Retroid is in the throes of a new teaser campaign for the Pocket Classic and Pocket Flip 2. However, the company has also revealed updates about the Pocket Mini and its ongoing display issues.
To recap, the Pocket Mini arrived last summer with a tiny 165 x 77 x 16.5 mm and 215 g housing, despite faring about as well as the much larger Ayn Odin2 (curr. $449 on Amazon) in performance-heavy emulators. While Retroid did not face any production delays as is common with long-volume gaming handhelds, it shipped some early units with a completely different colour combination than what it advertised on its website.
Subsequently, it emerged that the Pocket Mini could not display shaders correctly. Instead, filters and scan lines would look distorted and uneven. Initially, Retroid hoped to resolve the issue by working with Qualcomm, possibly via a software update.
Unfortunately, it has now clarified that this will not be the case. Apparently, the Pocket Mini's inability to render shaders as one would expect is a 'behaviour of the screen'. In other words, this is a hardware issue and not the result of errant software. As a result, Retroid has extended the option of returning the Pocket Mini for those who are unhappy with the state of their devices. Please see the screenshot below for more details.
Source(s)
Retroid via RetroHandhelds, Joey's Retro Handhelds (1) (2) & Reddit, Retro Game Corps - Image credit