The Retroid Pocket Mini and Pocket 5 have been available for a while, having been released in September. While both devices contain broadly the same hardware, the Pocket Mini falls far short of the Pocket 5 when it launched when it comes to pre-installed software.
Inexplicably, Retroid pre-installed Android 10 on the Pocket Mini, compared to Android 13 for the Pocket 5. In fact, this choice allowed the Pocket Mini to arrive with older software than that of the Pocket 4 and Pocket 4 Pro ( currently $199 on Amazon), although it launched almost a year later.
The difference may seem insignificant, but it meant that the Pocket Mini couldn’t access certain emulators or games that require newer versions of Android than the one Google shipped more than five years ago. Retroid has now rectified this anomaly by upgrading the device to Android version 13, which can be retrieved from its Discord channel https://discord.com/channels/899605564361953300/899611748577980417/1331334376079888435.
Unfortunately, there are serious caveats as of this writing. For example, the update process wipes the device instead of leaving the existing installation intact. There are reports that the current Android 13 package also contains various bugs. Therefore, Retro Handhelds recommends users to avoid updating their Pocket Minis to Android 13 at this time unless absolutely necessary.
