Retroid Pocket Nova is a relatively new emulation handheld that quickly got itself a cult following in the community. It’s a seemingly contradictory device with quite some compromises, but it works really well if you know what you’re buying.

Nova combines:

• a 4:3 OLED screen perfect for older games (up to the PS2 era)
• a dpad-focused control scheme perfect for even older games
• enough raw power to play anything you throw at it from the appropriate era and then some
• enough power still left to enable almost any shaders on top of the game
• the best controls on the market that I’m aware of
• a small and lightweight form factor (255 g)
• a plastic front, contrasting the common full-glass front (some may like it, I don’t)

The chipset powering it (Snapdragon 8 Gen 2) is very well known, so I won’t bother retracing what others already described countless times. I’ll focus on my own experience with the device instead.

The contradictory part I mentioned before is mainly that a lot of games needing that much power would run better on a 16:9 screen as they are being letterboxed on a 4:3 one. Basically all this power seems to be wasted on the Nova. It’s a device that shines on low-power games while boasting MUCH more. That being said, that allows enabling almost any emulator settings without worrying whether the hardware can take it. Rewind, shaders, runahead, all of them work great.

As for the controls Retroid makes my favorite dpads and buttons in the whole industry, hands down. The dpad is a little clicky, but not too much. It’s actually almost soft to press. It’s very similar to the Retroid Pocket Flip 2 dpad I used before, so I assume it’s a standard for them. I loved it on the Flip, I still love it on the Nova. More or less the same thing can be said about the face buttons. The triggers and analog sticks are “just good”, nothing special about them, but I have no complaints either.

Nova adds one new thing to the control scheme: two programmable buttons near the L1/R1 buttons. I always struggled with finding a good modifier button for emulator hotkeys. This solves it completely. Just this small addition makes it much more enjoyable than my previous devices. I no longer accidentally open menus by pressing Select when I want to save my game with “Select+R1” etc. It’s a small thing but it bothered me a lot. Not anymore!

The device is magically lightweight. It feels great in hand both with a grip case and without it (note: I only own the flat backplate, which I enjoy). Games aside, the Nova itself is already fun to hold.

In the previous post I mentioned how I miss my Retroid Pocket Flip 2 which I sold. Nova is everything it was and more, and with less functionality overlap with my Thor. I don’t know if I can recommend it as a primary device, but definitely so as a companion to another handheld that will cover its blind spots.