Here's why I'm getting the Retroid Pocket Flip 2 AND the Pocket Classic

Over the past few weeks, Retroid has been drip-feeding everyone with little bits of information about its upcoming Retroid Pocket Flip 2 and Pocket Classic. With all of the specs and colors revealed, all that was left was price and availability. This morning, Retroid did just that, as it shared how much both of these new gaming handhelds.

As such, the Retroid Pocket Flip 2 is set to retail for either $229 or $189, depending on whether you want the Dimensity 1100 or Snapdragon 865. Meanwhile, the Retroid Pocket Classic will set you back either $119 for the 4GB+64GB model or $129 for 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage.

Plus, once pre-orders open on March 17, Retroid is offering a $10 discount on the Flip 2 and $5 on the Classic before jumping up to the retail price once these go on sale. However, Retroid is also offering a "Combo," which saves you $30 and includes both the Snapdragon 865-powered Pocket Flip 2 and the 6GB/128GB Pocket Classic.

Sure, it's only $30, but for that, you're getting two Android gaming handhelds. What makes this special isn't the price; you'll have different form factors to enjoy. So, if you're out and about and want to play some retro games, just stick the Classic in your pocket before you leave. And when you're home, sit back and relax with the larger screen and better ergonomics of the Pocket Flip 2.

While the Pocket Flip 2 and its Snapdragon 865 SoC might seem a bit outdated, it still offers plenty of power for both emulation and other Android games. But there's a good chance that it will have another trick up its sleeve, and that's the ability to emulate Xbox and even PS3 games.

No, you won't find an Xbox emulator on the Play Store or hiding in a GitHub repo. However, after the Retroid Pocket 5 was released late last year, it wasn't long before Linux gaming firmware was made available. Both ROCKNIX and Batocera can be downloaded and installed, making it possible to play Xbox games on your "Android" handheld.

That's not even the best part: you don't lose access to Android if you want to try either of these out. The installation steps are fairly tedious, but you're not actually installing the software to the internal storage on the Pocket 5. Instead, you just flash it to a microSD card from your computer.

Once that's done, pop in the microSD card, hold down one of the volume buttons while restarting, and a few minutes later, you'll have a Linux gaming handheld. And if you want to switch back over to play some Android games, all you have to do is take out the microSD card and restart. Then, you'll be right back into the native Android experience that Retroid provides.

All of this is made possible thanks to the Snapdragon 865, which is exactly the same chip that we're getting in the Retroid Pocket Flip 2. While I assume some tweaks will have to be made to account for the clamshell form factor, there's no reason to believe that we won't get ROCKNIX and Batocera on the Flip 2.

Although much of our focus is more on Android gaming handhelds, those only account for a fraction of the market. There are so many more retro gaming handhelds out there, with the majority of them that make use of Linux-based firmware. But with the Retroid Pocket Flip 2 and the Pocket Classic, you won't have to pick and choose.