Rertroid has issued another update in their long-running screen issue saga.
On their Discord, Retroid has announced that they are focusing their future efforts on an actual hardware revision to the Mini after receiving an offer to collaborate with a local Chinese manufacturer of custom displays.
The issue RP Mini faces currently is based on the screen driver, a portion of the screen that controls how it behaves. The driver slightly scales the resolution of the screen down to 928p and then scales it back up to the advertised 960p. Until the Retroid Pocket Mini was released, it was not known that the screen did this solely by nature of how it was created.
History of the Screen Issue
The screen issue has been detailed extensively here on Retro Handhelds. The first update was shared in the respective #retroid-pocket-mini channel and subsequent updates have received an overwhelmingly negative response from the retro community.
First, when sharing that the issue was unfixable, Retroid had declared that it would be as simple as emailing their support team to be granted a return for any shipped units. However, users later reported that their attempts to return the device had been denied, with Retroid stating that there is no inherent flaw with the handheld.
After a day of confusion, a new update was shared wherein Retroid announced that they would be giving Retroid Pocket Mini users a $10 coupon on future orders. Alongside this, if any customer wanted to return their device, they would have to pay shipping and the company would only be allowing 200 total returns.
This caused more disappointment in the community, and some users used this to justify threatening and berating Chris, their social media manager, pushing him to resign from the company altogether.
New Screen Being Developed
With the new announcement of a hopeful hardware revision, Retroid has shared that they will be giving RP Mini users a discount code for said device, but have not yet shared an amount. Given that they plan to release the revised handheld in the next 12 months, and have not yet sent the engineering costs to the aforementioned Chinese company, Retroid probably does not have a solid figure to share just yet.
Retroid Announcement on New Screen
In the same announcement post, Retroid shares that the initial investment into the upgraded screen manufacturing will cost them $1 million USD, and to reach that amount, their CEO mortgaged personal property in order to secure a bank loan.
It’s been a tumultuous week for Retroid with both highs and lows. Last week, they slowly revealed information and pics of the upcoming Retroid Pocket Classic and continue to tease updates for the eventual Flip 2. Amongst all of the fanfare for the upcoming handhelds, Retroid has had to deal with overzealous fans using this Mini debacle as a reason to attack and harass members of their team. Despite how bad the issue may be, threatening the lives of people working for a company, being a messenger between them and the community at large, is never okay.
As it looks now, this may be the final report we get from Retroid based on the issue until there is news to share about the development of the new screen. But, as always, when that happens, Retro Handhelds will be there to bring it straight to you.
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