Well it looks like Retroid is back on the menu with another week of discussion over their latest handheld lineup; the Duo Lite Plus. What started out as just a single handheld announcement in the form of the Duo, we quickly watched Retroid tack on a lightweight, lower specced model of their upcoming handheld in the form of the Duo Lite.
With inline shoulder buttons, and dual IPS screens, it was poised to be a more faithful recreation of the Nintendo 3DS line, while also not quite being powerful enough for full 3DS emulation. Well the gravy train doesn’t stop yet, as we’re getting into the third handheld in an ever growing pile of confusing mashed potatoes.
Announced quite literally tonight, September 19th, Retroid just released an announcement that they’re “Listening to the community!” with the release of the middle stepchild; the Retroid Duo Lite+.
What you’re getting is a proper mix between the Duo Lite and the bog standard Duo in a handheld that lands perfectly in the middle of the two. You’re getting the inline shoulders of the Lite, and the CPU power of the standard, AKA the Dragonwing Q-7790. You’re getting the 8gb of ram, and 128gb of storage from the Duo, but you’re also getting what I would presume are the dual LCD panels of the Duo Lite. So from their pricing strategy, it seems the Q-7790 adds $50 over the Lite, and then the OLED panels add another $50 to get you to the full fat Duo.
While yes, it’s great to offer choices to the consumer, this is by far the worst way they could have done this. Retroid waited until after the pre-orders for both the Duo Lite and Duo went up. They waited until AFTER Duo Lite units were properly shipping before putting this out there. Because of this, there are likely going to be Duo Lite owners that feel like they’ve wasted their money, when what they really wanted was just around the corner. This is the most staggered, inconsistent launch I’ve ever seen from Retroid, and it makes the scattered launch of multiple colorways from the Konkr Pocket Advance look like a non-issue in my eyes.
If you’re actually interested in picking up the Lite Plus, feel free to use the code LITEPLUS to save $20 on the device between now and the end of October. Because if you’re picking it up for $199 before shipping now, you won’t see the device in hand until November. That’s right. The handheld they announced one week after opening pre-orders for a handheld currently shipping (and one in October), will be the last one on their slate, shipping towards the end of the year. But if you’re interested thanks to the power, it’s still going to be worth checking out.
Man this is feeling like the Retroid Pocket 3+ all over again…
