Retrocade Arvostelua 291

I ordered a product from these guys but they never responded to my emails and messages nor did the product ever arrive. Luckily I was able to get a refund via PayPal and order a similar product from another company - Retropia, who’s service has been much better. Avoid.

I placed an order on the 8th December 2021 with acknowledgement of a one weeks delay on all items purchased. It got to christmas and still nothing. I sent them two emails each to the emails given on there website and Facebook page and even Facebook messaged them.
It is now the middle of January and I still havent heard anything from them,
. Fortunately I paid through PayPal so I have escalated the matter with them to try and get my money back. £200 is a lot of money to most people and to spend that on something and then not receive it is disgraceful.

I would query whether this company is still active or whether they are just happy to take people's money and not send anything.

Avoid this company at all costs!! No response to any emails requesting for a refund, these crooks have essentially stolen £169 of my money, no refund, no response to any emails, to their email address or via the form on their website, and no console!

Incidentally you can build these emulators for free! Buy a Raspberry Pi 3 or 4 off eBay (circa £60-£90 depending on model) and download “Recalbox” (for free!) the games for all systems this outfit supposedly are available within Recalbox and game ROMS are available (again for free) on the net and cover all systems these clowns supposedly sell.

The Rapsberry Pi 3 & 4 have Bluetooth and wireless inbuilt, both work perfectly with a PS4 controller. I’ve seen another review on there with issues with Bluetooth from these supplied systems!

Once again do not! I repeat do not! Part with your money!! You won't get a refund or even the console!

See the picture in my post which is my Raspberry Pi 4 unit, built for a fraction of the cost!

Love this little box to bits defiantly worth the money, hours of fun to be had but have to say to lack of response to emails and messages let’s them down massively, when I say lack of response I’m mean I had no response at all from anyone.

Here are my good/bad/ugly experiences with Retrocade - I hope that this is of some use to others thinking of buying a unit.
I bought the Ultra Edition in July and the unit arrived fairly quickly which I was pleased about. When I opened it I was pleasantly surprised with the good level of basic kit inside. Setting up the unit for first use was simple and I was playing some games within 10 mins or so.
The GUI is fairly straightforward, so most basic console savvy people won’t have any issues. The first thing I noticed when trying to play games wirelessly via the Bluetooth controllers, was that there is a delay between controller input and game response - this was a long enough delay to make the games annoyingly unplayable as they lost their basic game play fluidity. I contacted Retrocade about this twice over a period of 4 weeks and got no response. I’m not sure if Retrocade provide any sort of aftercare customer service once they take your money, so don’t expect anything different if you have a problem with your unit.
After messing around with using the charging cables instead of trying to play wirelessly, I realised the controller lag disappears when the PS controllers are connected via USB. My basic and possibly not 100% accurate assessment of this is that either the Bluetooth(?) module on the Rasberry Pi hardware platform is either an old chipset that isn’t suitable for this fast signal purpose, or the coding used to communicate the protocol between the PS style controllers and the unit needs urgent attention as it doesn’t work well at all. The provided usb charge cables are too short to use with live game play, so you’ll need to buy a 3-5m cable per controller if you want some flexibility with movement. When the controllers are plugged in and you reset the unit, the usb controller connection is lost virtually every time, so you need to keep switching between usb sockets to keep reinitialising the wired connection, so this is very buggy.
Re: games in general, I found that most N64 games are unusable due to graphics and sound glitches, so clearly the emulations don’t work on this hardware. PS1 and also some other post 16bit era consoles don’t work well either, so are a waste of time. Many of the 8/16 bit games seem to work, but there are lots of crashes - I’d say the system crashes and glitches on possibly 50% of the games I’ve tried and sometimes on the main GUI itself.
Overall, I’d say if you can live with the need to use wires with the controllers and the many game and system glitches this system has, then you can have lots of fun with this unit - just don’t expect more than c.40% of its advertised functionality and also don’t expect anything in the way of aftersales support.
I’ve decided to keep the unit, but I’m sure others wouldn’t, so I guess it depends on what you’re willing to put up with to play the old games you still want to play.
I hope the above helps you with your purchase.
Cheers

It seems this is a Money Grabbing Company, no response on Facebook, they are great at selling their products but when you develop a fault with it, it's pure silent.

My console was a gift, bought in November 2020 but hardly used probably about 6hrs in total until August 2021, well kept and maintained but its not working, there seems to be a power issue but they are not responding but still trading.

Highly Advise not to buy from them as will probably not respond when a fault occurs, they seem to be shipping consoles as reviews suggest they have not completely disappeared.

Basically you have no warranty despite the 12 months they offer or state.

Really good service, quick responses on all queries on a strange order. Really impressed.

I purchased my ultimate console in April and I loved it, everything I ever wanted. Sadly the sound has now stopped working and I can't get a response from Retrocade after a week and four emails. Based on this it would be difficult to recommend this product which is a shame because until the sound issue the console was great.

Superb machine, Top company & fast delivery. what more do you want, I Relived some special moments from my 80s arcade days would highly recommend

Good company and good product, item came in good time and they were happy to answer my questions after I got it. Would happily buy from again.

Fantastic games console all loaded and working. Struggled to find UK seller of this console as amazon all from China
Won't like to try send back for repair of try and get advice from thst distance all queries replied to and help given quickly

The retro console is amazing, delivery was delayed slightly due to COVID I imagine but overall excellent

Excellent quality item. Loads of games and great value. Easy to navigate too.

Good product which works like a dream, but communication was poor

I have contacted the company several times to help with reconfiguration of my n64 controller. I was told when buying the controller if there were issues with it to contact them and they would help with the issue. I have had the console close to six months now and still have not had a response. The console is supposed to come with 12 months technical support. Feeling let down.
Ben

Second one of these I’ve had - but previously it was a more basic model with fewer games. Definitely worth getting the wireless controllers the wired ones didn’t last (not sure if it was the controllers or my kids). There seem to be a few more issues with games not loading properly (hence only 4 stars) than on the more basic version but frankly so many games who cares! I would recommend it.

I was very pleased when my consul arrived I would recommend retrograde to all my friends and it was safe sending my money a big 10 out of 10

Great service and very helpful would recommend them to anyone

A fantastic product, well worth the money, delivered fast, in great condition, with no setup problems. Only caveat is helpdesk responses since purchase have dried up,but it wouldn't surprise me if this was due to high demand.