Retro Pocket 386 Win 95 laptop arrives for less than $200 — comes with 40MHz 386 SX processor, 8 MB RAM, and replaceable graphics

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Pocket 386 retro laptop
(Image credit: DZT's Store | AliExpress)

Retro gaming has taken off recently, and we’ve even compared Raspberry Pis, PCs, and retro minis to see which one is better at it. However, nothing still beats playing on the original hardware, leading to a small niche market for retro consoles. So, if you want to play games from the early to mid-90s, you'll want to check out the Pocket 386.

This retro laptop comes from the same makers of the Hand 386 handheld retro PC and the Book 8088 compact retro notebook. In fact, it has the same specifications as the former, sporting a 40MHz 386 SX chip, 8MB of DRAM, a replaceable VGA card, and a Yamaha sound card. It also has a larger 7-inch IPS LCD screen with a wider 16:9 aspect ratio, although you can toggle it to 4:3 via the OSD menu if you want an authentic experience.

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Jowi Morales
Jowi Morales
Contributing Writer

Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He’s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he’s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics.

56 Comments Comment from the forums
  • jeremyj_83
    They should have used a 486 DX2 or better with 32MB RAM. Would have made that a vastly better retro system.
    Reply
  • TerryLaze
    jeremyj_83 said:
    They should have used a 486 DX2 or better with 32MB RAM. Would have made that a vastly better retro system.
    It's an upgrade from the pocket 8086 laptop, they had the 386 as a handheld weird little thing that made no sense whatsoever, in laptop form it's a little bit more appealing.
    General PSA , these things have harvested CPUs in them, they should still last "forever" (if they lasted until now there is no killing them) , but people should be aware of it.
    6bODiZ5bP84View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bODiZ5bP84
    Reply
  • derekullo
    I still have an Asus EEE 701 from 2007-2008 with Windows XP.
    7 inch screen but a blistering 900mhz celeron cpu by comparison to this pc :p
    Installed WoW to a 16 gigabyte sd card and was barely able to do the Auction House if I stared straight down!
    Reply
  • TerryLaze
    derekullo said:
    a blistering 900mhz celeron cpu by comparison to this pc :p
    That's the reason for these things (at least a big part of it) , play early DOS games that are sensitive to clocks and play "weird" on anything faster than what they need.
    Reply
  • Amdlova
    I like it :D
    Reply
  • bit_user
    jeremyj_83 said:
    They should have used a 486 DX2 or better with 32MB RAM. Would have made that a vastly better retro system.
    I was going to comment that this visually reminds me a lot of the Toshiba Libretto, which is the first sub-notebook I ever saw. In fact, according to the Wikipedia page, the first version was actually a 486DX4-75!
    Here's a slightly later model:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba_LibrettoA guy I worked with actually bought one and it was roughly the size & shape of a VHS tape. On the longest axis, it was maybe an inch longer.
    Reply
  • jeremyj_83
    bit_user said:
    I was going to comment that this visually reminds me a lot of the Toshiba Libretto, which is the first sub-notebook I ever saw. In fact, according to the Wikipedia page, the first version was actually a 486DX4-75!
    Here's a slightly later model:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba_LibrettoA guy I worked with actually bought one and it was roughly the size & shape of a VHS tape. On the longest axis, it was maybe an inch longer.
    My first personal desktop was powered by a 200MHz Pentium with 16MB RAM on Win 95 in 1996. Had a MASSIVE (for the time) 2.5GB HDD and a 2MB Video Card. Playing Duke 3D it was fine, but I-76 was hit and miss for framerates at 640x480 resolution. At that time 16MB was like 12GB RAM now. Would have been nice to have had 32MB.
    Reply
  • USAFRet
    bit_user said:
    I was going to comment that this visually reminds me a lot of the Toshiba Libretto, which is the first sub-notebook I ever saw.
    I had a Libretto. Do not remember which CPU it had.
    Reply
  • MSimoes
    jeremyj_83 said:
    They should have used a 486 DX2 or better with 32MB RAM. Would have made that a vastly better retro system.
    i still have a old 486 dx2 66mhz somewhere at my parents. CPU - Board and Ram it was working but i guess now maybe the CPU and Ram will work, i need to find it ( probably my mother throw it away i wouldnt be surprise if she did )
    Reply
  • jeremyj_83
    MSimoes said:
    i still have a old 486 dx2 66mhz somewhere at my parents. CPU - Board and Ram it was working but i guess now maybe the CPU and Ram will work, i need to find it ( probably my mother throw it away i wouldnt be surprise if she did )
    I should have an old Cyrix PR-166+ somewhere. It was working before it was put into storage 20+ years ago. I've thought about turning that into a retro gaming system.
    Reply