(Note: This article contains affiliate links. If you click on the link and buy one of these, I will receive a portion of the sale. I was not paid for this article, nor was I provided this controller for free)
I'm going out of the country in a few months, and those long haul flights are brutal without some decent entertainment. I'm trying to travel ultra light this time around, and take as little as possible with me on the trip out to my destination. The only tech I'm planning on bringing with me is my phone. I have all the entertainment I could need on there. VLC is an amazing app, and I love that it works on damn near anything. I have access to all the games I could handle with RetroArch, too! But the one thing that gaming on mobile devices doesn't do well is input. Touchscreen interfaces are...spotty at best...yeah, that's the way to describe it. You don't really know what you're pressing, and muscle memory is all but useless. I've seen a handful of phone based controllers, but most of them are way too expensive, or they require an extra app for bluetooth connection and don't let me charge my device. The ones that do meet my needs are frightfully expensive. I'm a cheap arse, and I've got a budget! So I went looking around, and I found this:
Over on Amazon (affiliate link), they have this controller add-on for mobile devices. At the time that I bought mine (and the time that I'm writing this), it's only $40. I had asked at the local Micro Center if they had any similar controllers and what he thought. I showed him this controller and he said, "there's no comparison. Just by that one, dude. Don't even think about anything we have here."
So that's what I did! And here it is in all it's glory:
It doesn't collapse down nearly as far as I thought it would. I guess I was under the impression it would fold or something, but I was wrong. The transparent purple is aggressively 90's, and the coloring for the buttons is comical in how it doesn't follow ANY major console coloring conventions. It fits my Motorola One 5G Stylus just fine, though I do need to remove the phone from its case to do so. If there were a way for it to fit otherwise, that would be amazing and I would be over the moon. The plastic housing does not feel sturdy, but it also doesn't feel fragile. If that makes any sense. This doesn't feel like the same plastic used in most controllers. It's not bad, though. The grips are textured and plenty grippy. You can hold this in one hand and it won't slip out of your hands. I wouldn't shake it around, though! I also tried connecting the pass through port into my cable to see if I could do any data transfers into my phone through the controller. It did not work. It only passes power, nothing else. Not a huge issue, just something to be aware of.
Connecting the controller to apps is all but brainless. Retroarch, PPSSPP and NetherSX2 all connect without any issues whatsoever. Configuring the buttons was (mostly) painless. The only one that was a challenge was setting up the menu button to get to the on screen menu. RetroArch kind of hides that in a weird spot. But I played Digimon World, Azure Dreams, Gran Turismo 2, Monster Hunter Freedom Unite The Pinball of the Dead, and Pokemon. All of them worked great. The hall effect joysticks are responsive, and the buttons have an audible click when you push them. The triggers on the underside make for great turbo buttons, though I've found I usually don't use them.
One problem that I've found with RetroArch specifically is if I set down the whole unit for a while and step away, I have to close RetroArch entirely, unplug the controller, then plug it back in, before I can use it again. If I haven't saved in Pokemon for a while, this is a bit of a problem. It's important to make sure the on screen overlay is available, just in case.
The Amazon listing shows that this supports game pass. Of course that means I need to test it out! I fired up Xbox Cloud Gaming in my web browser and launched Middle Earth: Shadow of War. Sure enough, it actually works! I was able to play Shadow of War on my phone! Like, that's awesome.
Overall, this controller is a great value for the money. For $40, you cannot beat the price. I'm looking forward to using this during the flight to enjoy some old school games! If this sounds interesting to you, you should pick one up using my affiliate link! Hopefully you'll enjoy it as much as I do.