Hope this is allowed here, mods feel free to delete if it isn’t.
I’ve been doing some gaming on my phone lately (Android), and touchscreen controls drive me nuts, so I’m looking into getting a portable controller. I’m hoping to find a controller that can snap onto my phone so that I don’t need a separate stand, but I’m also hoping to find something small enough that I can just slip it into my pocket. I don’t have any sort of bag that I carry with me on a regular basis, so something like a Backbone is too big for me to consider portable.
From the things I’ve found so far, the front-runners in my search seem to be the Turtle Beach Atom due to its comparatively low cost (especially used) and very portable form factor, and the GameSir X4 Aileron, which looks just about as portable and is much more customizable, but more expensive. The Razer Kishi v1 also looks somewhat compact, and the Asus ROG Tessen folds in half, but those two seem like they might be a bit larger and might not fit in my pocket as easily.
Does anyone have any experience with the controllers I’m looking at and have any thoughts they’d like to share? Any recommendations or anti-recommendations? Do you know of any other controllers I missed that might fit my criteria?
I mainly play emulated retro games on my phone, if it makes any difference, though occasionally I’ll check out newer games if they catch my interest.
Thanks for your time!
I have a Razer Kishi and I love it, on mobile I use it with a pair of Hammerhead wireless buds to play xcloud. It is one of the most compact options and the USB connector supports power through to the phone. The small size also means the sticks, buttons and triggers are also small. If you use a case on your phone it will have to come off when you slot it into the pad, there’s no room unless the rubber holders are removed, when I did this the setup became wobbly. One last thing will be to check that your phone will fit, a Galaxy S23 Ultra is too big.