Nintendo Switch Pro Controller review

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The Nintendo Switch Pro Controller is simply a cleanable enactment if you request a beefier gamepad. The Nintendo Switch’s detachable Joy-Con controllers were the doorbell of the shot during the fashionable console’s launch. However, those tiny controllers tin get beauteous uncomfortable erstwhile playing for agelong periods. 

Sure, the Nintendo Switch Joy-Cons are an ingenious plan for on-the-go, transformable play, but they are thing to constitute location astir erstwhile it comes to semipermanent use. Players with bigger hands whitethorn besides consciousness uncomfortable, acknowledgment to these mini-controllers. Even sliding them into 1 of the optional Grip accessories, turning the Joy-Con halves into a much accepted azygous portion near galore wanting.

Enter the Pro Controller, a cleanable lucifer to the DualShock 4 for PS4, alongside the Xbox Wireless Controller for Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. In fact, successful galore respects, it whitethorn adjacent champion those pads, adjacent if it is 1 of the pricier offerings. Like immoderate authoritative accessory, it works for Nintendo Switch Lite and Nintendo Switch OLED, too.

Nintendo Switch Pro Controller

Nintendo Switch Pro Controller: design

The Nintendo Switch Pro Controller doesn’t interruption the mould successful design. Where the divided nun-chuck look of the Joy-Cons takes immoderate getting utilized to, the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller is alternatively your modular two-analogue stick, handle-gripped pad. It feels similar an Xbox 360 controller if a small curvier successful hand. 

It is nicely weighted for balanced play and has a somewhat translucent decorativeness to its integrative casing, with a circuit board-style signifier delicately etched into its surface. Suppose you recovered the Joy-Con buttons a small fiddly. In that case, the Pro Controller is acold beefier, with larger A, B, X and Y buttons sat successful the accepted diamond enactment connected the right-hand side, backed by 2 triggers and offset analogue sticks.

The Nintendo Switch Pro Controller feels a small chunkier than its PS4 and Xbox One counterparts, but that could beryllium down to its class-leading artillery life. Where you’ll get astir six oregon 7 hours from a DualShock 4, you’ll get a whopping mean of 40 from the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller. That’s a hellhole of a batch of playtime, truthful a small top-up present and past means you’ll astir apt ne'er spot it wholly wiped out.

It’s a forward-thinking pad too. It features a USB-C reversible charging port, meaning you won't person to fiddle astir to get it to plug in, portion there’s besides NFC built-in for connecting up your Amiibo collectible figurines. If the achromatic aesthetic isn't to your liking, Nintendo's released respective themed options implicit the years, including tie-ins for Splatoon 2 and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Nintendo Switch Pro Controller: functionality

As innovative arsenic they are, the Joy-Con pads tin beryllium an enactment successful perfecting manus contortion erstwhile utilized singularly, and the optional Grip pads inactive don’t rather marque up the quality with the competition.

The Switch Pro Controller is overmuch better, however. Its sticks person a large level of absorption and are comfortably offset, and the look buttons besides person a cleanable magnitude of depth. When it comes to the D-Pad, Nintendo has had the champion since the days of the NES, allowing for pinpoint accuracy successful 2D sidescrollers. 

It’s inactive contiguous and close with the Pro Controller present and truly shows up conscionable however lacking the split-button D-Pad effort connected the right-hand broadside of the Joy-Con (when utilized successful a singular set-up) is.

If there’s 1 constituent of contention, it’d beryllium with the rear triggers, which don’t person rather the extent we’ve travel to expect from triggers connected different pads. They’re acold person to further enarthrosis buttons than heavy triggers. That’s not an contented with galore games, but it tin beryllium a spot jarring with shooters oregon racing titles.

Nintendo Switch Pro Controller: verdict

The Nintendo Switch Pro Controller is an fantabulous pad. It’s a must-have if you chiefly usage your Nintendo Switch astatine home, but it is large for tabletop mode too. However, it is besides 1 of the much costly pads connected the marketplace compared to those paired with rival consoles astatine $69.99 / £59.99 – but nary offers its NFC capabilities oregon capacious built-in artillery capabilities. It’s a premium summation to your Switch set-up, but we’d accidental it’s besides essential.

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