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what's up Internet Kevin here on TLD end today we're gonna bring you guys a brief little review of this the SteelSeries Stratos a small portable Bluetooth wireless controller designed specifically to be used with different iOS devices we're gonna talk about how it feels and controls what kind of apps that works best with and in the end whether or not it's worth purchasing so let's check it out today on TLD so this is the SteelSeries Stratos a small puckett sized Bluetooth controller that you can get in black as you can see here and also available in a white and gray model it features a setup that's pretty standard these days if you've got a d-pad with two analog sticks four front-facing buttons on the right side with a pause button in the middle and up top we've got four different shoulder buttons above the pause button is a series of four lights which act both as a battery meter and as player designation in multiplayer situations on the bottom we can see a microUSB port used for charging and on the right side we've got the power button and on back is a syncing button used whenever you want to add a new device to connect to or erase its device history now included in the box aside from the controller itself is a dust cover screen for when carrying the controller around in your pocket a nice little carrying bag if you want to be even more fancy and a micro USB to USB cable for charging purposes now first off I have to say this controller is extremely comfortable despite its very small size normally with something this small you'd be worried about the buttons being way too close to each other so you're accidentally hitting them or there's not really good way of gripping it which might still be an issue if you do have particularly large hands but otherwise it's actually really comfy and you can use it for hours on end without any real kind of problem the sides in the top of the controller contoured your index fingers allowing you to firmly grip it and easily access all the top folder buttons with your other fingers acting as support now one little feature that I do like is the fact that the Stratus is dust cover can also be snapped onto the back of the controller and giving you another way to have a better grip for your middle finger to rest into and just a place to store the cover so you don't just put it down while you're using the controller and lose it somewhere now feel wise this thing is really responsive but the front-facing buttons having just the right balance of pressure sensitivity and resistance to touch the shoulder buttons on the other hand are just a little awkward just because of how thin the controller is and how close together they are but it really doesn't take that much time to adjust and just get used to resting your index fingers on both of them and just shifting front and back now personally I'm not a big fan of its d-pad it feels just a bit too shallow for my comfort but in all honesty most app games don't really use that and in favor they use the dual analogs which actually work out really great despite not having any kind of gripping or concave feature to keep your thumbs locked on now setting up the controller is really easy as it follows basically the same steps as any bluetooth device would with iOS and the battery life of ours is more than enough when you're using it portably on the go as long as you remember to charge it every night so overall in terms of just pure performance and how it feels I really don't have any major complaints regarding this controller it's really great despite its small size but there are a few caveats in terms of its field of use to begin with this does work only for iOS 7 and above and that also means that you have to be using it on an iPhone 5 a fourth-generation iPad or any iPad Mini and fifth-generation iPod Touches and on top of that you need to know which app games actually do offer full controller support now SteelSeries does have on their website a list of all the different games that the strattice will currently work for but even then a lot of those games that say they offer controller support don't necessarily do it all the way a lot of them will oftentimes have sections or even just on the options menu times where you have to use the touch controls now when a game does offer full controller support the difference is night and day especially in FPS games where dual analogs and buttons are king compared to swipe controls and having to use on-screen buttons which end up blocking your view point I also found it a lot more preferable in third person or isometric action games where I was trying to do multiple things in quick succession without making mistakes now one last important issue about this controller that you have to cover is that I find that the price point of $80 is just too steep for what you're getting now don't get me wrong like I said this controller is absolutely great for how small it is and in fact I'm even willing to deal with the argument of the fact that taking all that technology and compacting it into a such a small frame and working so well is worth paying more than 40 or 50 dollars but the problem is the amount of content you can actually use it with right now unless you're planning on buying and playing all 140 games on that list you're gonna find yourself buying an $80 controller just to play a handful of titles that you probably paid less than 30 or 40 dollars for as a group now as time goes on and more and more games actually have controller support this argument is gonna be moot but as of right now today I just find it to be too much of a tough sell now if you do have the money to spare and you're looking over this list of all the different games that have controller support and you can find enough of them to justify to yourself purchasing it then great because the strattice is an awesome portable wireless controller to use otherwise go ahead and hold on to your money for now save it up and wait to either see it go on sale or see a huge spike in games that you want to play that do offer controller support now before I get out of here guys I do want to take a quick moment to thank audible for helping make today's video possible now I love to read but I don't always have the time to get through as many books as I'd like and help rectify that I've set a goal for myself to try and read 50 books this year which basically breaks down to one book a week now personally I just really love the feel of a physical book and turning pages but like I said I just don't always have time for that and the chance to listen to an audio book while I'm driving or exercising or just doing tours around the house is really handy for instance as a part of my goal to read 50 books I really got into the fantasy author Brandon Sanderson so I decided to check out one of his books that I already owned the way of Kings and I downloaded it and I listened to it whenever I get the chance which makes my goal of 50 books all the more attainable now obviously not everyone's into fantasy authors and with audible that's not a problem because they have over a hundred thousand different books to choose from so no matter what genre you're into they're bound to have something that interests you now if you want to give it a shot audible is also enough to give our fans who aren't already members a chance to get a free downloadable book all you have to do is go to audible.com slash today and sign up well that was our review of the SteelSeries Stratus wireless gaming controller for iOS if you guys want to grab one for yourself or just check it out in the alternate white color we have a link posted in the description if you guys enjoyed this video please make sure to show us some love by hitting that thumbs up button and they pronounced subscriber yet then you should hit that button too because you've got more great content on the way until next time I'm coming for tle we'll see you later