Gadgetory

when it comes to complaints about the Nintendo switch one of the really big ones to come from traditional gamers is the lack of a d-pad on the joy con but there is now an official solution to this with Horus d-pad joy con replacement this is something that has been out in Japan for a little while it was having a few problems it was first released it would soak up a ton of battery from the switch itself but that has been switched with the latest switch firmware and now it's made its way to the states in an awesome little Zelda design and a Mario design as well however while this is the first official way to get a d-pad for your switch this is not the only option out there and there's actually much older one that we've done before on this channel and that's making your own modded joi con with a d-pad so we're gonna compare the benefits and this is of both of these in which one's actually worth getting what first let's talk about what exactly you're getting with this hoary deep at droidcon now this is an official release joy Khan it's half the price of an actual joy Khan and has the benefit of adding this little d-pad here but there is a lot of stuff it's sacrifices first off it has no internal battery batteries not included and no Bluetooth connection this cannot be used on its own you can't use it wirelessly you can't use it sideways it is only meant to be connected directly to the switch when you're playing in portable mode and as a direct result of it missing all that tech inside it is considerably lighter than regular droidcon you might actually even think it's fake or an unfunctional when you very first pick it up because there's nothing in here it also doesn't have the Rumble battery or gyroscope so it is the bare-bones basics that you need to have a functioning controller and in fact when I actually first open this I was really confused for a moment because I was just checking it out looking at the buttons and I was like oh that's weird it doesn't have any shoulder buttons it doesn't have anywhere else connection there's no point it's only used on the side so there'd be no reason for those now for how this works compared to using a traditional joi con it's actually fairly close in a lot of areas like I said it is a lot lighter which can throw you off a little bit but you don't notice it as much well it's connected to the system the stick feels pretty much identical to the one on traditional joi cons shoulder buttons feel great the only areas we really noticed a difference are the minus button the screen capture button and then obviously the d-pad the - and screen capture buttons I have a little more software they don't have the same kind of satisfying click that the traditional droid cons have and then the d-pad doesn't have the snappy button feeling at all because the drug comes have actual buttons it's much softer and feels much more akin to like an old-school SNES controller so when it comes to just being used as a substitute for a regular droidcon when using your switch in handheld it actually does the job really well it fits in really seamlessly and since it doesn't have that battery problem anymore it's pretty awesome there's just one major problem I have with it and it's actually this little raised bump right here so where the release button is there's a different shell shape and at first glance you might think oh that's kind of weird but whatever it's not a big deal right the problem is especially when you're using a switch in portable mode something we've been talking about a lot lately is that it's great to buy a grip to use with your switch in portable mode but cuz of this little group right here most traditional grips are not going to fit your switch anymore because the grip doesn't actually fit over the controller it causes buttons to be misaligned and the whole thing just ends up being really awkward and weird that aside though if you're just like using your switch straight up and you're not using any kind of grip or attachments or anything this is actually a pretty awesome little upgrade I do love the visual look of it too when the original resident Japan it was just this straight blue look but in the u.s. releases they've done this is all the one and a Mario on that as well that look really really nice I actually kind of wish we had an official droidcon that a designed kind of like this so for 25 bucks this is actually a pretty cool little replacement but the question here is how does it compare to something that's even cheaper and just requires a little elbow grease on your own part so just as a quick refresher on how easy or maybe actually how hard it is to do a shell exchange we're going to do a fresh one right now this is actually the first joy con we ever did a shell mod on we added this white one we're gonna take this one and replace it with another white shell but one that has the d-pad so let's get at it right now I really hope I don't break a joy cone so that actually went pretty smoothly and as a result we now have a fully functional left icon that has the d-pad so unlike the holy one this has wireless connection gyroscope Rumble all those awesome features and you can still use it on its own sideways if you wanted to although that is a little awkward with the deep head right here and all of this comes at arguably the cheaper price point of $15 for the left shell deep pad by itself now of course the reason this is arguable is because well the shell is cheaper than the hoary d-pad you are also going to have to take a joke on you already own and convert it into this design so if you don't already have an extra joy con you're going to take the only leprechaun you have and turn into this which can be awkward for scenarios like I was saying where if you want to use the sideways like this a big bow and then there of course there is also the very real issue of if something goes wrong when you're doing that conversion process I mean what we did just now worked out fine but that's also cuz I've done this a few times and I'm starting to get the rhythm for it anyone who's doing their shell exchange to the reverse time really does run the risk of possibly stamping a cable not plugging something in right maybe messing up how certain buttons are laid out and give me a lot of effort that could end up turning into well nothing by the way if you like the idea of having a white joi con but you don't want to run the risk of accidentally destroying one that you own a great easy and affordable solution for it is today's spot is today's sponsor D brand foldable they've made a whole line of different switch skins that are totally safe to use for your joy cons the switch itself or even for the dock you can get him an awesome white design like this or in a variety of colors and even special ones like carbon fiber if you're interested you want to grab any check out the link down below now we've already talked about a lot of the in-depth ups and downs of these different methods of getting a d-pad there's still one very important comparison to have and that's just what the experience is like using each of them because while the shoulder placement has all the benefits of still being used wirelessly and all that kind of stuff as far as it goes just using either of these attach to your switch in portable mode the experiences are very similar except for how those D pads differ starting with the Zelda Hori one like I was saying earlier the d-pad on this one is a little softer it feels a lot closer to using like an old-school controller which on the one hand can feel a little familiar and comfortable especially if you still play a lot of old-school gaming systems I mean this feels like I'm going back to using like an SNES controller but at the same time I'm not sure if it's still the best way to go because it works well for things like rolling motions but it just has the same kind of satisfying feedback they can get with the official droidcon so let's actually switch to that shoulder placement right now and see how those differ so with the shell replacement you're still using the same kind of underlying buttons that the regular Droid coms would have it's just that instead of them being contacted by four separate little buttons it's this one d-pad that's just hitting each of them so you're getting that same kind of kind of clicky feeling you get when you hit each side of the d-pad and honestly that's something that I've really grown to like with this design it's not exactly traditional but I actually find it to be functionally a little better and if you do end up wanting to use the droidcon sideways for whatever reason it can still at least work kind of like you're hitting those four buttons because you're getting that clear feel that you're hitting each one so in the end I got to say that while the hoary deep AB controller is a great option that's gonna work right out of the box and and I think a fair price if you're willing to put the work in and you have the confidence you're not going to accidentally break anything the shell replacement is the much better method to go with you're gonna get the better d-pad of my opinion and not to mention the fact that you're still going to get the full functionality of a left joy con that you can use wirelessly