Gadgetory

Corsairs Raptor line of quality gaming peripherals has the features you need to win at a price you like click now to learn more so gaming on smartphones we all know this is stupid touchscreen controls are terrible but honestly this is like equally stupid because then now how can you possibly control the d-pad or the left analog stick or anything like that so there is good news there is a solution this my friends is the Moga hero power and the Moga pro power which we'll be taking a look at today we're going to start with the hero power which is a $60 model it has 2 clickable analog sticks a d-pad ABXY buttons l1 r1 l2 and r2 shoulder and trigger buttons an LED battery life indicator that turns on when you actually turn the device on as well as a slim portable design excuse the crotch shot here and a rechargeable 1,800 milliamp hour battery next up we've got the pro power at $79.99 and inside the box for that one we find what they're calling a console style Comfort game controller I think calling it console style comfort is a little bit of a stretch is it of the same build quality as something like an Xbox 360 controller no but it is bigger than the portable hero version so I will definitely give them that it's got dual clickable analog sticks a d-pad as well as ABXY buttons l1 and r1 as well as l2 and r2 shoulder and trigger buttons and led battery life indicator it's actually quite glint granular glandular bren you learned very handy it also has a rechargeable 2200 milliamp hour battery and ok I did claim this wasn't on boxing so we should show you what's included with them you get instructions a little statement of whatever the heck as well as a 6 inch USB to micro cable and a more normal length USB to micro cable and I'll show you what these are for in a moment the other thing that the pro includes that the hero does not include is a little stand which you can actually put a tablet or a smartphone on so that you don't have to clip it to the controller more on that in a moment so the killer app here for the power series is that the included batteries not only power the device itself but also the phone that it's connected to so there is a boost port at the back that you use that little six-inch cable for you go ahead and plug that in and then you can plug that directly into your phone so it can actually augment the battery life of your phone because we all know that phones have terrible battery life when you are gaming it can reach pretty much anywhere on the device so you can see I can actually position this all the way around to the top of an experience e1 and how does it do that you might ask well it all starts with the smart lock system it's spelled SMRT so Homer Simpson clearly thinks it's a good idea and Who am I to disagree with him how well does it work exactly well we did some shake tests with a variety of phones that we that we borrowed so these are ones that have to go back to the manufacturer so what do we care if they come out and it actually did incredibly well the rubber grippy material on the top and the bottom is some of the best that I have ever encountered this is a fantastic feature but it isn't quite perfect there aren't really any angle options so both on the hero as well as on the pro you can see that you've only got completely sort of down completely right angle and then this particular angle right here which I actually didn't find was quite perfect from like a sitting gaming standpoint because I don't hold my controller flat it looks like whoever designed it was expecting you to sit with your controller flat on a desk as opposed to angled up in a more natural position it wasn't a deal-breaker especially if your phone has a decent viewing angle but it just wasn't quite as comfortable as it could have been maybe on the next generation so before we get into the million dollar question of how does it play exactly I'll give some context for the competition the stuff that I've tried so I've used the Nyko play pad Pro that's the only sort of lower-cost Bluetooth controller optimized for phones that I have it's very low latency so that's great but the ergonomics are just frankly not very good it's somewhere between the hero power and the pro power as far as the gaming experience goes but it's bulky like the pro power as opposed to being something that's mobility optimized like the hero power the other option that I'll talk about is Nvidia shield so this is heavy I mean when you compare it to even the pro power which is the heavier of two options loaded up with an experience which is a pretty heavy phone that comes in at around four hundred and thirty grams shield is around five hundred and ninety grams with that said it has heavy hitting battery life as well as heavy hitting features you can it has a Tegra 4 processor you can play Android games you can stream PC games and all that stuff but it is in a completely different price bracket because this works with your existing phone and costs anywhere from sixty to eighty bucks depending on the model you're looking at in this class anywhere from two hundred to three hundred dollars and depending if you buy it with a graphics card or not finally game compatibility Moga does have optimized compatible games that work out of the box and I did find that that worked quite well and was very seamless and with the a/b switch on the bottom you can also flip it into hid mode so any games that are compatible with HIV which stands for human interface device by the way for you guys who don't know that any games that support that will work perfectly shield of course is compatible with those kinds of things as well but also has touchscreen mapping which is an available download from Nvidia that allows you to take touchscreen controls and actually bind them to buttons on the controller this is something where I feel like these third-party guys have a little bit of room to catch up because it's an incredibly cool feature so for the gaming experience in general thoughts I'm going to separate them I'll do the pro first the button tactile feel and organ aam --ax are quite good actually they're ok it's not an Xbox 360 controller we've been very clear about that but they're quite good the joysticks are good the click enos of the joysticks is good the d-pad is very mediocre I'd say on the low end of mediocre even considering how much D pads have been a bend and this isn't something I want to play my older emulated games on from SNES or anything like that precision platforming not so much but the ABXY buttons are not bad they're maybe a little bit hard to press but I'm not going to take off too many marks there the shoulder buttons and trigger buttons are very good the only thing that really bothered me about the ergonomics of this one is the fact that you bumped the right joystick when pressing the a button and the X button if you're not extremely careful if you have larger hands than me it will be more of an issue the setup app is excellent this actually goes for both of them you just install their Moga app on the phone and then it guides you through the entire process it's very very simple you don't even need the instructions of the hid setup as well as the Moga my setups the latency was solid Reapers a game that I've been playing a lot of actually lately and it's a little bit of precision is required but it's not a huge deal and I didn't notice any delay whatsoever and apparently multiplayer gaming is also a feature so you can use two of these out of time which is cool but we didn't happen to try that particular one now the pro comes with this little stand which actually holds anywhere up to you know like a 10-inch quite heavy bulky tablet and folds up small enough that even though the controller itself doesn't fit in your pocket this stand could easily fit in your pocket sorry for that crotch shot again and you could take it with you anywhere you wanted so it's going to come down to whether you prefer the ergonomics of the larger controller or the convenience of a smaller one so for the hero obviously the ergonomic experience is not as good this is something that I'd consider to be a little bit better for something like emulated games the d-pad is actually better than the pro in my estimation although the joysticks are not as good and the click enos of the joysticks is a little bit hard to activate the ABXY buttons are about the same I'd say maybe even a little bit better they're a little bit of a lighter touch compared to the pro and the shoulder buttons are actually quite nice feeling the one where this really falls on its butt is the triggers the triggers are the worst triggers I've ever encountered on a controller I mean here I'm going to put this next to my mic there's there's no tactile response they're extremely mushy and extremely slow to respond but I'm willing to let that slide because the portability and the fact that not only this one but both of these controllers give you extended play time by charging your phone at the same time is a very excellent feature I did find myself frustrated by the lack of an adjustable angle for the smart hinge here but I understand why they did what they did particularly for the pro even with a heavy phone installed in it you can put it down and it doesn't tip over which is quite nice whereas for the hero you know if they find anything further back anything would just tip the thing over but I think the idea is you're supposed to be holding it when you're using it anyway so thank you for checking out my unboxing and overview of the Moga power series don't forget to subscribe to Linus tech tips for more unboxings reviews and other computer videos like this video if you liked it dislike it if you disliked it and leave a comment if you have some kind of feelings that are just more complicated than thumbs up thumbs down