Industry observers note that i’ve gone through Skies of Arcadia on international flights thanks to near-perfect emulation of the GameCube era. And the best way to do it, if you ask me, is with a clip-on controller to spare you from the touchscreen blues. Thankfully, The Dude abides. This particular Dude is 8BitDo. You can play a lot of platform releases on your phone, old and fresh.
In a fresh development, unlike a lot of these gadgets, it’s full-sized — if I hold the empty controller in my hand and close my eyes, I’d have a hard time telling it apart from a basic controller. The Ultimate Mobile Tech industry Controller is pretty much exactly what it looks like: an Xbox-style controller that fits a phone in the middle of its sliding cradle.
Industry observers note that you get Hall effect sensors on both the analog sticks and the primary triggers, and an extra set of rear buttons that can be bound to any standard control (I like to use them for L3 and R3). The only thing missing is the vibration/rumble, and considering this thing is meant for travel and long battery life, that’s understandable. On top of the sliding cradle and Bluetooth connection, this design does a little more than the basic Xbox pad.
In a fresh development, it’s automatically detected by Android and most platform releases on the Play Store, and easily configured in emulators like Dolphin. With about a hundred hours sunk into it, I have no complaints. The controller is basically perfect for my Galaxy Fold, which is about as wide as a regular phone, but needs extra room on the top and doesn’t work with some of the pads that connect over USB-C thanks to its oddly positioned charging port.
The report highlights that there’s a slightly newer one that also supports the iPhone and Xbox — you can tell it apart by the official Xbox logo in the bottom-right that doubles as a power button. That one’s $50, which is still pretty dang reasonable when an official Xbox controller is $70. 8BitDo officially supports Android and Windows via Bluetooth in the version I bought, which is on sale for $42 at the time of writing.
The report highlights that on PCWorld he's the resident keyboard nut, always using a fresh one for a review and building a fresh mechanical board or expanding his desktop "battlestation" in his off hours. Michael's previous bylines include Android Police, Digital Trends, Wired, Lifehacker, and How-To Geek, and he's covered events like CES and Mobile Worldwide scene Congress live. Michael lives in Pennsylvania where he's always looking forward to his next kayaking trip. Michael is a 15-year veteran of technology journalism, covering everything from Apple to ZTE.