recently we took a look at the best selling controllers on Amazon but thing
is being popular doesn't necessarily mean something is good and in the
comments you guys bombarded us with all of your favorite controllers that we
missed but guys there are like 20 controllers here how can we possibly
decide which one is the best by doing
something we have never done before a concept we're calling the ultimate
single elimination knockout bracket tier list Showdown we've got options ranging
from $25 all the way to $200 and guys if you think that more
money means more better you are in for some big surprises so let's get into it
and see who's going to be the Undisputed intercontinental champion of controllers
just like I am the Undisputed intercontinental champion of segue to
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payment today to keep our bracket at a sweet 16 we're going to kick things off
with a quick high-end controller Showdown for these last two spots but
don't worry guys even though we're starting on the pricee side half of the
really great controllers that we're looking at are $50 or less not these
ones though our first cage match is between two heavy weights and in the
case of the fly Digi Apex 4 I mean that
very very literally at 329 G this is the heaviest controller in
our Showdown and that's in part because it's the most featur rich it has a
removable face plate that covers tension controller for the analog sticks a large
battery to power the onboard OLED screen a gyroscope for gyroscopic aiming and
adaptive triggers that through software can control their stopping point this is
the top offering from fly Digi a name that you're going to be hearing a lot
today up against it is the Turtle Beach stealth Ultra which has many of the same
features as the Apex 4 trading hall effect adaptive triggers for real
trigger stops and even adding a headphone jack as well as an included
dock however it's today's lowest rated
Gamepad with the common complaint being regular disconnections H it's kind of a
key feature Turtle Beach oh dude this is gorgeous oh it's smooth it's like I can
actually control what the crap I'm doing oh did you adjust the the tension on the
stakes yeah they are at maximum it's I
like it feels good I agree yeah I'm going to try the other one it's the one
that has the most alternative shape Weir uh yeah it's uh not a plus in my humble
opinion uh oh my God these sticks feel so cheap Now by
comparison what's the price difference between these two 160 and 200 what this
is the more expensive that's the more expensive one oh I mean okay well this is easy I'm sorry but you're out next up
the Wolverine V3 Pro is the noons top-of-the-line Esports offering from
Razer it's one of the most premium feeling controllers that we're looking
at but you need to like back paddles these are right under where your fingers
rest and you will want to disable them in software if you're not used to them
to avoid pressing them accidentally constantly now I'm not much of a paddle
guy but I will say that these are contoured really nicely for your fingers
and feel really good cuz they used actual Mouse micro switches I could see
this competitor going pretty far as long as it doesn't suddenly die boom razor
burst roasted wow what the
one of today's boldest designs with
lots of textures and pieces of plastic in strange places is the PDP victrix Pro
BFG it comes with a ton of extras like this module to replace the right analog
stick and face buttons with six buttons perfect for fighting games you can also
buy optional hall effect modules which we did and rolled into our cost one
awkward thing though when we tested the circularity of the hall effect modules
compared to the ones that came with it they were actually worse than the
original potentiometer based sticks it also has trigger stops although the
toggle for them is needlessly kind of
finicky with that said I like having the granularity not to mention the super
grippy spot for my Palms as a bit of a sweaty boy I'm going to give it to the
vitrix pro now for the main bracket when you pick up the gamer Nova light it's
not going to surprise you to find out that it is the cheapest controller in
our Showdown that doesn't mean it feels bad in fact I'd say it feels better than
the more expensive Logitech controllers that we looked at last time and it even
has some more premium features including hall effect sticks but while the
triggers are a similar shape to the Dual Senses they feel kind of flimsy and
Light by comparison though at this kind of price H it's pretty easy to justify
moving on our pick from the last video doesn't need much introduction it offers
up hall effect sticks and triggers and has an included 2.4 GHz dongle in a very
solid $30 package but the last time it
only had to stand out against the popular kids how will our reigning
Champion hold up against these much stronger audience favorites I think both
of them are very similar when it comes to the quality of the face buttons and
the weight of the joy sticks and I am not a fan of the way the 8bit dough
brings my elbows in tighter compared to the game sir which gives me a bit of a
wider stance what if I told you the input latency was four times better on
the 8bit
D on a wire is the gam ster any good
quite good it is 6 milliseconds on overwire which is well within the Sweet
Spot all things considered the Gamester puts up a really good fight and if this
is what a little brother controller felt like when I was a kid I would have been
thrilled but for just $5 more the ultimate 2C has much better latency over
Wireless which makes it kind of a no-brainer in the year 2025 next up is
the most affordable offering from easz SMX a company that is well known in the
controller community and seemingly nowhere else this one definitely feels
its price it's a little kind of bulbous almost like a Fisher Price controller
and the buttons are kind of mushy with what might be the worst d-pad in our
Roundup up against it is the rematch glow from PDP who makes some of the most
popular cheap controllers on the market and has been doing so for quite some
time this may be the least featured controller of the day which makes its
higher price a little puzzling that is
until you turn out the light that is a pretty neat gimmick but not enough to
stand out against even a weak competitor I think for most folks who want a
glowing controller they'd be better off just picking up a glow circuit skin from dbrand and putting it on an Xbox
controller this one's a Puzzler it's a GameStop model so you would just assume
it's awful but it can be customized with these cute little accessories it comes
in at a reasonable mid-range price and is rated almost 4.7 Stars by oh wait
only three gamers also the fact that the base kit doesn't come with everything
you need is definitely confusing and good Heavens is this ever the cheapest
feeling plastic that I have ever felt on the face plate of a controller like what
were they thinking cheap feeling up against it is our other wired controller
on the list this is a solid allrounder at a fair price the gamster G7 SE and H
have swappable face plates lockable rear buttons and kind of configurable hair
triggers although it's done by moving the actuation point in software rather
than having a physical stopper so not sure if that fully counts there are a
couple of differences between the two and for me I think I'll take the rumble
motor the extra grippiness and in general it feels so much nicer in the
hand compared to the candy con that I just there's no question sports betting
apps ly give the fly Digi direwolf one
of the strongest odds to walk away the Victor today with excellent performance
for the price and a lot of love for the triggers ooh they do feel nice not to
mention the build quality and reliability I have very high hopes for
this one there's no fruy extras just the basics that matter and even a somewhat
functional d-pad it's still on a circular pad which I don't personally
prefer but it's got a reasonably good tactile feel I don't love the rumble
motor really but if I had game sound on
it wouldn't be bothering me oh yeah the sound it's the sound and I have no such
issue with what could be a potential Dark Horse in our race here the Nixie
Master P1 has a premium feel with solid
Comfort tactile buttons toggleable hair triggers and RGB lighting now it's
unimpressive 200 HZ pulling rate may hurt it especially in games where
latency is everything but I don't know
maybe I'm not that Discerning the rumble feel feels a lot better David I don't
know it seems like you were leaning toward the fly Digi
but it's a nice Rumble definitely prefer
the shoulder on the master P1 oh no I think I prefer the shoulder on the dir
Wolf the triggers are way better on the master P1 though those are nice juicy
feeling triggers it's going to be the master P1 for me oh it's an upset and
the fans are upset does everyone love the fly Digi it's a very popular
controller but this is a new controller so hey maybe we're offering a good
alternative I like it this is a this is a nice comp editor next up is our first
first party controller an Xbox Elite no
wait if we look a little closer we can see huh not to mention feel the
difference for one thing the easz SMX X10 has a magnetic face plate and handle
plates ooh that's kind of cool it also
has clicky mechanical style face buttons that I have to say it's kind of
surprising how many controllers are switching over to Mechanical buttons now
it's not what I'm used to but I can also see why people like it overall it feels
almost premium and extremely natural in
the hand if you're used to a first-party Xbox controller going up against it is
the power a Ops V1 power a is one of the
few brands that we're looking at that has serious penetration into big retail
chains and has a long history of making serviceable third-party controllers
surprisingly the lab's team was quite impressed with the performance of this
fortnite themed banana with buttons it managed the lowest input latency over
both a wire and with its wireless dongle as well as good circularity on the
sticks I got to say I was not expecting
a power a device to come in this strong
it's got lockable triggers two stage lockable
triggers yes and four rear paddles
compared to just the two it does not feel as premium in the hand but I still
think I have to give it the edge for the extra functionality next up we've got
the G5 Pro a very popular controller with pretty positive reviews sticks feel
pretty normal the triggers are a little bit on the light side maybe for some
people and oh those are so bad these
bumpers may be the worst that we've seen so far face buttons feel okay they're a
micro switch style face button and it has a removable face plate which is cool
but might not make up for some of the concerns that people have raised over
build quality going up against it is a somewhat famili face we have favorably
covered the predecessor to the King Kong 3 because of its inclusion of hall
effect Hardware before it was all the AG and also its easy repairability it's a
solid controller at a reasonable price but some software bugs and uneven
trigger travel have turned some people off and also shockingly we found that
its 2.4 GHz dongle had the highest latency out of anything that the Labs
tested even higher than this same controller over blue Bluetooth that's
embarrassing there also just isn't really anything to make it stand out
they've got their modular stuff where you can put the paddles on or take them
off which is really nice yeah I think I got to put the King Kong 3 Pro through
to the next round not yet no you don't there's a bonus round the easz SMX X20
arrived uh after we had seated our tournament so you need to compare the
King Kong to the SMX 20 ooh this actually feels pretty good this is two
steps up from the x10 adding trigger locks o which actually feel really nice
not to mention are really quick to toggle the modes on I actually really
like the ergonomics of that o the shoulder the shoulders are nice too it's
got the paddles already so I don't have to put modular paddles on it but they're
totally out of the way which is nice this is cheaper than the King Kong Pro
10 bucks than the pro yeah ooh likey oh see you later buddy we
might have a new front runner by the sounds of it this is the fly Digi Vader
4 it's step up from their dir will free
and it feels like an Xbox controller but with even more extras oh adjustable
stick tension ooh this is not a cheap
controller but adjustable stick tension I am liking that a lot on the
controllers I've seen it on so far and this one has a way better interface for
it it's just this dial around the stick what's it going up against though oh
here's a familiar name to Xbox Gamers Turtle Beach with the stealth pivot and
this has got kind of a neat gimmick there's these locks on the back okay so
I've unlocked them now and when they're unlocked you take the sticks pop them in
and whoa you can switch them to a
dedicated fight mode okay that's pretty
cool but to fit all that pivoting in them there are some compromises on the
ergonomics and I have real doubts about the reliability of the sticks long term
when you're kind of tucking them in over and over again otherwise it actually
feels like a pretty nice controller even if it's a bit Duke like in its profile
of course another major drawback for this strange little fell is the price it
costs about as much as buying a regular controller and a fight
controller I don't think I can give it the win but not because it's a bad idea
or because it's not well executed it actually seems like a sick controller if
you are the right customer for this who plays a lot of fighting games and I'm
not okay this d-pad is literally ass so
that's something using all the value controllers and then coming back to
these really expensive
ones they're having a hard time justifying their price all right what
about the Apex 4 oh there's no question okay Apex wow
that quick he yeah it just feels so much better it's freaking heavy which I don't
love but the adjustable tension on the sticks man that feels so good that means
we have a fly Digi face off in the next round and I'm very excited about that no
no fly Digi okay we're into round two
man I'm not going to lie it seems like the x05 got a bit of a free ride to the
second round I don't think this is as good as pretty much anything else in the
second round here we've switched up games so now it's going to come a lot
more down to stick quality and precision not that I'm necessarily the best person
to judge stick precision but hey take it for what it is it's worth noting that we
switched to a wire on this one because we broke the dongle that is giving a bit
of a latency Advantage compared to running wirelessly but it shouldn't be
enough to give it the edge especially cuz I don't think it's going to win
apido Ultimate 2C here we go I still don't like the stance of this one feel
like I could get used to it but definitely not my favorite it feels way
more quality when you consider that it's the same price 30 bucks that is the
special edition one which is 10 bucks more but it's the same performance wise
it just looks I like the d-pad a lot better on this one oh man I really
really do not prefer the shape of this every time I pick it up I'm like oh that
I'm taking the easy SMX x05 woo big
upset I didn't think I was going to pick this either it feels so cheap but I just
the control is better I think if I was getting an overall controller I would
pick this but if I'm playing Shooters I actually would pick that one over this
one the gamer G7 H is going to have to do something pretty special to Come Away
with the win here it's tough to be a wired controller in a wireless
controller's World paddles aren't getting in my way not pressing them by
accident but they're there in case I need to bind them Nixie Master P1 our
Dark Horse indeed this Rumble is truly not very good no I can't bring a wired
controller forward David you can oh
gosh I'd rather game on the game sir this is one of the most popular ones out
there so some people out there are very happy that's the thing about a knockout
style playoff only one person can be happy and 15 people are going to be
upset power a Ops V1 versus easy SMX X20
oh actually feels really good so far how was the circularity of this one again it
was good it was like in the good Zone it wasn't the best but it was good so the
circularity of the joysticks that we've been talking about is how well the input
matches the circle that you draw with it if it's oval that's bad it means that
depending on whether you're going up and down or left and right it can have a
different amount of input which which is yeah obviously undesirable okay easy as
oh this is stiff competition though I really like this one it had to beat two
contenders to get here oh I really like the position of the paddles on this one
in that I can reach them really easily but I can also completely ignore them if
I don't want to use them I wish we were doing a tier list now instead of a
bracketed playoff actually we're going to at the end oh okay that's good
because there's a lot of really really great controllers that just weren't the
best controller you know mhm M mhm I got
to take the easyy SMX more like easy Cruising Into the semis
woo this one's going to be a heartbreaker for fly Digi fans no matter
which way it goes remember that one is $80 and one is
$160 oo but they both have the adjustable tension on the analog sticks
Apex 4 it's like yeah I play on Xbox but
not because I couldn't afford a top of the lion PC cuz like I'm holding this
controller like it feels so good it's kind of inconvenient that their more
premium controller though is the one that has the less convenient mechanism
for adjusting the sticks just to be clear am I supposed to pick the better
controller or the one that I think is makes more sense for you to buy I think
it's what you like what you would spend your money on if I got them all for free
I take this one no question I think that's the winner then yeah okay I think
it's a winner okay semis how the hell is
this thing still in the running it doesn't seem right I'm hyped if there's
another Budget King that's sick how much is it 30 bucks this is 30 bucks $30 it's
30 bucks David what's to hate you know I
mean people find ways to hate things but like oh it's a great controller for the
price face button responsiveness is definitely the downside to the easy SMX
if I'm playing only shooter games and I don't really need my face buttons that
much great they're not as good as the gamster though I got to give it to the
gamer woo let's give the easy SMX X20 a
chance here good face buttons this thing so good yeah it's
really
nice oh this d-pad is just such a sorry
excuse for a d-pad on an otherwise like outstanding controller oh what a oh what
a shame okay let's try d-pad here oh I
like this one this is a very usable d-pad another Factor 160 versus 60
literal $100 price difference oh this one's better it's better it's better it
wins fly Digi has been eliminated from
this competition I really really like this controller like I like it a lot if
you love The Apex 4 and you spent a bunch of money on it you've got a great
controller and you should love it just don't use the
d-pad we go into Forza now we decide third place oh fly Digi Apex 4 I like
this thing I still really like it it is
great meanwhile up against a $30
controller that also made it this deep it's funny
how there can be a difference between a light trigger and a cheap feeling
trigger both of these controllers have excellent granularity on the throttle
like I can make a small adjustment without making a mistake but one just
feels better a killer controller for 30 bucks but it's not as good as the Apex 4
and the challenge is which one's the best at each tier I still think this is
going to be in like s tier value like
honorable mention value King easy X
Gamer's Choice indeed okay now it's time
to find the king Good Vibration I actually forgot about that the X20 has a
nice Rumble motor really nice feeling trigger good analog sticks rubberized
tops I remember why I like this one so much got the paddles they're not in the
way got the locks gamer what the hell
are you even doing here you're a company that we mocked in our early budget
peripheral roundups being like ha Gam
sir but sir you game I do not like the
triggers as much I do not prefer the rumble motor trigger's pretty good the
sticks are just perfect maybe they're not perfect I'm sure the lab's results
are going to show that they're not perfect nothing's perfect but they're
good enough and it's not just the circularity of them the curve is right
they feel good but I got to give it to the easy SX it's almost the same price
and you don't need a wire I wish had a confetti cannon we we have it the winner the easy
SMX X20 you've got to tell me now what was your king the Vader 4 I think it
feels almost as good as the Apex or's like yeah it's not quite as premium but
I didn't care for that stuff and the fact that the stick control was under
the face plate pissed me off I thought that was such a stupid design choice so
overall value at $80 Vader 4 easy winner
Labs picked the ultimate 2C really for a
mix of value good sticks good input latency and it's just a great great all
round controller I didn't like the ergonomics that's something that I can't
argue with I can't believe that not a single controller on or near the podium
was from a brand that I really think of as a gaming brand no no razor no Turtle
Beach what you haven't teered anything yet I was going to let you do the tear
I'll do the tearing David's going to do the best here this will be it he's going
to factor in Labs me and his own thoughts and we're GNA have our tier
list for all these controllers because it's very clear looking at the results
that just because you didn't make it to the podium doesn't mean you're a bad
controller like look at the dirol 3 okay
it went up against a really tough competitor in the first round but if it
had happened to be seated against the candy con and then gone up against the
ultimate 2C it could have easily made semi oh for sure consult the tier list
before actually making a purchase but also I think we can probably agree that
the X20 is just fantastic controller
freaking outstanding both in terms of value and in terms of overall
performance and features yep yeah this compared to an Xbox or
switch please please let me tell you
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first payment if you guys enjoyed this video why not check out the last time we
looked at a bunch of controllers they were a little weirder