MOGA Power Series Android Controllers Unboxing & Review
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2014-05-07
·
1,934 words · ~9 min read
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Corsair's Raptor line of quality gaming peripherals has the features you need to
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win at a price you'll like click now to learn
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more so gaming on smartphones we all know this is stupid touchscreen controls
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are terrible but honestly this is like
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equally stupid because then now how can you possibly control the d-pad or the
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left analog stick or anything like that so there is good news there is a
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solution this my friends is the MGA hero
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power and the MGA Pro Power which we'll be taking a look at today we're going to
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start with the hero power which is a $60 model it has two clickable analog sticks
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a d-pad abxy buttons L1 R1 L2 and R2
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shoulder and Trigger buttons an LED battery life indicator that turns on
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when you actually turn the device on as well as a slim portable design excuse
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the uh crot shot here and a rechargeable
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18 00 mAh battery next up we've got the
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Pro Power at $79.99 and inside the box for that one
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we find what they're calling a console style Comfort game controller although I
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think calling it console style Comfort is a little bit of a stretch is it of
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the same build quality as something like an Xbox 360 controller no but it is
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bigger than the portable Hero version so I will definitely give them that it's
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got dual clickable analog sticks a d-pad
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as well as has abxy buttons L1 and R1 as
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well as L2 and R2 shoulder and Trigger buttons and led battery life indicator
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it's actually quite GL granular glandular granular and very handy it
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also has a rechargeable 2200 milliamp battery and okay I did claim this was an
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unboxing so we should show you what's included with them you get instructions a little statement of whatever the heck
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as well as a 6in USB to micro cable and
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a more normal length USB to micro cable and I'll show you what these are for
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moment the other thing that the pro includes that the hero does not include
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is a little stand which you can actually put a tablet or a smartphone on so that
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you don't have to clip it to the controller more on that in the
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moment so the killer app here for the power series is that the included
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Batteries Not only Power the device itself but also the phone that it's
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connected to so there is a boost port at
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the back that you use that little 6-in cable for you go ahead and plug that in
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and then you can plug that directly into your phone so it can actually augment
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the battery life of your phone cuz we all know that phones have terrible
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battery life when you are gaming it can reach pretty much anywhere on the device
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so you can see I can actually position this all the way around to the top of an
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Xperia Z1 and how does it do that you might ask well it all starts with the
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Smart Lock system it's spelled smrt so Homer Simpson clearly thinks it's a good
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idea and who am I to disagree with him how well does it work exactly well we
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did some shake tests with a variety of phones that we that we borrowed so these
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are ones that have to go back to the manufacturer so what do we care if they come out and it actually did incredibly
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well the rubber grippy material on the top of the bottom is some of the best
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that I have ever encountered this is a fantastic feature but it isn't quite
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perfect there aren't really any angle options so both on the hero as well as
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on the pro you can see that you've only got completely sort of down completely
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right angle and then this particular angle right here which I didn't find was
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quite perfect from like a sitting gaming standpoint cuz I don't hold my
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controller flat it looks like whoever designed it was expecting you to sit
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with your controller flat on a desk as opposed to angled up in a more natural
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position it wasn't a deal breaker especially if your phone has a decent
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viewing angle but it just wasn't quite as comfortable as it could have been
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maybe on the Next Generation so before we get into the million dooll question
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of how does it play exactly I'll give some context for the competition the
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stuff that I've tried so I've used the Niko playpad Pro that's the only sort of
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lower cost Bluetooth controller optimized for phones that I have it's
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very low latency so that's great but the ergonomics are just frankly not very
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good it's somewhere between the hero power and the pro power as far as the
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gaming experience goes but it's bulky like the pro power as opposed to being
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something that's Mobility optimized like the hero power the other option that
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I'll talk about is NVIDIA SHIELD so this is heavy I mean when you compare it to
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even the Pro Power which is the heavier of the two options loaded up with an
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Xperia Z which is a pretty heavy foam that comes in at around 430 G Shield is
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around 590 G with that said it has
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heavy-hitting battery life as well as heavy-hitting features you can it has a
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tgra 4 processor you can play Android games you can stream PC games and all
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that stuff but it is in a completely
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different price bracket because this works with your existing phone and costs
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anywhere from 60 to 80 bucks depending on the model you're looking at and this
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cost anywhere from $200 to $300 and depending if you buy it with a
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graphics card or not finally game compatibility MGA does have optimized
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compatible games that work out of the box and I did find that that worked
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quite well and was very seamless and with the ab switch on the bottom you can
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also flip it into hid mode so any games that are compatible with hid which
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stands for human interface device by the way for you guys who don't know that uh
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any games that support that will work perfectly Shield of course is compatible
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with those kinds of things as well but also has touchcreen mapping which is an
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available download from NVIDIA that allows you to take touchcreen controls
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and actually bind them to butons on the controller this is something where I
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feel like these third party guys have a little bit of room to catch up because
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it's an incredibly cool feature so for
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the gaming experience and general thoughts I'm going to separate them I'll do the pro first the button tactile feel
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and ergonomics are quite good actually they're okay it's not an Xbox 360
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controller we've been very clear about that but they're quite good the
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joysticks are good the clickiness of the joysticks is good the d-pad is very
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mediocre I'd say on the low end of mediocre even considering how much d-pad
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PS have been abandoned this isn't something I'd want to play my older emulated games on from SNES or anything
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like that Precision platforming not so much but the abxy buttons are not bad
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they're may be a little bit hard to press but I'm not going to take off too many marks there the shoulder buttons
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and Trigger buttons are very good the only thing that really bothered me about
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the ergonomics of this one is the fact that you bump the right joystick when
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pressing the a button and the x button if you're not extremely careful and if you have larger hands than me it will be
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more of an issue the setup app is excellent this actually goes for both of
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them you just install their MOA app on the phone and then it guides you through
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the entire process it's very very simple you don't even need the instructions of
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the hid setup as well as the MGA optimized setups the latency was solid
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Reaper is a game that I've been playing a lot of actually lately and it's a
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little bit of precision is required but it's not a huge deal and I didn't notice
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any delay whatsoever and apparently multiplayer gaming is also a feature so
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you can use two of these at a time which is cool but we didn't happen to try that
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particular one now now the pro comes
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with this little stand which actually holds anywhere up to you know like a 10-in quite heavy bulky tablet and folds
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up small enough that even though the controller itself doesn't fit in your
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pocket this stand could easily fit in your pocket sorry for that crotch shot again and you could take it with you
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anywhere you wanted so it's going to come down to whether you prefer the
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ergonomics of the larger controller or the convenience of the smaller one so
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for the hero obviously the ergonomic experience is not as good this is
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something that I'd consider to be a little bit better for something like emulated games the d-pad is actually
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better than the pro in my estimation although the joysticks are not as good
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and the clickiness of the joysticks is a little bit hard to activate the abxy
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buttons are about the same I'd say maybe even a little bit better they're a
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little bit of a lighter Touch compared to the pro and the shoulder buttons are
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actually quite nice feeling the one where this really falls on its butt is
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the triggers the triggers are the worst triggers I've ever encountered on a
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controller I mean here I'm going to put this next to my
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mic there there's no tactile response there extremely mushy and extremely slow
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to respond but I'm willing to let that slide because the portability and the
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fact that not only this one but both of these controllers give you extended Play
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Time by charging your phone at the same time is a very excellent feature I did
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find myself frustrated by the lack of an adjustable angle for the smart hinge
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here but I understand why they did what they did particularly for the pro even
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with a heavy phone installed in it you can put it down and it doesn't tip over
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which is quite nice whereas for the hero you know if they went any further back
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anything would just tip the thing over but I think the idea is you're supposed
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to be holding it when you're using it anyway so thank you for checking out my
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unboxing and overview of the Moga Power series don't forget to subscribe to L
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