I’ll be the first to say that I’m not much of a gamer. I play video games for sure - I love my PlayStation 5 - but I’m definitely more of a causal gamer. I prefer to get immersed into a good story game and play it until I beat it over the big multiplayer games like Call of Duty, PUBG, or Fortnite.
At least, I wasn’t, and certainly not on my PlayStation. But a while back I received a Nubia Red Magic 7 gaming phone to test out, and since I was testing it, I forced myself to play some of those games on my phone. And you know what? I kinda like it. I definitely didn’t get sucked in the way I do sometimes into those big story games, but it was fun and I found myself enjoying the experience.
So when I got the chance to review the Gamesir smartphone gaming controller, I thought “why not?”
Hardware
The Gamesir X2 looks a lot like what you’d get if you took the screen out of a Nintendo Switch and stuck a USB-C connector on the right side of it that you could drop your phone into. And honestly, it works really well. You pull the two halves apart, attach your phone to the USB-C plug and away you go. I really like how they made the USB-C port flexible inside the handle so you can move it up and down a bit to accommodate different sized phones, and it makes it much less likely to break.
There’s never a worse feeling for a writer than mushy, non-responsive keys on a keyboard and the same is true for game controllers. You want crisp, precise tactile response on every button press, and the X2 Pro delivers. Gamesir claims a console-like tactile experience on the X2 Pro and whiles it’s not quite on the same level as the genuine Xbox controller, it’s still pretty impressive.
It includes all the technical aspects of the standard high end console controllers – you can read more on their website – including two extra buttons on the back that are remappable. I couldn’t confirm if these were mappable for button press combinations or just one single button, but it’s still helpful to have. I personally never found myself using them, but the more hardcore gamers could certainly find a use for them. And speaking of customizing, the X, Y, A, and B buttons can be removed and switched to a different layout if you prefer a different setup.
I was really impressed by the tactile feedback from the buttons, particularly the bumpers and triggers. They’re calibrated well and felt firm and crisp when gaming. The joysticks did feel a tad laggy though. There was a noticeable difference in response time when going from my console controller to the X2 Pro, but since there are so many other issues to consider when cloud gaming, I can’t say definitely that it’s the controller’s fault, but I did notice it. They do include to different pairs of covers for the joysticks – concave and convex – so you can get a bit more of a customized feel to them if you want. It’s a nice touch and I personally went with the concave ones and never looked back.
Lastly, there’s also a dedicated capture and share button so you can quickly capture those epic in game moments and quickly share them across the socials.
Color-wise you can get the X2 Pro in either black or white, and this particular model is officially licensed by Microsoft. Unfortunately, I didn’t get any hints that they’re planning to release a PlayStation themed controller (like you can get from BackBone), but the white color option looks pretty sweet.
As of right now, they only come with a USB-C, but there is a Bluetooth option available if you want to game on an iPhone. I didn’t receive that version so I can’t speak to how well it connects or the latency of it or anything, but it’s there if you want it.
Lastly, and while not a big deal to me personally, I do think it’s a big miss for Gamersir: there’s no headphone jack to speak of. The only way to get audio is via Bluetooth headphones connected to your phone. Again, I didn’t care too much about this as I’m usually by myself when gaming on this and my Bluetooth headphones work just fine, but nearly every other gaming device includes a headphone jack for the more serious gamers who want or need one. And if Gamesir is trying to get more hardcore gamers to use this, that’s a big miss in my opinion.
There is passthrough charging though so you can plug in while you’re gaming so you never have to miss a critical moment of a game. And Gamesir includes a hard carrying case in the box which is pretty fantastic to see at this price point. Neither the Switch or the BackBone – another phone gaming controller I tested – included that and their both more expensive.
Points for Gamesir.
Software
Gamesir has both an iOS and Android app available that helps you with things like customizing and remapping the buttons, but mostly it’s just an aggregator of games that will work well with the controller. It will show you games that are popular on mobile Google Play and the App Store, as well as popular games across the cloud gaming services like Xbox Game Pass, Nvidia’s GeForce Now, and Stadia (RIP). The Xbox version of the X2 Pro does not work with PlayStation Remote Play, but that makes sense. I would expect the non-Xbox licensed ones would work just fine but I couldn’t confirm that.
It is a bit limited though in the sense that you can’t really search games across those cloud services. It will only show you a predetermined set of what games are popular, but I don’t know how often that’s updated and there’s no way to search across those services from within the app. You can only search through games in the Play Store.
If you do want to play one of the games curated from the cloud services, you can click on it and it will simply take you out to the other app. Simple and minimalistic, but effective.
Final Thoughts
As I mentioned at the top, I’m not a huge gamer by any stretch, but I certainly do play a decent amount and have thoroughly enjoyed using the X2 Pro. The buttons are clicky and responsive, and the ability to switch between layouts is a nice touch. I do wish the app was a bit more robust and that there was an option for a lighting port, but overall, I really like it.
At a full retail price of $80, it’s hard to recommend the X2 Pro over something like the BackBone One which gives you quite a bit more for just an extra twenty bucks. However, you can regularly find the X2 Pro for closer to $60 and at that price, it’s absolutely worth the money. Game on nerds.
