THE ULTIMATE CONTROLLER – ZD Gaming Ultimate Legend Review

Who needs a £200+ Razer controller when this £76 one does everything it can do, and so, so much more? This is the ZD Gaming Ultimate Legend Controller, and my god is it feature packed. Let me just sprinkle some of my favourites – 3000Hz polling (or 900Hz wireless), easily replaceable TMR joysticks, hall effect triggers with mechanical switch lockouts, and even a sick RGB halo. This thing is incredible, so let’s take a look at it and see why exactly I’m so impressed. Let’s start by looking at it.

From the front this thing is hard to miss. With its slightly frosted transparent front plate, muffling the arty text beneath, this thing is striking – and I like it. While in theory this is a pretty normal layout from the front, you do get two extra programmable buttons on the front, just below either left or right stick. It’s a little triangle, and it’s placed pretty well to be able to easily hit it with your respective thumbs. Up top we’ve got the triggers and bumpers, along with two extra buttons for claw grippers, and on the back there’s the trigger locks – that suck to actuate by the way, this really could be better – some excellent rubber texturing, and another four buttons back here – two regular style flat-to-the-back buttons, and two very funky looking paddles. There’s no headphone jack here as this is primarily a PC, Switch and mobile (ie Android and iOS) controller. Despite being an Xbox style controller, this isn’t officially an Xbox compatible controller. It does support Bluetooth though.

Despite the whistle stop tour, there’s actually a lot more to this thing, like replace and repairability. The obvious place to start is with the joysticks. Despite this thing being TMR – meaning it’ll never drift – if you do want to replace them, you just pop the front plate off, and pop them out. That’s it. No screws, no fuss, just little modules. Why doesn’t every controller do this?! I should also add that the joystick tips are pretty easily replaceable too, which is amazing. But the fun doesn’t stop there! The ABXY buttons are actually removable too – just the caps – specifically so you can swap to the other set included in the box to make this a Nintendo pattern layout. Each button is keyed to a specific shape so you can’t mix them up. Even the D Pad gets a myriad of options – there’s even a damn joystick on there! You get every style you could want – or five total D-Pad options included. 

ZD’s approach to customisation and repair is unique, and very welcomed. As an example, if you prefer a taller stem on your joysticks, or just want replacement options, you can buy a full pack  with a nice carry case for £8. If you want different joysticks than the RJ13-TMR ones that come included, they have three options. Puyao White and ALPS White potentiometer sticks, and another TMR option, the K-SILVER JS13 Pro. For those who are confused why you’d want a different TMR stick, I did a blind feel test and could distinguish a difference between the two. It’s subtle, but I think the JS13 (the optional extra one) is a little firmer, a little heavier. Oh, and you can also get the perfectly form-fitting charging stand too, either for £16 separately, or for £11 extra if you buy the bundle. The stand is great as it acts both as a super easy charger, and a USB hub for both the dongle, and two extra USB A ports. That’s pretty nice, it keeps the dongle up on your desk for great signal, and gives you a couple extra ports to make use of. I like it! 

Something else I like is the feel. The stock RJ13 sticks feel great – a little light maybe, but more than good enough – and everything has an excellent tactile click, even the ABXY buttons. These are 100 million plus clicks HCNHK buttons, and they feel great. The D-PAD is super clicky too, and even the slide-in microswitches in the triggers are nice and clicky. Despite this being a ‘budget’ controller – at least by Razer standards anyway – this thing is easily the best build quality of a non-name brand controller I’ve used. It’s solid, has a nice weight without being too heavy, the materials are all on point, and it feels just well built. There’s no flex or give, there’s no cheap plastic or hollow feel, it’s great. For those that like vibration motors – I generally do – this is great, with six motors, and even a 6 axis IMU if you want to use gyro type inputs instead of the sticks. Comfort wise this is spot on. The four back buttons – despite the unusual shape and style – are perfectly placed, nice and tactile, and the strong distinction between the inner and outer buttons makes it very easy to find which one you’re pressing. Weirdly this might actually be my favourite back button arrangement I’ve used so far. 

When it comes to actually using it, well that’s pretty great too. Mapping the custom buttons is fairly easy, you just hold the “mode” button on the front, along with the button you want to map for two seconds, then tap the button you want it to be, then tap mode again to lock it in. You can also store four total profiles onboard and use start + a D-Pad direction to switch between them. Switching between Bluetooth and the dongle is a little more finicky, requiring you to hold the start button down until the controller is off, then hold either Y for 2.4GHz, or A or B for Bluetooth, then press the start button – but keep holding Y, A or B until the start button light changes either blue for 2.4GHz or green for Bluetooth – I know, those colours should be the other way around… In theory they do also have an app you can use to customise settings, but despite my best efforts, I could not get it to connect to the controller. I tried everything, but despite actively using the controller to navigate the phone and the app, it “couldn’t find the controller”. Never mind the fact this is a sideloaded app from a google drive folder… I’d stick to the onboard controls for this one.

One thing I found you don’t need to do much to customise is the polling rate. ZD Gaming says this runs at 900Hz over the 2.4GHz dongle – a major rarity as basically all controllers only do 250Hz over wireless – and 3000Hz when connected via a cable. The thing is the polling rate tester app I use can’t get more than about 300Hz over wireless – with a bunch of stuttering – but when running wired it’s closer to 4,000Hz! Does this matter all that much? No not really, but it’s interesting that it can’t live up to one standard, but decently exceeds the other! That does affect the latency, at least a little bit. There is a noticeable difference in latency between wired and wireless – 12.6ms vs 16.7ms – although despite the high polling rate it isn’t actually the fastest controller I’ve tested, coming in second behind the absolutely tricked out Nacon Revolution X Unlimited by a bit over one millisecond. That’s still pretty good for a controller, although it’s a shame the near 4,000Hz polling rate doesn’t translate to better latency than the rest of the field in the real world.

For actually though gaming, this is amazing. It feels great in the hands, and I do actually think the vibration is better than I’ve used before. For racing games like Dirt Rally 2.0 I found it actually pretty helpful as the more granular feedback actually helped me drive better. Sadly for FPS games I’m completely useless, so maybe don’t take my word for it on that front. Still, I really enjoyed using this. All the extra buttons are placed well, they’re easy to remap, and everything on the controller feels great. Nice and clicky, definitely a more premium feel than the price tag would suggest. The fact everything is upgradable or replaceable easily is amazing, and the fact this thing, even with the charging stand AND some extra joysticks comes in less than £100 is incredible. It’s a shame the app didn’t work for me – I’d prefer PC software anyway, and some extra controls for things like polling rate in case games break with the higher rate (like older games do with higher polling rate mice, Killing Floor 2 I’m looking at you…) would be great. Razer’s aim assist/joystick limiter feature would be amazing to see here too. Still, for the money this is incredible, and I think if I wanted a new controller for my PC, this would be at the top of my list. Good job ZD gaming!