Testing the CHEAPEST GAME CONTROLLERS on Amazon!

THESE are the cheapest controllers I could find on Amazon, at least on Prime anyway. Usually with this format I just buy the cheapest thing and that’s it, but the absolute cheapest controller you can buy are these SNES clones – which come as a pack of two for only a tenner! £9.78 specifically, so that’s just £4.89 per controller! But for something without a joystick, I figured, fine, let’s get something with joysticks so you can play games normally, and that turned out to be this PS3 clone which cost me just £10.57, although seeing as how this isn’t an Xbox style controller, and therefore will only work thanks to Steam Input, I figured what the hell, let’s get the cheapest Xbox style controller too, and that’s this, which set me back a whopping… £14.68. Scandalous, I know. But there we go. Four controllers for £35 – or about £10 less than one official Xbox controller. In theory that’s not bad, right? Well in practice let’s find out just how bad they are, starting with the cheapest, the TRIXES Pack of 2 Wired USB Controllers. 

These SNES controller clones – that suspiciously have the place for a Nintendo logo, but are fully blank – are a straight rip. The graphics, button layout, the button colours, everything is suspiciously similar to the official controllers. Weirdly on the Amazon listing they put great effort into blurring or hiding the full button colour palette, which is even more hilarious when you scroll down a little and find full unblurred images in the description. I don’t know what’s going on there. Anyway, these things feel… hollow. The plastics are ok I guess, I mean for a fiver per controller who’s to argue, but still. The buttons have a worryingly long travel, and are pretty mushy. It’s clear these are membrane switches for sure. Same with the shoulder buttons, those are soft and squishy. The shell isn’t that bad, it’s surprisingly rigid with little to no flex. The cable is 1.5 metres long, so not exactly massive, but just about enough – the bare minimum, which nicely describes this whole thing.

Actually using it… Yeah it’s pretty bad. Buttons frequently don’t register, and while I’m hardly a Mortal Kombat pro (actually a complete novice) I suspect even an actual pro would really, really struggle with these things. For really young kids where you expect they are going to break the thing within a week, sure, this is for you. Anyone else… Nah. I also managed to use my own open source latency testing tool (available at OSRTT.com by the way), and the results will shock you! The average latency was a whopping 36.8 milliseconds, with the absolute minimum being 12 milliseconds – that’s the average for a good controller mind you – and the max being 65 milliseconds. Yikes! That means any amount of latency sensitive gaming is just impossible with this thing. While I don’t have any good quality SNES controllers to compare to, I can say that even a £30 wireless controller will cut almost 15 milliseconds off that latency, and running wired like this can take another 5 to 10 milliseconds off. As I said a really good controller averages 10-15 milliseconds with my tool, so this is trash.

Moving onto the cheapest controller with joysticks, the PS3 clone, this one immediately feels a lot better, and remarkably almost identical to an actual DualShock 3 controller. There are a few key differences, like the joysticks feeling like they are entirely filled with grit and sand, the joystick buttons feel like they want to snap the controller in half when you use them, and these actually kinda nice little dimples on the back for your fingers to rest on. The triggers feel remarkably similar, with the same weird feel to them (I never liked the Dual Shock 3). This one has less structural rigidity, with the two halves of the case feel like they’re splitting apart with force. Amazingly, this one has at least a tiny bit of uniqueness to it, with interesting looking square/circle/triangle/cross buttons. Those feel alright, hardly the nice mecha-tactile switches you’ll find on a new Razer controller, but good enough. Of course being a PS3 controller, it is technically wireless (over Bluetooth) although it expressly states that only works on PS3s, if you want to use it on PC, you’ll need to use the included (tiny) 1 metre mini USB cable. Yep, they copied the mini USB port from the Dualshocks as well. Brilliant. And, because it’s a PS3 controller, it generally needs Steam Input to actually work in games. 

As for actually using it, well that’s… it’s better than the SNES controller, for sure. It’s obviously more usable for most games, but it also just feels more usable. For games where I’d actually use a controller (which is mostly driving, be that in GTA or in racing games), this feels alright. I can’t say it’s anything better than adequate. It’s fine. It clearly isn’t great, and there’s actually a couple of good reasons for that. First, latency. This is still one of the slowest controllers I’ve tested. Sure, it’s over 10 milliseconds faster than the SNES clone, but it’s still over 5 milliseconds slower than the next slowest wired controller. The latency itself isn’t actually the worst part, no that would be the polling rate. See most controllers are limited to 250Hz – that’s the maximum that the consoles can handle new inputs – although more and more controllers these days are coming with PC modes that run at 1000Hz, or higher. The ZD gaming controller I checked out recently actually hits a little over 3000Hz! These controllers though? Yeah this PS3 clone is pretty bad with an average of just 61Hz. That means your display is updating at least twice as fast as the controller is updating your inputs (assuming you have a high refresh rate display anyway). That also means fast inputs can either get lost, or as we’ve seen from the latency, can just take ages. There’s also a lot of jitter, which again means inconsistent inputs, with big jumps. The average for the outliers was 47 milliseconds! That’s 7 frames at 144Hz. Yikes. Still, this isn’t the absolute worst for proper casual gaming. Anything stressful – I’m thinking overcooked here – DO NOT USE THIS. It will end up going THROUGH your TV. 

Finally, our most expensive (cheapest) controller, the Xbox 360 clone. They have absolutely nailed the feel of the original wired 360 controllers here. It’s uncanny. It looks identical – save for the missing X in the middle. It’s just a shiny ball instead here. It still has the player number LEDs around the ball, just missing the trademarked logo. While the immediate hand-feel is identical to the OG, the joysticks again feel… gritty. They aren’t as nice, and the L3/R3 buttons ring hollow inside. The quality is clearly missing here. The triggers do feel the same though, which is a nice surprise. The D pad though… damn. That’s a mushy mess. It’s hard to tell if you’ve even pressed a button, it’s that bad. Oh, something I forgot to mention with the PS3 controller is vibration. Obviously the SNES controller doesn’t have any vibration motors, whereas this and the PS3 clone do. The PS3 one is pretty weak – but at least it’s there. This one clearly has two which is nice, but the right one is broken. It permanently clicks/hums, and it’s pretty distracting. At least the left side motor feels strong and decent. Oh, happily this has a very usable cable length. It’s at least 2 metres, although the one thing it’s missing compared to the original 360 wired controller is the disconnect point – although to be honest I don’t miss that. That was mostly just a very easy way to have your controller disconnect, often hidden behind the console, PC or desk. One final funny thing with this is the joystick tips. See, they do have the little dots on the tip… but they’re on the diagonals, not up/down/left/right. That’s kinda offputting because the dots give you a little texture to know which way is which, but these… these don’t. Funny.

As for actually using it, it’s alright. I expected this to be at least a little better than the PS3 clone, but amazingly it wasn’t. It’s slightly worse. It’s actually verging on unusable. For really basic stuff, like games your under 5’s kids might play, sure, it’s perfect. But for anyone with a modicum of consciousness, it’s going to be a difficult thing to get to grips with. See, while the latency is almost identical to the PS3 clone at 23.8 milliseconds on average – only 0.4 milliseconds slower on average – the polling rate is just… laughably bad. It averaged just 37 hertz. 37! Even on 60 Hz display your display will update almost twice for every (average) controller input! That’s insane! The jitter was also even worse with an average jitter of nearly 60 milliseconds, that’s 16 hertz. That means inputs just… don’t register. Forget using this for shooter games – that just isn’t possible – but even for racing games it’s genuinely hard to use because inputs go missing, or take so long that you crash. It’s not enjoyable. I also had a brilliant suggestion given to me that I should play skate. which is… rough. You technically can play – you can skate, and even do some tricks, but trying to land specific tricks… That’s a little difficult. Also doing lots of fast movements mid-air… Yeah no. No chance. 

To say I was disappointed by all three of these things is a bit of an understatement. I know these things are cheap, but I figured even with literally decades-old designs could be replicated well for this sort of money, but I guess not. I wouldn’t buy any of these again. The PS3 controller is the closest thing to a hypothetically usable option, but it still is sub-par. These are young children’s toys, where you expect them to be broken regularly, hence the low price needing to replace them with some regularity. Or these are for the second/third player that you don’t really like. That’s about it. I’d much rather get a mid-tier £20 controller like this EasySMX controller – this bugger even has hall effect joysticks! These things feel like e-waste straight out the box. Don’t waste your money on these. I’ll link to a few better options in the description below.