iPega Bluetooth Controller 9025

Game Controller for Android and iPhone 

Model Name: iPega 9025
Price: £22 (at the time)

First thoughts

Retro gaming, reliving those days of gaming when you had all the time in the world. As Android phones have got more and more powerful so to has the games and emulators now running smooth thanks to the tech savvy programmers. 

But there is one thing that gets in the way, fingers and thumbs. Lets face it playing on a touchscreen device just isn't the same as having a controller in your hand. Granted there are some touchscreen games that work better that way. And there is some developers who have made some very good touchscreen control with first and third person view genres, dead trigger comes straight to mind. 

Controllers for phones haven't been too great recently, either built badly, sketchy connectivity or just a lack of support. Some of the problems is down to Android being so open source. 

Then came the iPega a not so big and well known company unlike Moga (probably the most well known controller at the moment). But is it any good? 

The Test

First thing I instantly notice is how small and light this thing is. With a built in rechargeable battery I was beginning to wonder if they forgot to put it in there. Inside the box is the USB charging cable, a badly written instruction manual (more on that in a bit) and the controller itself. 

The feel of the controller is nice on the hands. Two analogue sticks have a rubbery indent to them and also click, that's your L3 and R3 buttons sorted. D-pad is present small but finely placed. Start and select buttons near the top. Media buttons at the bottom, (volume, play pause etc). Four action buttons perfectly placed, and feel quite high quality similar to the glassy feel of the Xbox controller. Two shoulder buttons that are a little fiddly to press. Lastly the two L2 and R2 buttons are right underneath, like at the back. That will take some getting used to. At the top of the controller is the phone holder. Conveniently tucked inside, it stretches out under a spring mechanism, that sounds a bit squeaky, dare I say it, a little flimsy sounding. 

The nice thing with this is it can be used while charging. iPega boast that the controller has 20hour play time from a full charge which takes about 3-4 hours. So onto the fun part, connectivity. 

I must admit I was prepared for a very frustrating day of just trying to connect to my phone. The instruction leaflet didn't fill me with much hope. It tells you how to activate the different connection modes but doesn't explain what they are for. Basically when it's off, you press the "X" button then the "Home" button to activate gamepad mode. The same for the other modes, keyboard mode, SPP mode and iCade mode. That's all it had to say, but instead it repeats itself in bad English on how to switch on the other modes, and like I said no explanation as what they are. With that said, I was pleasantly surprised to see it connected so quickly and easily. Half the battle done it was time to play.

First up was a racing game from the play store, Asphalt 8. On loading the game says it has detected a controller, good sign. I'm then taken to a choose controller layout. From there I can now use the controller in the menu but, the highlighter moves all over the place, a tad too sensitive I think, not so good sign. Thank goodness I can still use the touchscreen to choose races. Once in the game and it feels perfect. Small movements and big movements from the sticks correspond exactly to the car in the game. Using the action buttons for brake and boost all working perfect, very happy indeed.

Next up emulators, games that were made to be played on a console with a controller. So far I have tested Fpse (ps1), Ppsspp (PSP) and SuperN64. And there is not much to say other then it works perfect. I did very occasionally get a strange thing with the PSP that the directional stick didn't respond, but a reset solved that.

Conclusion

After some heavy use I found that it did live up to expectations and the fact that you can use the micro USB for charging and use it while charging is very convenient. I did however get some cramping in my hands and fingers but that is to be expected as it is designed to be portable, however I was playing for a long time so probably my fault.

Just under my middle fingers lies the L2 and R2 buttons

Finding compatible games via Google Play is a bit difficult, some games don't support external controllers where you think that they should (some first person view games for example) and some dont work as expected. But that is down to the developers. I'm planning in the future to add the games I have tried and whether they work as intended.

I'm still a little worried about the holder breaking one day, but so far it hasn't so maybe it's just my imagination? Plus I've been bringing it with me pretty much everywhere, at work, on the bus sometimes even pushed into a jacket pocket when not in use, so it seems quite sturdy.

Overall I'm very happy with it, and would defiantly recommend it, especially for the price which is way cheaper then the Moga controller. A fine piece of kit for any gamer on the go or who just wants to relieve the glory days of games gone by.