The Backbone Pro controller makes mobile gaming worth the hassle

The mobile controller institution Backbone unveiled its Backbone Pro controller this week, which brings iOS and Android gaming experiences to the adjacent level.

A successor to the Backbone One controller, the Pro features full-size joysticks, re-mappable buttons, and Bluetooth compatibility, making for a much premium gaming setup. Unlike its predecessor, the Backbone Pro doesn’t request to beryllium attached to a telephone to work, meaning that you could usage it arsenic a wireless controller. That functionality gets other utile erstwhile utilizing unreality gaming services similar Xbox Game Pass. You tin play a crippled with the Backbone Pro controller connected your TV, past plug your telephone into the controller and instantly prime up wherever you near disconnected connected mobile.

“Our thought is, gaming should beryllium a batch much straightforward,” laminitis Maneet Khaira told TechCrunch. ”It needs to beryllium truly elemental and enactment much similar AirPods erstwhile you link to screens.”

Backbone is betting large connected the maturation of mobile gaming, which has lone been accelerated by expanding unreality gaming options, but truthful far, Backbone seems to beryllium cementing itself arsenic the apical hardware shaper for mobile gamers. It besides helps that Backbone is teeming with celebrity investors similar Ashton Kutcher, The Weeknd, MrBeast, Post Malone, and Amy Schumer, arsenic good arsenic gaming insiders similar Discord laminitis Jason Citron.

But arsenic idiosyncratic who doesn’t usage Xbox Game Pass oregon akin unreality subscriptions, I ne'er rather understood the hype astir utilizing a smartphone arsenic a gaming device. I already person a Nintendo Switch, a instrumentality specifically made for gaming, arsenic opposed to my iPhone, which is designed for a bazillion different things. So to trial the Backbone Pro, I downloaded immoderate games connected my telephone that I already play connected the Switch, solely for the intent of comparing the gameplay experience.

The verdict? I person logged astir 13 hours of gameplay connected the iOS mentation of Stardew Valley implicit the past 3 days. I’m not afloat sold connected mobile gaming — answering texts portion playing a crippled is benignant of annoying — but I person to say, I’d overmuch alternatively beryllium connected the sofa with the Backbone Pro than the Nintendo Switch, which prioritizes surface size implicit comfort.

Image Credits:TechCrunch

The Backbone Pro shines successful its ergonomics. Sometimes, erstwhile you prime up a caller iPhone, it feels familiar, yet somewhat off, and it takes immoderate clip to get utilized to the consciousness of the caller instrumentality earlier the differences halt being noticeable. This was the acquisition I had playing the Nintendo Switch 2, arsenic opposed to the archetypal console.

But the Backbone Pro’s plan feels truthful people intuitive that I didn’t adjacent acquisition those fewer minutes of discomfort. Seconds aft plugging my telephone into the controller’s USB-C larboard for the archetypal time, I could play Hades — a crippled rife with chaotic fastener mashing — conscionable arsenic easy arsenic I bash connected the Switch. I find the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller uncomfortable for games similar Hades, truthful that’s saying something.

“Meta, erstwhile they were designing the Quest, they would bash aggregate iterations of a headset [prototype] successful a week, due to the fact that they could people them and past rapidly trial them, get feedback, and iterate,” Khaira said. He took inspiration from that method erstwhile processing the Backbone Pro, investing heavy successful the aforesaid benignant of technology.

Backbone 3D-printed implicit 9,000 antithetic parts earlier landing connected the exemplary that yet shipped, making microscopic tweaks to each facet of the controller earlier arriving astatine thing that makes Joy-Cons consciousness similar Fisher-Price toys.

This level of precision and versatility comes astatine a cost. The Backbone Pro retails for $169.99, which is simply a spot steep considering that you could bargain a refurbished Nintendo Switch Lite for the aforesaid price. But for superior players who request that cross-device functionality, the Backbone Pro could beryllium worthy it.

If you’re not moving backmost and distant betwixt Xbox Game Pass connected your TV and your phone, you could astir apt beryllium good with the archetypal Backbone One, which is $99.99.