Moga Pro Controller

Mobile gaming has a big problem: touch screens. Dedicated gaming devices like the Nintendo 3DS and the Sony PlayStation Vita offer up physical controls for playing games. With smartphones and tablets need you to rub your thumbs all over their screens. The Android-focused Moga Pocket Controller impressed us by offering both a solid selection of compatible games through its own store, and a third-party driver that lets you use the controller with any game that can map buttons.

The Moga Pro Controller ($49.99 direct) is even better than the Pocket Controller, with a larger, more comfortable design that adds a digital direction pad in addition to the two analog sticks, bigger buttons, and a dedicated mode that lets you cut out the third-party-driver middleman and configure games to work with the controller without any additional fiddling. Add a smartphone-holding arm built into the controller, a USB-rechargeable battery, and an included tablet stand, and you get an Editors' Choice among smartphone and tablet gaming accessories. The only real flaw is that iOS devices can't come along for the ride.

Design
The Pro Controller is the approximate size and shape of an Xbox 360 controller, complete with "wing" grips, two analog sticks, four face buttons, three additional buttons for Start, Select, and the company's logo as a catch-all menu control, four shoulder buttons, and a digital direction pad. The layout is nearly identical to the Xbox controller, with the direction pad aligned with the right analog stick, and the left analog stick aligned with the four face buttons. The PlayStation 3 controller, on the other hand, aligns the two analog sticks with each other and the direction pad lines up with the face buttons. The shoulder controls include a trigger button and a bumper button on each side, also like the Xbox 360 controller. The most striking difference is the weight; the Moga Pro controller is slightly slimmer, but weighs about two-thirds as much as the Xbox 360 controller (6.6 ounces vs. 9.3 ounces).

There's a flip-up arm in the middle of the gamepad with a telescoping, rubberized grip that can hold your smartphone, just like on the Moga Pocket. It still can't hold a 7-inch tablet like the Google Nexus 7, but it can hold a 5.5-inch Samsung Galaxy Note II easily. For larger tablets, you get an easel-like folding plastic stand in the box. A switch under the arm turns the controller on and sets it into the default Moga controller mode or into Human Interface Device (HID) mode, described below. The top of the gamepad holds a microUSB port for charging the built-in battery. On the underside of the controller, there's a small, recessed button that toggles the orange backlighting for the face buttons.

Multiple Modes
Like the Moga Pocket, the Bluetooth-enabled Moga Pro uses Moga's Pivot app to manage connecting the gamepad to your mobile device. Pairing is an easy process of turning the gamepad on and tapping the setup button in the app. In default mode, with the power switch set to A, and the green light on, the controller works just like the Moga Pocket. You can play any non-HID-specific Moga-supported game available on the Pivot app seamlessly and navigate its menus. Integration is smooth.

In HID mode, with the power switch set to B and the orange light on, the controller registers as a human interface device, like a keyboard. This lets you play HID-specific games in the Moga app, but that's not the reason this mode is so excellent. Because it registers like a keyboard, you can directly map inputs in any game that allows button mapping. This means non-Moga games can be played easily through the Moga Pro. The Moga Pocket could do this with the third-party Moga Universal IME app, but with HID mode, the Moga Pro can do it out of the box. This mode maps the left analog stick to the direction pad and disables the right analog stick and trigger buttons (but the bumper buttons still work). It's not quite as flexible as using the Moga Universal IME app, but that app required rooting your mobile device to use the analog sticks to begin with, so it's still a smoother experience for any remotely arcade-like game you want to play. In HID mode, the gamepad can also navigate the Android interface to a limited extent, so you can browse through menus with the analog stick or direction pad.

Performance
The gamepad worked and played flawlessly when I started up Sonic CD on my Samsung Galaxy S III. The direction pad felt much better than the Moga Pocket's analog pad for controlling Sonic; the buttons are large and were responsive under my thumb. The gamepad worked similarly well with my Google Nexus 7, which couldn't fit in the Moga Pro's arm but sat comfortably on the included stand.

The Moga Pro is the best gamepad for a mobile device I've seen. It's large, comfortable, and well designed, and most importantly, it plays well with any Android game that either is compatible through the Moga Pivot app or supports manual button mapping. The classic arcade gaming potential for the Moga Pro and your Android device of choice is nearly limitless, so it's an easy Editors' Choice. This isn't a controller for Apple users, though; if you want to play games with your iPad, the ThinkGeek iCade 8-Bitty might be more your style, despite the lack of game compatibility and analog sticks.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/abKLDXDP1bU/0,2817,2418273,00.asp

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