Tech Recommendation – Power A Wireless Enhanced Controller

Introduction

If you speak with me for more than 10 minutes, the odds are good you’ll hear me mention video games at least 6 times. I’ve owned two Switch Pro Controllers (I call them Pro-trollers), and two sets of Joy Con, and all of them have suffered from the dreaded drifting phenomenon that hampers control. I don’t have a fix and I’m presently mailing them in to Nintendo for repairs. So for the first time, I’ve primarily used Third Party controllers on a Nintendo Console. An oddity which inspired my writing this review, and likely many more. Today I’d like to focus on the Power A Enhanced Wireless Controller.

Controller Quality and Features

After much use, I’ve never encountered a real problem with either of these controllers. The Analog sticks have remained drift free despite heavy use, and the ergonomics are very similar to the original Nintendo Pro-trollers.

There are additional programmable triggers upon the bottom, which are a unique selling point to these controllers, and they are handy in particular to “Bumper Jumper” technical types like myself. For instance, Crysis is now playable on the Switch, and there is a button for Stealth mode and a button for Armor mode, both of which come into use routinely. But to press those buttons first you’ve gotta take your thumb off the right analog stick. Which is a big no no for me.

By mapping the two modes to the programmable left and right triggers, I now can control the game in a way that feels much more natural to a jerk like myself. Similarly, I love the action platformer Gunvolt series and there is a great collection of Azure Striker Gunvolt 1 & 2 on the Switch… But the “Special Attacks” are selected by moving the right analog stick, and executed by clicking it. Not ideal at all for me. With these controllers, I can map that out to a trigger, making it feel much more natural.

I’ve heard folk describing these controllers as feeling somewhat cheap but I don’t get that impression at all from mine. No loose buttons or anything, solid feeling sticks, and the D Pad plastic looks fine to me. The controller feels as comfortable as the Switch Pro-troller, just a bit lighter and with 2 extra triggers on the inner side of the grips. While I think they’re pretty, I’m usually not one to care about appearances so long as a controller performs well.

For myself, I use AA Energizer Rechargeable batteries. They work very nicely with a lot of play time between recharges which I think is the ideal option for these controllers. There is no Rumble feature or NFC. But those aren’t essential to most of the games I play on my Switch. Motion controls on the other hand have had no discernible difference to me in my experience. Lastly, I’m very happy to say this controller CAN awaken the Switch from Sleep mode.

Conclusion

While there are some features of the Pro-troller that I miss, it’s very important to note that I’ve lost confidence in them. They need to fix the analog sticks before I will go back to them. For comparison, these controllers have never even started to drift. So I’m pretty well sold on these for the time being. At the very least, I recommend getting these for any general purpose play on Switch that doesn’t require NFC or Rumble.

Very good, very reliable, especially handy in specific games for bumper jumpers like myself.

Power A was very kind to me, sending me a replacement when I thought my original controller was no longer synching. The problem was actually with my Switch, and required me to fully shut the Switch off and turn it back on.

Since I’d unintentionally swindled them out of a controller, I decided to write about my experience with their product to repay them. Sooo there wasn’t a controller sent to me for review, but I was sent one without paying for it by my own mistake. Based on my experience, I would gladly recommend the Power A wireless enhanced controller.