Why vertical? That's definitely the worst part. Maybe for DS games, I guess. The SP always gave me cramps for its thin design, and I'd hate to hold my phone with both hands.

Back when I was still buying new phones every time my old phone broke (so about 11 years back) I always liked the idea of a slide-out controller instead of keyboard for a touchscreen (just any modern) phone. Sony did the Xperia Play way back when, and if I was looking for a new phone at the time, I'd have gotten it. Nowadays I don't even think they make the slide out keyboard phones. The next best thing I had was a little phone brace at the top of a bluetooth controller. It games great, but you it isn't nearly as fast nor as portable. And even then I haven't used it in a long time.

If I did still use it, I'd probably want one of these, and I think the price seems good. But I would also definitely look for a horizontal product, first.

Disclaimer: I used an AI tool (DeepSeek) to polish grammar and wording only. All opinions, testing, and conclusions in this review are my own.

Hi, I've read this statement a couple times now. These are my five cents: Your grammar doesn't have to be perfect, your spelling doesn't have to be perfect, your text doesn't have to be perfect. I'll always prefer human written text with small little errors over AI-corrected text. English isn't my first language and I probably make errors here and there, but these can lead to funny little mistakes, maybe new words and never before read sentences get created. Human language is beautiful, despite or because of it's errors. Have a nice day.

No headphone jack

Why should this matter? It's a controller.

Summary At $14–21, if you have a spare phone, just buy it without hesitation. At $35? That depends on how dedicated you are to playing vertical emulators with physical buttons. Is it worth buying from China? That depends on how badly you want physical buttons for vertical emulators — just keep in mind that the warranty may not be transferable.