 Corsair's Raptor line of quality gaming peripherals has the features you need to win at a price you'll like. Click now to learn more. So gaming on smartphones, we all know this is stupid, touchscreen controls are terrible, but honestly, this is like equally stupid because then now how can you possibly control the D-pad or the left analog stick or anything like that? So there is good news, there is a solution. This, my friends, is the MOGA Hero Power and the MOGA Pro Power, which we'll be taking a look at today. We're going to start with the Hero Power, which is a $60 model. It has two clickable analog sticks, a D-pad, A, B, X, Y buttons, L1, R1, L2, and R2 shoulder and trigger buttons, an LED battery life indicator that turns on when you actually turn the device on, as well as a slim portable design, excuse the crotch shot here, and a rechargeable 1800 mAh battery. Next up, we've got the Pro Power at $79.99. And inside the box for that one, we find what they're calling a console-style comfort game controller. Although I think calling it console-style comfort is a little bit of a stretch. Is it of the same build quality as something like an Xbox 360 controller? No. But it is bigger than the portable Hero version, so I will definitely give them that. It's got dual clickable analog sticks, a D-pad, as well as A, B, X, Y buttons, L1 and R1, as well as L2 and R2 shoulder and trigger buttons, an LED battery life indicator. It's actually quite granular, granular, and very handy. It also has a rechargeable 2200 mAh battery, and, okay, I did claim this wasn't unboxing, so we should show you what's included with them. You get instructions, a little statement of whatever the heck, as well as a 6-inch USB to micro cable and a more normal length USB to micro cable. And I'll show you what these are for in a moment. The other thing that the Pro includes that the Hero does not include is a little stand, which you can actually put a tablet or a smartphone on so that you don't have to clip it to the controller. More on that in a moment. So the killer app here for the Power series is that the included batteries not only power the device itself, but also the phone that it's connected to. So there is a boost port at the back that you use that little 6-inch cable for. You go ahead and plug that in, and then you can plug that directly into your phone, so it can actually augment the battery life of your phone, because we all know that phones have terrible battery life when you are gaming. It can reach pretty much anywhere on the device, so you can see I can actually position this all the way around to the top of an Xperia Z1. And how does it do that, you might ask? Well, it all starts with the Smart Lock System. It's spelled SMRT, so Homer Simpson clearly thinks it's a good idea, and who am I to disagree with him? How well does it work exactly? Well, we did some shake tests with a variety of phones that we borrowed, so these are ones that have to go back to the manufacturer, so what do we care if they come out? And it actually did incredibly well. The rubber grippy material on the top and the bottom is some of the best that I have ever encountered. This is a fantastic feature, but it isn't quite perfect. There aren't really any angle options, so both on the Hero as well as on the Pro, you can see that you've only got completely sort of down, completely right angle, and then this particular angle right here, which I actually didn't find was quite perfect from a sitting gaming standpoint, because I don't hold my controller flat. It looks like whoever designed it was expecting you to sit with your controller flat on a desk as opposed to angled up in a more natural position. It wasn't a deal breaker, especially if your phone has a decent viewing angle, but it just wasn't quite as comfortable as it could have been, maybe on the next generation. So before we get into the million dollar question of how does it play exactly, I'll give some context. For the competition, the stuff that I've tried, so I've used the Nyko Playpad Pro, that's the only sort of lower cost Bluetooth controller optimized for phones that I have. It's very low latency, so that's great, but the ergonomics are just frankly not very good. It's somewhere between the Hero Power and the Pro Power as far as the gaming experience goes, but it's bulky like the Pro Power, as opposed to being something that's mobility optimized like the Hero Power. The other option that I'll talk about is Nvidia Shield. So this is heavy. I mean, when you compare it to even the Pro Power, which is the heavier of the two options, loaded up with an Xperia Z, which is a pretty heavy phone, that comes in at around 430 grams. Shield is around 590 grams. With that said, it has heavy hitting battery life as well as heavy hitting features. It has a Tegra 4 processor, you can play Android games, you can stream PC games and all that stuff, but it is in a completely different price bracket because this works with your existing phone and costs anywhere from 60 to 80 bucks, depending on the model you're looking at. And this costs anywhere from 200 to 300 dollars, and depending if you buy it with a graphics card or not. Finally, game compatibility. MOGA does have optimized compatible games that work out of the box, and I did find that that worked quite well and was very seamless. And with the A-B switch on the bottom, you can also flip it into HID mode, so any games that are compatible with HID, which stands for Human Interface Device, by the way, for you guys who don't know that, any games that support that will work perfectly. Shield, of course, is compatible with those kinds of things as well, but also has touchscreen mapping, which is an available download from Nvidia, that allows you to take touchscreen controls and actually bind them to buttons on the controller. This is something where I feel like these third party guys have a little bit of room to catch up because it's an incredibly cool feature. So for the gaming experience and general thoughts, I'm going to separate them. I'll do the pro first. The button tactile feel and ergonomics are quite good, actually. They're okay. It's not an Xbox 360 controller. We've been very clear about that, but they're quite good. The joysticks are good. The clickiness of the joysticks is good. The D-pad is very mediocre. I'd say on the low end of mediocre, even considering how much D-pads have been abandoned. This isn't something I'd want to play my older emulated games on from SNES or anything like that. Precision platforming, not so much. But the A, B, X, Y buttons are not bad. They may be a little bit hard to press, but I'm not going to take off too many marks there. The shoulder buttons and trigger buttons are very good. The only thing that really bothered me about the ergonomics of this one is the fact that you bump the right joystick when pressing the A button and the X button if you're not extremely careful. If you have larger hands than me, it will be more of an issue. The setup app is excellent. This actually goes for both of them. You just install their MOGA app on the phone and then it guides you through the entire process. It's very, very simple. You don't even need the instructions of the HID setup as well as the MOGA optimized setup. The latency was solid. Reaper is a game that I've been playing a lot of, actually, lately, and a little bit of precision is required, but it's not a huge deal. I didn't notice any delay whatsoever. Apparently, multiplayer gaming is also a feature, so you can use two of these at a time, which is cool, but we didn't happen to try that particular one. Now, the Pro comes with this little stand, which actually holds anywhere up to a 10-inch, quite heavy, bulky tablet and folds up small enough that even though the controller itself doesn't fit in your pocket, this stand could easily fit in your pocket. Sorry for that crotch shot again. You could take it with you anywhere you wanted. So, it's going to come down to whether you prefer the ergonomics of the larger controller or the convenience of the smaller one. So, for the Hero, obviously, the ergonomic experience is not as good. This is something that I'd consider to be a little bit better for something like emulated games. The D-pad is actually better than the Pro in my estimation, although the joysticks are not as good and the clickiness of the joysticks is a little bit hard to activate. The ABXY buttons are about the same. I'd say maybe even a little bit better. They're a little bit of a lighter touch compared to the Pro. And the shoulder buttons are actually quite nice feeling. The one where this really falls on its butt is the triggers. The triggers are the worst triggers I've ever encountered on a controller. I mean, here, I'm going to put this next to my mic. There's no tactile response. They're extremely mushy and extremely slow to respond. But I'm willing to let that slide because the portability and the fact that not only this one but both of these controllers give you extended playtime by charging your phone at the same time is a very excellent feature. I did find myself frustrated by the lack of an adjustable angle for the smart hinge here, but I understand why they did what they did, particularly for the Pro. Even with a heavy phone installed in it, you can put it down and it doesn't tip over, which is quite nice. Whereas for the Hero, if they went any further back, anything would just tip the thing over. But I think the idea is you're supposed to be holding it when you're using it anyway. So thank you for checking out my unboxing and overview of the MOGA Power series. Don't forget to subscribe to Linus Tech Tips for more unboxings, reviews, and other computer videos. Like this video if you liked it, dislike it if you disliked it, and leave a comment if you have some kind of feelings that are just more complicated than thumbs up and thumbs down.