The value of “pro” controllers is a little lost on me, as the only competitive game that I play is Magic the Gathering, which doesn’t need a controller at all, and most of the single player games I enjoy can be played with one or two buttons (and are often turn-based). With that being said, while features don’t bother me much, feel does, and a good, premium-priced controller offers a boost in ergonomics to go with the competitive edge. PowerA’s OPS v3 Pro aims to offer a premium controller experience at a much lower price than most of its peers, and it succeeds.
One of the first things that is immediately apparent as soon as you pick up the controller is that the buttons feel good. The face button, D-pad and shoulder buttons all use mechanical switch technology, and this means there’s a satisfying click, spring, and precision feel to every press. I’m going to assume this comes from my heritage in handheld gaming where the buttons are typically placed close to the surface of the hardware and tend to be manufactured to have a solid “click” rather than a soft press, as tends to be more common with TV console controllers. Or to put it another way I prefer the feel of the buttons of a Nintendo Switch to the PlayStation 5, and mechanical switch buttons, like on the OPS v3 Pro, are the epitome of that experience.
Meanwhile, the OPS v3 has six buttons on the underside of the controller that are mappable. I can’t imagine a scenario where I’d play a game that needs all six, and that’s just as well as I found two of them to be positioned somewhere functionally useless, but the other four are really handy and placed well enough that they can be triggered without messing with what your hands are doing on the controller’s surface.
These are useful even for the sedate-paced games that I play. Mapping the screenshot function to one of the buttons, for example, makes taking screenshots as you play effortless. Or it’s a good way to map menu functions. Rounding out the positive experience you’ll have with the buttons with the OPS v3 Pro is the adjustable height thumbsticks. There are three stick lengths available, and it takes just a quick twist to adjust them to what feels comfortable to your hands. Ergnomoics! Those same sticks have Hall Effect sensors, which are designed to combat stick drift, and anti-friction rings around the edges, which promote a more comfortable glide.
The OPS v3 also has multiple options for connectivity. Wired is one, but you can also play over a 2.4GHz wireless connection, or Bluetooth. The 2.4Ghz option is ideal for those games where precision really matters, but it’s a great thing that Bluetooth is there as an option because 1) it means you can use it with more devices (Android emulation consoles or Smart TV/Apple TV devices, for example), or if you simply don’t want to carry the dongle around with you (perhaps you’re worried about losing it so leave it at home while out and about and in the mood for a quick game on your laptop).
It’s also a gun with the battery life. PowerA’s official claim is that there’s 30 hours of uninterrupted gameplay in its 1200mAh battery. I think that’s perhaps underselling it a bit. Finally, there are some great lighting effects courtesy of PowerA’s unique Lumectra technology. I find these lighting features to be of marginal value at best when playing, but who doesn’t like something that looks cool while playing.
As you can see, this controller has a lot going for it, and remember it does come in under the price of most other new (and newish) “pro” and premium controllers out there. It does mean that PowerA has made some compromises, however. The main one’s only going to be an issue to serious gamers in action games: the trigger locks are not great with the OPS v3 Pro. There are meant to be three of them, but the lowest press didn’t seem to work for me at all.
While I’m talking about technical issues, I had some difficulty getting the OPS v3 Pro to play nicely with my ROG Ally. Not sure if this will be an issue across all Windows platforms, but I like my controllers to work out of the box and I spent a little too long messing around in software mapping things (and then wondering why they didn’t always work the first time). I eventually got it to work fine, and it did work perfectly with my Android devices as soon as I connected it via Bluetooth, but there is a very mild learning curve there and I am a man of very limited patience.
The build quality is also just a little sus. The OPS v3 Pro does feel heavier than the cheap plastic controllers at the low and mid-range, but a premium product like this should also feel hefty and solid. Controllers of this level should feel like they would definitely win the battle with whatever you throw them at if you’re having a bad losing streak. I’m sure the OPS V3 Pro is a controller that is built to last but it doesn’t quite feel that way.
It’s clear that a lot of work went into the build and design of the OPS v3, and the fact it’s the “budget” premium controller makes it all the more impressive. If nothing else, it’s worth dipping a little deeper into the piggy bank for the mechanical switch buttons. Those are a true joy on the fingers.
