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If you want to turn your smartphone into a gaming handheld, there are plenty of accessories to try. Most, however, add full-size controllers to either side of your phone—which is great for gaming, but not so great for portability. OnePlus looks set to try something different (at least from most of the competition), offering a gaming case you can fit in your pocket.
The “Gun God” adds triggers and a cooling fan to the Ace 6 Ultra
In a post on his Weibo pageOnePlus has announced a new gaming accessory for its upcoming Ace 6 Ultra smartphone. The name “Oneplus Gun God Game Controller” may sound strange, but the accessory itself looks pretty cool. The controller is a flat slab with rounded edges on both sides, which serve as “grips”. Here, you’ll find the traditional L1 and R1 triggers, as well as internal triggers accessible via your ring finger. OnePlus says the triggers have a 1,000Hz polling rate (the rate at which the trigger reports its position to your device) as well as an “ultra-fast” response of 1.8ms, and that you can remap the buttons to your liking.
Perhaps most interesting here is the magnetic detachable “suction” fan. From the promo images, you can see that the fan can stay flat in the controller, but can be detached and you can open the fan to add airflow. It’s not clear if the Ace 6 Ultra is specifically designed to take advantage of this active cooling system, or if the fan is simply taking the heat generated by the device and dissipating it, but either way, it’s an interesting design. I look forward to seeing testers put it through its paces and identify what effect it has on performance – if any. The controller also comes with a USB-C pass-through, so you can charge your phone while inside the case.
Credit: OnePlus
Of course, the main mistakes here are buttons and sticks. Despite having four triggers, you’re still completely dependent on the phone’s touchscreen for the rest of your controls. Having dedicated triggers frees up some screen real estate and probably makes shooters and other trigger-intensive games easier to play, but it likely won’t appeal to players who rely on physical buttons, directional pads, and joysticks for their games. The advantage here is that this controller is more compact than some controller accessories on the market. A gun is like something compared to God backboneAnd you will see the difference. The former you can slide into your pocket, while you’ll have trouble fitting it anywhere other than a bag.
What do you think so far?
Then again, there are compact solutions on the market that include these extra buttons and sticks. Take MCONfor which it is designed Collapsed into an attractive pocketable form factorLike PSP Go. It’s almost as convenient to carry around as the Gun God, but also comes with all the buttons and sticks you’d want in a mobile gaming handheld. Also, it is not phone dependent.
However, what OnePlus is doing here is very interesting. The Gun God launches on April 28, though it’s unclear when (or if) it will make its way to the US.
