Motorola Moto Gamepad - Review 2022

Who needs a defended console? Snapping your Moto Z into the $79.99 Moto Gamepad acessory transforms the phone into a handheld gaming device with useful concrete controls and absurd LED lighting. Casual users are probably served merely fine by their touch screen. Only hardcore Android gamers (peculiarly those into FPS or racing games) will find a lot to similar here, despite the fact that not all titles are compatible.

Pattern and Controls

The Moto Gamepad looks a lot like the Nintendo Switch. The torso is fabricated of blackness plastic with a grippy, textured dorsum. The distinctive Lenovo Y logo on the back (Lenovo owns Motorola) is a cherry LED that lights up during gameplay, and might depict some attention your fashion if you lot play in public. In that location's a large circular cutout for the photographic camera sensor, if for some reason you want to snap pictures while your phone is however inside the gamepad.

The controller measures 3.0 by 9.0 by 1.0 inches (HWD) and weighs 5 ounces without a phone slotted in. Once once more, information technology's not all that different from the Nintendo Switch with two Joy Cons inserted, which measures 4.0 past 8.two by 0.5 inches.

You get a control stick on either side for movement; a D-pad, bill of fare button, and home button on the left; and a standard set of A, B, 10, Y buttons on the right, below which you'll find 2 tiny buttons for Start and Select. In that location's as well a trigger and shoulder button on either side, along with reddish LED low-cal strips that blink on when you press any push. Both sets of buttons sit flush and are placed rather closely, then I sometimes pressed more than one past accident. I wish they were more prominent, like on the Nintendo Switch Joy Cons.

The Moto Gamepad is a Moto Mod accessory that works with uniform Moto Z phones. It volition seamlessly sync and brainstorm working as soon equally yous snap your phone on the connection port. A USB-C charging port is used to charged the Gamepad'due south 1,035mAh bombardment, which is rated to concluding for upwards to eight hours of gameplay. There's likewise a iii.5mm headphone jack, which is a dainty feature if you're using a phone that lacks one like the Moto Z2 Force Edition. I would've liked to see built-in speakers for louder, college-quality audio than the rather tinny fare you get from the unmarried speaker on most Moto Z phones.

Gameplay and Compatibility

We tested the Moto Gamepad with the Moto Z2 Forcefulness. In one case the phone is securely docked in the Gamepad, it will immediately recognize the accessory and exist set to go. One thing to note is that you're able to navigate your Android home screen using the control stick and fifty-fifty launch apps using the A button. This is handy considering it spares you from switching back and forth betwixt the touch screen and the concrete controls when you want to launch a different game.

Before yous get started playing, you lot're going to want to download the Moto Game Explorer app from the Google Play store. It curates the vast number of games available in Google Play to the ones compatible with the Moto Gamepad, but your mileage may vary. Fifty-fifty if a game shows up in Game Explorer, it may not have full compatibility with the Gamepad. I encountered this in Expressionless Trigger 2, where I had to manually configure each control in order to utilize the Gamepad, and fifty-fifty then the game would sometimes reset them and I'd have to practice the deadening process all over again.

Other titles like Thousand Theft Auto: San Andreas are fully compatible with the Gamepad, but don't appear in the Game Explorer. And others are an eclectic mix, with back up for gameplay controls, but non menu navigation, for case, or support for the left control stick only not the right.

That said, games that fully support the Gampead are really enjoyable to play. Asphalt 8 is way more fun with physical controls than a touch screen. Using the Gamepad I was able to execute tighter turns, hit ramps at merely the correct angle, and use my nitro boosts with perfect timing. The more responsive controls on GTA: San Andreas turn it from a mobile game to play in your downtime, to a true console port you tin can get lost in for hours. The aforementioned is true for Modern Combat five, an FPS that's tough to play with the touch screen alone, just becomes a blast with physical controls.

Conclusions

At $fourscore, the Moto Gamepad is a somewhat costly accompaniment for the narrow subset of hardcore Android gamers who also own Moto Z phones. But if you fall into that niche, and play a lot of games supported by the Gamepad, it'due south likely to be $fourscore well spent.