Editor note: Welcoming aboard two brothers Justin and Chris Yee. Justin was one of the winnings of the Daelus QD-6 giveaway last November and has shown some serious review chops. This is their first published review on DRN and certainly won’t be the last.
We’ve got one of Laser’s latest peripherals from their gaming brand in for review; the GTEK Wireless Gaming Controller Pro. It’s a controller targeted at mobile devices and cloud gaming, but, coming in at $89.95AUD, it faces stiff competition in this price range. So, is it worth your money?
Packaging & First Impressions
The unboxing experience is simple and no-frills and about what you’d expect at this price point. Along with the controller, you get some paperwork and a USB A to C charging cable. I do appreciate that the instructions are nicely laid out and in plain English, which is definitely important for a feature-packed controller like this.
That said, one small issue to note is the inaccurate labelling of the triggers as the Select and Start buttons on the rear diagram; not a big deal, but something to keep in mind for later on.
The GTEK controller adopts the Xbox-style layout whilst still having the Cross-Circle-Triangle-Square combo overlaid on the ABXY buttons, meaning a smooth transition regardless of where your allegiance lies.
One feature worth clarifying is the lack of RGB lighting on the controller, despite Laser’s claim on their website. The only button that lights up is the power button, so this might be a let down if you were chasing that ‘gamer’ aesthetic.
On the top of the controller, you’ll find the Start and Select buttons, with two extra on the bottom; Turbo and Programming.
- Turbo: This feature allows for a ‘rapid-fire’ effect on any of the controller’s buttons – between 8 to 25 bursts per second, which may come in handy if you’re playing a game that requires repetitive inputs.
- Programming: This button works hand-in-hand with the macros on the rear of the controller, and can be set to a single input or a combo. We’ll touch more on these features and their usefulness a bit later on.
Build Quality
This controller is all-plastic – no rubberised grips beyond the thumb sticks, meaning it should hold up just fine through lots of use without leaving residue on your hands. I like that where your palms sit are textured, so the controller won’t be slipping out of your hands when gaming. Weighing in at less than 200g (excluding your phone or tablet), the controller is light and easy to handle. However, the plastic construction does also flex a little, so a protective case might be worth considering if you’re planning to take it on-the-go.
The buttons themselves on the GTEK will get the job done – triggers are nice and smooth, though the shoulder buttons feel quite inconsistent with varying resistances depending on where you press. The face buttons do also feel a bit loose and lack the sharp tactile response that I’m used to from my Xbox controller; this could be improved. Similarly, the D-pad is rather mushy and feels noticeably less responsive than what you’d find on more mainstream offerings. On the plus side, you are at least getting hall-effect triggers and thumbsticks, so stick drift won’t ever be an issue.
You also won’t have to worry about your device falling from the controller, as the clamp force is quite substantial. The side and middle pads are rubberised, providing a firm grip. Whilst the sliding mechanism isn’t the smoothest, there also aren’t a lot of tiny moving parts so it’ll last a good long while as the controller sees some use. Also make sure that your device will actually fit; any smartphone will be fine, but tablets larger than ten inches won’t be able to squeeze in.
In Use
Justin and I are pretty big gamers, whether that’s on mobile or PC; driving sims, NBA 2K, a bit of Marvel Rivals and PUBG Mobile are some of our current favourites. After having some time to play around with the GTEK in our setups, here’s our main takeaway; when it works, it works. Otherwise, the controller isn’t without its quirks, which we’ll run through a bit in this section.
Firstly, as the GTEK is a fully wireless controller, it features its own 350mAh battery, promising 12 hours of usage with a three hour charge time. We haven’t been able to fully test the capacity of the battery, but throughout our past week of frequent testing and troubleshooting, we haven’t had to charge it once. Admittedly, the USB-C port is rather awkwardly placed, so keep that in mind if you’re playing on low battery.
To manage the controller and load game presets on your device, you’ll need the ShootingPlusV3 app, available on both the Google Play Store and Apple App Store. In-app, there’s a list of various games, all of which have pre-configured settings for the controller so that you won’t need to mess around with mapping inputs yourself.
Unfortunately, the UI isn’t very clear, and we had to guess our way around it to get it to work in COD Mobile and PUBG Mobile. Other games like Last Day on Earth worked right out of the box with the app’s preset. Nevertheless, the presets still did the trick, and you can even close the floating window so that it doesn’t distract you in-game. As for latency, it’s not noticeable with the GTEK.
We should also mention that, unlike some of the more expensive controllers out there, this doesn’t have any active cooling. Our test device, a Samsung S21+, got quite hot and stayed hot when cradled in the GTEK, so we wouldn’t recommend using this thing in the middle of summer. Your mileage may vary.
Pairing & Connectivity
Sometimes, too much of something can be a bad thing.
The GTEK has six different pairing modes, allowing you to connect to Android, iOS, Playstation, Switch and PC. However, not all of them work as expected. For example, to use the ShootingPlus V3 app on Android, you can’t connect the GTEK using the ‘Android’ method, which is to hold the ‘X’ key and then the power button; instead, you have to hold the ‘A’ key and the power button to enter into a different pairing mode.
This pairing confusion carried over to our cloud-gaming experience – for whatever reason, Steam Link didn’t like the Android pairing method, and though we got it to work the first time we tried it (think it was using the iOS pairing method instead, funnily enough), it refused to pair the next time we tried to play. We spent close to an hour trying to troubleshoot it, relinking Steam on both ends and resetting the controller using the button on the back, but no luck. Definitely not a fun experience.
We also experienced trouble connecting it to a PC, in either the wired or wireless mode – we’d hazard a guess it’s probably a D/X input problem, as only the D-pad inputs were being recognised, though this is unclear. Windows does recognise a controller is connected, but it remains unusable in-game. Perhaps downloading additional software to translate between input modes or something would help, but this was beyond the scope of our testing.
Features
We briefly mentioned the Turbo feature before, and, if you can make heads and tails of the rather convoluted list of steps, it works quite nicely. In PUBG Mobile, we bound it to the right trigger and switched the gun over to single-fire; it’s a handy feature to have for those niche moments when you need rapid-fire on command, and though not essential in many games, it could give you that competitive edge in those situations.
The GTEK also includes vibration motors, which engage when you activate turbo mode. However, actually testing the haptics proved difficult, due to a) the lack of mobile games that support controller haptics and b) our struggles to pair it to a PC. Unfortunately, the same issue applies to the gyro sensor. From some research we’ve done, it seems that only controllers that internally map the gyro to the sticks can fully utilise this hardware; this controller lacks such functionality.
Conclusion
Wrapping it up, the GTEK Wireless Gaming Controller Pro does have a few nuances; pairing can be a bit tricky until you find the right mode, and at nearly a hundred dollars, expecting a sturdier build isn’t unreasonable. It is largely smooth-sailing once you do have everything set up (in Android mode, that is), and the controller’s features, like the turbo mode, are a nice touch. Ultimately, a controller is all about making gaming more enjoyable, and the GTEK delivers on that front. With the games we tested, we both found ourselves having a great time, so if you do spot it on sale, it’s definitely worth adding to your setup.
We’d like to thank Laser for providing this product for review. More information can be found on Laser’s website.
Specifications
PACKAGE INCLUDES: Gaming controller for mobile devices, USB-A to USB-C cable. User manual
Product dimensions (W*D*H): 247*105*50.8mm
Product weight: 195g
Gift box dimensions (W*D*H): 248*110*54mm
Gift box weight (incl. all items): 280g
Device and OS compatibility: Android HID mode requires 6.0 and up, iOS 13.4 and later is required for MFi games, PC, Mac, Nintendo Switch, PS3, PS4, » ShootingPlus V3+ game requires Android 5.0 and up
Device width compatibility: 141-259mm
Bluetooth: Yes (5.0)
Bluetooth range: Up to 5m
Battery capacity: 350mAh
Play time: 12 hours
Charging time: Approx. 2.5 hours
Standby time: 60 days
Battery type: Li-ion
Charging port type: USB-C
Power input: DC 5V, 500mA
Charging cable type: USB-A to USB-C
Charging cable length: 90cm
