PowerA OPS v3 Pro Wireless Controller

Overall, I really love the v3 Pro. Every once in a few years I go back and replay a bunch of old games that I need a controller to play (or at least prefer a controller for), and I’ve usually done that on the good old Logitech G F310.

However, I’m not as young as I once was, and my hands appreciate a more ergonomic experience. I also have learned to stop worrying and embrace wireless, especially when I can use a charging dock instead of juggling cables.

So I got a v3 Pro, paired it with the included dongle, and was off to the races.

The grips on the controller have a nice stippled texture. It’s a little “rough” but you don’t notice the feel unless you’re deliberately rubbing against the controller. I like the texture and feel; it’s comfortable for short or long sessions, and there’s a less aggressive (or so it feels) version on the triggers, front bumpers, and function buttons. The rest of the buttons and the directional pad have a smooth texture.

The mechanical buttons are fantastic. Each of the face buttons and the d-pad direction arrows uses one. If you’re picky about d-pads not being clicky four-way affairs, you might not like that, but I’ve never been into fighting games and I feel like it gives nice and certain inputs. The clicky noises could bother people sensitive to sounds, especially since it’s more of a click like a mouse than a thunk like a mechanical keyboard, but they’re certainly not mushy and

The adjustable thumb-sticks are nice in theory, though I’ve found that I prefer them so much at their lowest position (which I believe is the stock out of the box) that I never adjust them. I usually turn the LEDs off, but they’re easy to adjust through the controller itself and look good.

The triggers and sticks have a good analog function. There is a three position trigger lock that can be used to adjust the trigger. It doesn’t seem to adjust the analog readout (I assume there’s a purpose for this that the kids these days would be aware of) and since I am a big racing game player having the full trigger range works better for me anyway. It does feel nice and solid, as does the rest of the build quality. I don’t know if it’s just that controllers have changed over the years, but the sticks are a smidge aggressive and I’ve had to tune their sensitivity down a bit, but that’s easy enough and might not even matter if you don’t have as much of a preference for a heavy curve in things like steering or character movement (the upside of this is that they’re very responsive and “zippy” and feel great).

There are just a couple issues I have with the v3 as it stands, and most are easily fixable.

First, the marketing material and manual talks about an app. The OPS app is not out yet, and the existing PowerA apps do not work with to program the OPS controller (they pick it up as a generic controller to “test and calibrate”). This isn’t a dealbreaker since most features seem to be programmable through the controller if you read the (downloadable) manual. However, this is clumsy and doesn’t have as much affirmative feedback, and if you didn’t have the manual at hand it would be difficult to even figure out what the process is. If the software came out and worked like I’d expect it to, I’d probably change this to a five-star review.

My other issue is the button placement for people with big ape hands like mine. The rear of the controller has a lot of stuff going on (the program button, LED button, and four function buttons). The consequence of this is that you can easily bump something you don’t mean to bump. Since there are no profiles without the app, you’d better hope that whatever you had programmed on those buttons doesn’t interfere with what you were doing. Because it’s easy to bump buttons, I somehow programmed one of the back paddles to input Y while playing around with the LEDs, which involved going back to the manual to figure out how to un-program it.

As I’ve used the controller more and gotten used to the button placements, those accidental presses have gotten easier to avoid, but it is something to think about if you have larger hands. It feels good ergonomically, but those buttons are probably something that I’m always going to fat-finger once in a while in the way I occasionally bump a mouse side button. If I were going to be passing this controller around, it might be a little awkward to adjust to, but this isn’t really a “pass around” controller.

I have not experienced the drift or lack of responsiveness earlier reviews are complaining about. I’ve gotten drift on a certain gaming system’s infamously bad joy-cons, so I know how frustrating it feels. When I test the controller, the buttons and sticks are both responsive and accurate. 

Pros: height adjustable thumbsticks, charging dock that is also the USB receiver for the controller, mechanical (not squishy membrane) buttons, pressure sensitive triggers, three ways to connect (wired, bluetooth, USB receiver), heavy build and feels solid, neat LED lighting effects you can change to fit your vibe.

Cons: the programmable buttons are not in an awesome space. I have large hands and my fingers don’t naturally rest near them. Great for avoiding accidental hits, but unfortunately bad for purposeful ones. The grip of the controller is intense – my old one is smooth and this feels like holding sandpaper to me. Left stick feels like it’s too far over, my thumb keeps slipping off to a weird angle. Maybe adjusting height/my grip or just getting used to it will help. 

Overall I’m happy with this. Between the controller’s heft and the inner box art, a gamer you know will probably be pleased with it, too.

I don’t know if I just got a bad unit? Or if the device itself is flawed? Other people don’t have this issue so maybe it’s just the one I got. My hubby was really excited when I gave it to him, but then it wouldn’t sync to anything. It’s like the Bluetooth doesn’t transmit or something.
That’s nice. It’s good quality. The graphics on the controller were nice. My hubby loved it.