Astral/H3X
Member
Also read; Mayflash is the best Chinese company ever.
First off, I am NOT entirely sure if this is where this needs to go. I'd imagine it is, but if it is not, my apologies. There are plenty of threads on games, and series of game peripherals, but not so many on specific devices, so if it needs locked I understand. Disclaimer over.
I'm a fan of the Wii U Pro controller. I love it. It's beautiful, comfy, lasts EIGHTY (that's 8 times 10) hours, which is just beyond ridiculous, and I actually really like the sticks both being primary. Also has a lovable DPad. That said, I hate those 3+ program setups that require one to bluetooth to a controller, one to hook it as anything, and then another to make it act as a controller. HATE that, especially when the process needs to be redone every time you want to use it. I want something that's up and ready as quick as possible. So what do I do? I buy MayFlash's Wireless Wii U Pro Controller to PC USB adapter. Mouthful. Ordered it last Friday, and it arrived here today. Imagine that! Reasonable shipping from China. We need more of that.
Why is this review important to anyone? Well first off, it's a product that promises to make the usual pain in the ass of getting a WUPC to work on their PC, and second off, Mayflash has a near identical product for the DualShock 3. In other words, for $20, you could be rid of MiJ forever. Maybe. We'll find out inside!
THE REVIEW ITSELFFinally STFU h3x and just give us a review
First things first, it comes in one of those plastic front cardboard backing packages. Really simple, really cheap, but never a pain in the ass. Personally I like these for stuff I don't want to spend 10 minutes admiring. Second off, it comes with a way-too-long cable. I'm a cable minimalist, so I like when they are in the range of non-existent for dongles. Oh well, it's a bit bulkier than your run of the mill USB dongles, and it has buttons that would be better to have accessible than not, so I'll give it a pass on that. Construction wise, I'd say it's somewhere in between cheap and good. It certainly doesn't try to look special or premium in any way, but doesn't look immediately cheap, and doesn't feel like it's going to break in an instant. Usability wise, it's got a switch to toggle from Dinput and Xinput (more on that later), and a handy-dandy Sync button (also later). It's got a long enough cable that, if you wanted to keep it near and handy, you could put it on your desk, and wire it to the back of your PC. I just leave it on top of my desktop because it moves from there to my Surface. Physically, there's not much else to say. It is basically a dongle, after all.
SETUP AND FUNCTIONALITY
Here's the important part. Like, the super huge important part. If you plan on playing an Xinput compatible game, to set the device up you first have to download the drivers from Mayflash's website, or use the includedGamecube half-sized DVD. Then, plug in the USB dongle, hit Sync on the dongle, Sync on your controller, and then... Oh wait, you are done. That's it. That easy. The driver itself is literally just that -- a .inf that's enough to get Windows to see and use it. No bulky configuration software, no startup programs, no ads, no nothing. Syncing itself is just as easy as it is on the Wii U itself (actually a tad easier, honestly), and the Sync itself is quick.
As far as using it goes, it literally might as well be a 360 controller. It just -works- in all Xinput games. Buttons are, however, mapped literally. Wii A is Xbox A, so you'll be playing with it like a SNES layout, but if you don't play too many console games/play SNES/whatever, it's not that big of a jog. At least you can look down and read, "A", so there's that I guess. Doesn't bother me too much personally, but I know it'd bother some.
Dinput works just like you'd expect. You'll obviously need to reconfigure it per game, but that's any controller. The fact that you can (very) easily toggle between D/Xinput is godsend for me. Switching between Dinput and Xinput is also very quick, hit switch, wait about 4 seconds for Windows to make some beep boops, and on your way. Don't need to unplug it or hit any other buttons or anything.
The lights on the controller work just as they do on the Wii U. In Dinput mode, you could theoretically sync 4 controllers to the one dongle, and I assume that it would light up P2/3/4 lights accordingly. Xinput mode, however, it has to mimic the 360 controller receiver, so one controller, one light. At least per dongle. Additionally, the Power button on the controller works as well. No, you won't shut your computer down with it, but holding the Power button for a second will shut the controller down nicely.
CROSS DEVICE USAGE REVIEW
Also read as, "I don't want my controller to take 5 minutes to sync to each device I own"
Beautifully, when paired to the dongle, the controller is paired to the dongle. That means that if you plug it into PC A, sync it, then unplug it and switch it to PC B, the sync is still there, no need to do anything but hit a button on the controller. Even then, the device is easy enough to pair to the controller that passing it from a computer to a Wii U is harmless enough -- honestly the slowest part is popping up the Wii U controller pairing menu. There's no better way to have done this, absolutely wonderful.
THE BAD STUFF
Kind of grasping at straws here, but there are two things that I've noticed that are negatives. I've gone into the controller configuration page in Windows, and when spinning the stick around in a full 360, it doesn't quite reach all the corners universally well. Namely, the top right corner is a tiny bit cutoff. For most games, this isn't a problem, but I could see it being an issue in say, BF3, where that hinders a jet's diving ability. But at least you can still pull up just fine though. :x
Secondly, since it is just so easily plug and play, there is no configuration tool. So if you're used to using MiJ, which does have a plethora of keybinding options and pretty ads to distract you, you might come into it a bit disappointed. That said, if you just want to plug and go, wirelessly, MiJ is so far behind in this aspect that it's laughable, and so are the ghetto ass solutions for the Wii U controller.
Thirdly, it has a turbo function. "But H3X! Turbo is awesome! I LURV TURBER!" Well so do I, but not here. To activate Turbo on this, from your Wii U controller, you hold Home and press a button. Why is that such a pain in the ass? Because now whenever I want to take a screenshot in Steam BPM, I take like 5, and then another 5 to turn the Turbo off. That's really the only time it pops up though. :/ I just wish there was a way to disable it, or make it Power/whatever.
Again, this is my experience with the Wii U edition of this product, but there is a PS3 controller version. I would expect that at least 95% of what I've said here to apply to that as well. As a person who moves from PC to an MS Surface frequently and would like a single controller to work between the two, there really is nothing that could be improved that would substantially alter my thoughts on the product. If you are a DualShock 3 owner and hate MiJ, or whatever you do use, or want something a bit more universal, I would strongly recommend this to you.
TL;DRBut I put so much work into this!
Want to use your Wii U/PS3 controller on your PC? Lazy? Buy!
8.5/10 (As graded on a not skewed, game site review scale. So 8.5 is damnably good.)
PS: Sorry for my not-stellar photo of the product. If need be, I have more and could post them, but I realized they were mildly redundant and just showing things like the D/Xinput switch and such.
First off, I am NOT entirely sure if this is where this needs to go. I'd imagine it is, but if it is not, my apologies. There are plenty of threads on games, and series of game peripherals, but not so many on specific devices, so if it needs locked I understand. Disclaimer over.
I'm a fan of the Wii U Pro controller. I love it. It's beautiful, comfy, lasts EIGHTY (that's 8 times 10) hours, which is just beyond ridiculous, and I actually really like the sticks both being primary. Also has a lovable DPad. That said, I hate those 3+ program setups that require one to bluetooth to a controller, one to hook it as anything, and then another to make it act as a controller. HATE that, especially when the process needs to be redone every time you want to use it. I want something that's up and ready as quick as possible. So what do I do? I buy MayFlash's Wireless Wii U Pro Controller to PC USB adapter. Mouthful. Ordered it last Friday, and it arrived here today. Imagine that! Reasonable shipping from China. We need more of that.
Why is this review important to anyone? Well first off, it's a product that promises to make the usual pain in the ass of getting a WUPC to work on their PC, and second off, Mayflash has a near identical product for the DualShock 3. In other words, for $20, you could be rid of MiJ forever. Maybe. We'll find out inside!
THE REVIEW ITSELF
Apologies to any photographers in the thread.
First things first, it comes in one of those plastic front cardboard backing packages. Really simple, really cheap, but never a pain in the ass. Personally I like these for stuff I don't want to spend 10 minutes admiring. Second off, it comes with a way-too-long cable. I'm a cable minimalist, so I like when they are in the range of non-existent for dongles. Oh well, it's a bit bulkier than your run of the mill USB dongles, and it has buttons that would be better to have accessible than not, so I'll give it a pass on that. Construction wise, I'd say it's somewhere in between cheap and good. It certainly doesn't try to look special or premium in any way, but doesn't look immediately cheap, and doesn't feel like it's going to break in an instant. Usability wise, it's got a switch to toggle from Dinput and Xinput (more on that later), and a handy-dandy Sync button (also later). It's got a long enough cable that, if you wanted to keep it near and handy, you could put it on your desk, and wire it to the back of your PC. I just leave it on top of my desktop because it moves from there to my Surface. Physically, there's not much else to say. It is basically a dongle, after all.
SETUP AND FUNCTIONALITY
Here's the important part. Like, the super huge important part. If you plan on playing an Xinput compatible game, to set the device up you first have to download the drivers from Mayflash's website, or use the included
As far as using it goes, it literally might as well be a 360 controller. It just -works- in all Xinput games. Buttons are, however, mapped literally. Wii A is Xbox A, so you'll be playing with it like a SNES layout, but if you don't play too many console games/play SNES/whatever, it's not that big of a jog. At least you can look down and read, "A", so there's that I guess. Doesn't bother me too much personally, but I know it'd bother some.
Dinput works just like you'd expect. You'll obviously need to reconfigure it per game, but that's any controller. The fact that you can (very) easily toggle between D/Xinput is godsend for me. Switching between Dinput and Xinput is also very quick, hit switch, wait about 4 seconds for Windows to make some beep boops, and on your way. Don't need to unplug it or hit any other buttons or anything.
The lights on the controller work just as they do on the Wii U. In Dinput mode, you could theoretically sync 4 controllers to the one dongle, and I assume that it would light up P2/3/4 lights accordingly. Xinput mode, however, it has to mimic the 360 controller receiver, so one controller, one light. At least per dongle. Additionally, the Power button on the controller works as well. No, you won't shut your computer down with it, but holding the Power button for a second will shut the controller down nicely.
CROSS DEVICE USAGE REVIEW
Also read as, "I don't want my controller to take 5 minutes to sync to each device I own"
Beautifully, when paired to the dongle, the controller is paired to the dongle. That means that if you plug it into PC A, sync it, then unplug it and switch it to PC B, the sync is still there, no need to do anything but hit a button on the controller. Even then, the device is easy enough to pair to the controller that passing it from a computer to a Wii U is harmless enough -- honestly the slowest part is popping up the Wii U controller pairing menu. There's no better way to have done this, absolutely wonderful.
THE BAD STUFF
Kind of grasping at straws here, but there are two things that I've noticed that are negatives. I've gone into the controller configuration page in Windows, and when spinning the stick around in a full 360, it doesn't quite reach all the corners universally well. Namely, the top right corner is a tiny bit cutoff. For most games, this isn't a problem, but I could see it being an issue in say, BF3, where that hinders a jet's diving ability. But at least you can still pull up just fine though. :x
Secondly, since it is just so easily plug and play, there is no configuration tool. So if you're used to using MiJ, which does have a plethora of keybinding options and pretty ads to distract you, you might come into it a bit disappointed. That said, if you just want to plug and go, wirelessly, MiJ is so far behind in this aspect that it's laughable, and so are the ghetto ass solutions for the Wii U controller.
Thirdly, it has a turbo function. "But H3X! Turbo is awesome! I LURV TURBER!" Well so do I, but not here. To activate Turbo on this, from your Wii U controller, you hold Home and press a button. Why is that such a pain in the ass? Because now whenever I want to take a screenshot in Steam BPM, I take like 5, and then another 5 to turn the Turbo off. That's really the only time it pops up though. :/ I just wish there was a way to disable it, or make it Power/whatever.
Again, this is my experience with the Wii U edition of this product, but there is a PS3 controller version. I would expect that at least 95% of what I've said here to apply to that as well. As a person who moves from PC to an MS Surface frequently and would like a single controller to work between the two, there really is nothing that could be improved that would substantially alter my thoughts on the product. If you are a DualShock 3 owner and hate MiJ, or whatever you do use, or want something a bit more universal, I would strongly recommend this to you.
TL;DR
Want to use your Wii U/PS3 controller on your PC? Lazy? Buy!
8.5/10 (As graded on a not skewed, game site review scale. So 8.5 is damnably good.)
PS: Sorry for my not-stellar photo of the product. If need be, I have more and could post them, but I realized they were mildly redundant and just showing things like the D/Xinput switch and such.
