PowerA Nano Controller Review

Manufacturer: PowerA
Where to Buy: PowerA
RRP: $39.99 (or region equivalent

The controller is our gateway into the virtual worlds on Xbox, and unfortunately  often times the barrier to new players finding the joy in our hobby. Especially for younger players, I’ve found they can struggle to reach all of the buttons easily, or complain that it gets too heavy after a short while. We’ve been fortunate enough to check out all sorts of controllers over the years, but the PowerA Nano Enhanced Wired Controller (to give it its full title) is the first we’ve seen that seems directly targeted at the aforementioned audience. A small form factor allows both weight and button placement issues to be resolved while still packing most of the features we’ve come to expect in a controller.

I wasn’t sure I was actually going to be able to write a review of this to start with – since it arrived, I’ve had to prise it from my youngest child’s hands any time I’ve gone looking for it. She absolutely loves using it. I was sent the Lilac coloured version pictured below which no doubt helped, but she found it to be far more suitable to her small hands than her full size regular pad. I had to remind her a few times to watch the cable dragging across the living room, but at 3 metres it was still plenty long enough to ease my worry of her yanking the Xbox off the shelf by accident.

It’s small and light enough to win over my daughter then, but what surprised me is that it still includes almost all of the standard features of an Xbox controller. Every button (including the capture one) is here, albeit slightly squished closer together to fit in the diminished frame, while full analogue triggers and sticks feel great to use. Hell, it even includes two back buttons that can be assigned to any button input in a matter of seconds on the fly.

I played some No More Heroes 3 with it and found pulling off combos and slicing and dicing was just as good as my full fat Elite Series 2 for the most part. Of course, the premium controller has a nicer overall finish and feel, but for a quarter of the price the PowerA Nano does a great job while we’re in the moment.

My only real downer with this is the sub-par vibration feedback within. There doesn’t appear to be any trigger rumble, and the twin motors within the body tend to only kick in when something big happens. Back to No More Heroes 3, in the mini-game where we have to pick up trash the controller uses rumble to let us know when we’re near to rubbish, but on the Nano this rumble is either non-existent or very weak. This is not a big issue in the grand scheme of things, and understandable thanks to the form factor already squeezing in everything else, but is worth a mention regardless.

Conclusion

Other than some weak rumble features, the Power A Nano is a great pad that seems perfectly suited to younger gamers thanks to a reduced form factor and weight. Now I just need to wrestle it from my kids before I lose it forever…

Hardware provided by the manufacturer for review purposes.