Third-party peripherals are not held in high esteem by most gamers. The mushy D-Pads, hollow feel and dodgy response times are long-known scourges of cheap controllers. These days the demands of analogue sticks and in PlayStation 4’s case, a touch-pad add extra hurdles for those in the market for a spare controller for party night or less discerning family members. Gioteck VX4 falls at many of these hurdles but is saved by its price and feature set, as imperfect as the latter may be.
The Really Important Bit
Much like Gioteck WX4, VX4 has some glaring issues with the basics. The L and R-sticks have giant deadzones, leaving only a small travel with which to actually control proceedings.
The D-Pad is the legendary smushy and imprecise type. It’s sharp at the corners too so if you absolutely insist on using it, you will eventually hurt yourself just a little bit.
The face buttons have some feedback and a dull click is better than none. The O button pours over the edge of the face as the pad’s shape is based on Nintendo Switch’s Pro Controller. This doesn’t make it more difficult to press nor does it cause annoyance when doubling up with other buttons. But it looks weird.
The R1 and L1 buttons are large and easy to keep a finger on but they need to be pressed from a certain angle for consistent activation. The triggers are long enough to reach but suffer from the large deadzones of the sticks. In racing games, it’s tough to brake or accelerate smoothly with such a small area of sensitivity.
The Bluetooth reception isn’t great, sitting a few feet further away than usual can bring a little lag to the table. It’s not a major issue but some will notice more than others.
Almost All-In for Less
The attempt to deliver almost everything you would find on a stock PS4 controller should be lauded. At around €42/£35, VX4 is well-stocked when compared to its price competitors.
The touchpad, motion controls and the tinny speaker may be have failed to find much AAA PS4 use but it’s genuinely advantageous to have all three. Just in case.
The limited implementation works in Gioteck VX4’s favour as all three are just that little bit less functional than on a DualShock 4. The trackpad is flighty and throws the cursor around the screen at random when fumbling with it. The tinny speaker is just that bit tinnier with some extra fizz added to remind you it’s cutting all the corners possible.
Motion controls are arguably the best of the three but still feels slower than the real thing. But I should emphasis that having three features you may only need on a few occasions is still a major plus.
The two-way headphone jack is another feature that Gioteck VX4 can boast. However, unlike the previous three – it’s perfectly fine.
The only missing feature is the lightbar for PSVR. This omission is bizarre as it’s just a few LEDs and some plastic in exchange for having ‘Full-Featured’ on the box and in this ultimately meaningless review.
General Handiness
Battery life is better than the real deal but DualShock 4’s stamina is almost hard to NOT beat. 12 hours is advertised and it seemed to get near enough this figure.
Plugging VX4 out while playing on PS4 Pro led to a brief interruption in play.
Multi-Platform
Gioteck VX4 will work with Windows 10 PCs via Bluetooth and over the micro-USB used to charge it. It’s nice to have the option of another platform and covering the bases with wireless/wired play is excellent.
I Could Have Just CopyPasta’d This but Didn’t. Please Like Me.
It’s left up to you to decide if the lure of an obscenely cheap, almost fully-featured third-party controller is strong enough to overrule the mediocre delivery.
The light and cheap built, poor sensitivity and some odd concessions in the shape compromise the experience. As a spare pad, there are better options but they might lack some of Gioteck VX4’s bells and whistles.
The analogue sticks and D-Pad are not up to par. Subsequently, most of your action-oriented games will be poorer for using them.
