Hori Nintendo Switch Split Pad Pro (Black) Ergonomic Controller for Handheld Mode - Officially Licensed By Nintendo

My Switch joycons, like so many others, had horrible drifting problems, were sore on my hands, and eventually, they just outright died. Generally speaking, this is not good, so I bought the Hori cons first chance I had. I didn’t think they would be much to write home about - I just wanted my Switch to be a bit more comfortable to use, I wasn’t terribly concerned with whether the joycons would be top quality or not.Apparently, what I bought *was* top quality. I’ve had my Hori cons for close to five years, now, and they’re only just now starting to show signs of giving up the ghost on me. In that time, I’ve played everything from West of Loathing to, of all things, Wolfenstein: Youngblood and Warframe (by the way, I’d say maybe don’t do that. The Switch threatens to go turbo every time you turn those kinds of games on, and the graphics and frames are simply beyond its ability to handle - it’ll still play them, but compared to the consoles those games were meant for, it’s a noticeable quality downgrade.), and the Hori cons didn’t miss a beat. I’ve used them so much that the labels on the buttons have worn out and only muscle memory helps me remember which button is which.My Switch has been the victim of falling on the floor multiple times, and the Hori cons not only saved the screen from utter annihilation due to being larger than the Switch, itself, but they continued to function just fine. I’ve *personally* never noticed a battery issue, but then, I’m religious about keeping my stuff charged, and I never disconnect the joycons, so it could simply be that they never had the chance to run out of battery in the first place.My hands don’t hurt to play for long stretches of time anymore, and the buttons feel good and are snappy and responsive to most inputs (they felt a bit stiff at the start, and some of the more sensitive button presses tend to be a bit iffy about registering, but that’s about the worst I ever had to put up with). I do wish the joysticks were textured, because my thumbs keep slipping off of them, but that’s a minor thing.I’ve never quite figured out how to use the Assign or Turbo buttons, but I’ve also never found any particular need to. I suppose if I ever find myself needing to spam a button really fast, this might be a problem for me, but in five year’s time, that’s never come up. I would honestly say they maybe don’t need to exist, especially not for someone like me, who just plays the game and doesn’t worry too much about tech or speedrunning or whatever else one might need a turbo function for.There is a mild problem with drifting, but here’s the thing - it’s only happening to me *now,* with my Hori cons getting ready to give out on me. For the entire five years I’ve had them otherwise, it’s never been an issue.There’s no rumble or gyro, which means that I can’t get a nice hand massage from my Switch and I’ll never complete all the shrines in Breath of the Wild (some require gyro to complete the puzzles), but neither of these are an issue for me. I was one of the kids who grew up in the PS2/XBox 360 era, where having rumble turned on would run a wireless controller’s battery out so fast that it wasn’t even funny, so I don’t play with rumble in the first place. And besides Super Mario Odyssey and the aforementioned Breath of the Wild, I’ve yet to come across a game where not having gyro shot me in the foot at all.Overall, if you’re looking to ditch your joycons for something that actually works like it’s supposed to and feels good to use, you could do a lot worse than Hori cons. They’re actually so good at their job that I have often found myself wondering why on earth Nintendo didn’t just make these standard in the first place when they originally built the Switch. It’s not even a competition, the Switch joycons are completely outclassed in almost every possible way - oh, but they have rumble and gyro support, wow, how cool. Except my old joycons didn’t even have *that,* so I effectively lost nothing when I made the change.

I have used a few pairs of these ergonomic joycons over the course of my switches life and for the most part they are ok. They are just a very simple design that does not have the following.No rumble supportNo wireless supportNo amiibo supportNo batteriesThis is a very basic, stripped down, almost featureless, ergonomic joycon.It does on thing and one thing only really well. It allows you to use your switch in handheld mode comfortably. It's great for lounging around and gaming. That's about it. It features large buttons which is great and a normal D pad which is also amazing. You can find some programmable buttons on the back as well.There's only 2 things that I don't really like about this unit. First up on the docket is that these will drain your battery FAST. Since they have no batteries of their own they rely on the switch itself for power. If you are getting 6 hours of playtime with normal joycons, expect to get 4.5 hours now. Yea, it's that noticable. In some ways it makes sense to not have batteries when no wireless support is there but on the other end the marked shorter runtime is bound to bother some people. The other thing I don't like is these are prone to drifting after a while. Normally with me these receive light use as I typically use these while traveling. This issue has gotten better with time. My first set lasted 100ish hours. Set 2 lasted around 450ish and set 3 was about 700ish hours and set 4 we don't know yet. To put it into perspective I have an 8 year old Xbox one controller that has 5000+ hours on it and drift is not a thing. It's apparent that hori is aware of these issues as these have had deviations in build quality as time has gone on. The outside has not changed but the internals have. And they have all been considerable. The saving grace with these is that they are CHEAP. You can get a set of these for 40 most of the time so you don't feel quite as bad when they die. However with the short lifespan of these, E waste is something that I find myself thinking about often. It's worth noting that other ergonomic joycons are on the market now and they are all full featured and function like standard joycons. However the price of these are normally 80.00. if you're on a budget these will do. If you are looking for a full feature set, there are other joycons to look at. It's just a matter of picking what you want and going with it. In my case I go with these because I don't use any of those features while I'm out. If I want to I can wait until I get home and just use a pro controller.

Hori makes some really good accessories for the Nintendo Switch and I own a few different ones. Due to my current situation, I'm only able to play with the Switch on handheld mode and the official Joy-Cons are a bit too small for my hands, plus the drifting issue makes me hesitant to use the Joy-Cons to begin with. The Split Pad Pro makes it much more comfortable to hold the Switch in my hand and all of the sticks, D-Pad, and buttons respond perfectly.Now, the huge drawback is that there are no motion controls and there's no amiibo support. However, if you are like me and already own a Nintendo Switch Pro Controller and just need something comfortable to play with the Switch while in handheld mode and don't need the gyroscope for most games anyway (unless you play a lot of Splatoon 2 and/or Splatoon 3), then you're set.If the Hori Split Pad Pro and Joy-Cons are the only controllers you own and can't afford the official Nintendo Switch Pro Controller, there are other third party options that will fit your budget.