Gaming on your mobile phone is an indispensable part of today’s gaming landscape. The rise of streaming services, but also services like Apple Arcade prove that you no longer need a thick PC or game console to play full-fledged games. Earlier this year we have already reviewed the Nacon MG-X Pro for Android devices and now Nacon has also released a specific edition for iOS. We put this new version to the test and checked for you whether the controller is recommended for the Apple ecosystem.
When you take the controller out of the box, it doesn’t look much different from the Android version, except for the color. Nacon has chosen black for Android and white for the iPhone variant. The status lights on which the battery charge can be read, for example, have also changed slightly. That doesn’t alter the fact that the device also looks and feels particularly premium in white. Even if we look at the sliding system, it feels extremely solid and you simply have a quality piece in your hands.
The MG-X Pro connects to your iPhone via Bluetooth 5.0 and therefore doesn’t use the Lightning connection on the bottom of the phone like the competition. As for the future, this is a wise choice. Apple is obligated to adapt the port to a generic USB C connection, so you don’t have to worry about adapters here just yet. Another plus is that your phone simply fits into the MG-X Pro with the case on, which we found annoying with other controllers if that’s not possible. Virtually everyone has a case on their cell phone these days, and it’s not nice to squeeze it into such a clamp without it.
Incidentally, your iPhone rests on a layer of rubber, so the risk of damage is actually nil. However, Nacon made a mistake here. iPhones have a pretty large camera island, and the MG-X Pro doesn’t account for that. The result is that the phone doesn’t fit into the recess, making it “loose” on that side. Now the clamp is quite sturdy and the phone is also supported at the bottom so it won’t fall off the controller, but it’s an odd flaw in the design that has a very specific target phone. We had several Pro and non-Pro iPhones in the controller and everywhere the camera island blocked the optimal setup. Indeed, with the iPhone 13 Pro, with which we mainly tested the Nacon, one of the camera lenses rests exactly on a plastic corner. Of course this can’t be the intention and is just very sloppy.
Another downside is the fact that you can’t charge your iPhone while you play. Especially when you play graphically demanding games, your phone battery will run out fast. Where you can charge while gaming with a Razer Kishi or Backbone, that’s not the case here. Especially when you still have to use your phone for the rest of the day and you don’t have the possibility to charge it, this can be a reason to choose a different controller.
Fortunately, there are also many benefits to discover, the most important of which is that it feels great in the hand. It’s like holding an Xbox series controller in your hands, with the slightly textured back included in the design as well. Everything about the MG-X Pro is great, from buttons to triggers to bumpers and thumbsticks. You can tell from everything that you are dealing with a premium product. The twenty hour battery life is also quite long ensuring that you can maintain decent gaming sessions.
The Nacon MG-X Pro’s price tag isn’t sweet with a suggested retail price of €119.90 (for comparison, the Android version costs €79.90). It is true that we also see these prices from the competition and the differences with the Android variants are not unique either.
We have mixed feelings about the iOS version of the Nacon MG-X Pro. On the one hand, it’s a fantastic controller that we would recommend to anyone. On the other hand, there are the downsides of not being able to charge the phone while playing and the fact that the iPhones we tested didn’t fit the controller properly. The latter is actually incomprehensible for a device designed specifically for those phones. That’s why it doesn’t get the maximum score.
