ELO have produced a small range of rather excellent devices and are on their way to releasing wearable tech with their Glasses. Cubed3 was fascinated and luckily had the chance to take the Vagabond, a mobile gaming controller, for a spin!
Coming neatly packaged in ELO’s brand purple, the box has the device in a nice shiny material on top. Looking around the outside, there is the usual list of features and a few more images. Cutting through the tabs and lifting the lid reveals an instruction card for the ELO Gaming app, designed to interface with ELO devices offering a centre for games and customisations.
Under this card is the Vagabond itself, around the size of a regular controller but with a stretched centre, it is immediately comfortable in the hand. Putting it aside for a second though, the box contains a few more goodies. There are the rubber pads made to elevate smaller and thinner phones so they fit the Vagabond, a USB-C cable, an ELO sticker, the user manual and finally a nifty little Adaptor selector which is a card the user can slot their phone or table into to choose which adaptors they need to add.
Unlike many other mobile controllers this is a full sized controller with nice big grips and shaping for a more comfortable gaming experience on the go. This does mean hand fatigue is not an issue using the device for extended periods, which is excellent. The buttons are all mechanical switches so they don’t feel spongey. Instead they have a satisfying click that is not only just audible enough but feels nice under finger too.
The joysticks are great too with nice smooth action and use hall effect sensors. The chances of getting stick drift, as the industry has seen for the last few years, is significantly reduced with this controller.
During play, the entire device is excellent and responsive in an almost unexpected way given how split controllers are often prone to lag. Probably due to the direct connection rather than any sort of wireless or Bluetooth driving the input latency. For those who worry about battery life, the device has an extra USB-C port underneath that can support pass-through charging for longer play sessions.
Honestly, the amount of compatibility features was a great thing for the Vagabond; it even has a 3.5mm jack for headphones so users can forgo Bluetooth connections entirely! When it comes to feeling during play, the controller is ultra responsive. Take it for a spin in an online shooter and it is twitchy, accurate and feels fantastic. We tested a range of titles from RPGs like Genshin Impact to driving games like Asphalt and in each the controller performed admirably, never missing an input or feeling laggy.
Our last test was to take Xbox cloud gaming for a spin knowing how input lag can be an issue and despite the cloud lag, the controller input was excellent and again didn’t add any unwanted controller lag to the mix.
ELO also has their ELO Unleashed software for organising the user’s games and launching them in a container on the phone as well as configuring the controller and calibrating settings. It’s not always the best piece of software and it can’t catalogue every game on the user’s phone if they have unorthodox apps; however, it’s well laid out and has some nice features. It can even launch streaming services for players who want things like Remote Play (though it still launches the external app).
Controller button config and calibration is great. It has nice graphical representation and things on screen while running the software and it’s easy to re-map buttons for tailored configurations. Which is honestly, pretty amazing for a sub £100 device.
