Terios T3+ Bluetooth Controller Review

Terios T3+ Bluetooth controller: looks cool, but not as easy to use as it seems.

I have been a fan of video games since the NES. I have expanded my tastes as technology has advanced. I progressed from the NES, to the SNES, N64, Wii, PS2, Xbox 360, Xbox One. I found I liked the Xbox more than PlayStation line and it is solely by choice that I do not have a PS4 currently. In addition to the above, I had gameboy, gameboy color, Advance, DS, 3ds, 3ds XL, New 3Ds XL and Gamegear and PSVita. My friends have had Dreamcast, Psone, PS4, WiiU and my parent have an Atari. Needless to say, I have tested and played games on nearly every system for the past 20+ years. I am no longer playing like I used to, as a full time job and three children will tend to demand a great deal of your time. With an on the go lifestyle, I have turned to mobile games, games on my iPhone 6S plus to feed the addiction.

Having grown up using controllers to play games,, I often miss the feel of them when playing on touch screen. Do not misunderstand my meaning, I really like touchscreen games, I just feel that there is more sensitivity with controller in hand, than touching a button on screen. I have been given a T3+ Bluetooth Gamepad to test and review. The controller arrives in black glossy packaging with an open plastic window. This allows you to see the controller in the packaging. As a consumer, I really appreciate this feature. This showcases the device very well and highlights the color scheme. The controller appears well built, resembling an Xbox 360 controller in black with red accents. The packaging states that this will work with Pad, Phone, Smart Box, SmartTv, PC. The bottom of the box has #2 QR codes. The back of the box states that the device supports Joystick mode, mouse and media mode, keyboard mode, Icade mode and PC mode. It continues by stating any game that supports USB joystick mode are workable.

The device weighs at 4.5 ounces, which is quite light. I was pleased with the form and function. The controller is comforable in hand, again resembling the Xbox 360 controller in my hands. It has a D Pad in the top left, 2 analog sticks that feel quite responsive. It has A,B,X,Y buttons and double triggers Rt and Lt. Unfortunately, I did not have as much success getting the controller to work. I started out with attempting to pair the device on my iPhone. I was able to get the Bluetooth to work just fine. The phone would see the “Bluetooth Controller” but it would not work inside of games. A quick internet search will show that you must have a jailbroken device for this to work. This is true of both iPad and iPhone. I do not have a jail broken device and I will not break one of my devices to test this controller. I could not get any of the modes to work. Once pared touch the center button and you will see a single LED move around the center MODE button. None of these seemed to do anything on my iPad. Except for the top right LED position. Button Y would turn up the volume and button A would turn down the volume. This was also true on my wife’s Galaxy S5.

Since this did not work with the iPhone, I decided to try a few games on the S5. Paring worked flawlessly, better than I expected. The upper left mode (joystick) mode was able to work on a few games namely Cordy (detailed as CRODY in the manual) and Meganoid. Cordy is a Sonic the Hedgehog like side runner and Meganoid is a Mario like game. I tried to download tank shooters, space shooters, 3rd person action shooters, etc and I had from very little to no controller function. This was a let down. This did not matter if I entered the game and worked on settings or not.

Before writing a negative review, I like to do some research about the product. I turned to the Internet and began to look at other reviews. There are a few unboxing videos and review videos as well as some other sources. It is important to note at this point that these reviews are for the T3 and not the T3+. I could not find specific reviews on the T3+. The biggest difference I noted was the Start/Select buttons. On the T3 they are side by side and on the T3+ they are vertically oriented. I was able to find two video reviews from THEMAN 7431 and I watched these in entirety. These reviews show the device and a phone clip (NO PHONE CLIP WAS INCLUDED IN THE BOX). He also notes that the controller works perfectly with GTA games and a Nintendo Emulator. Reading through the comments of THEMAN 7431 video, other people’s T3 did not come with the phone clip either. The instruction manual shows the device, and phone clip, but it was not present in the packaging. Other reviews show the clip attached to the side of the box. This is a curiosity and I am uncertain why this phone clip was not present.

The instructions provide a list of games to try. I was able to get meganoid free to work, the mario style game mentioned above. However it used the d pad and the a button for jumping, that was it. I turned to google and searched “Android Games and Controller” and found an app called “Gamepad Games” and tried a few of the space shooters. None of them would work. Each one was downloaded then I evaluated the menu for options. I really cannot test the function of the controller, if I cannot get the controller to work.

Pros:

• No cords
• 500mAh battery
• Reported up to 6 hours of use time
• This remained paired for at least 4 hours during my use and never gave any type of problem, never lost connection with the pairing.
• Does work with emulators but you have to set the buttons specifically in the emulators.

Cons:

• iPhone/IPad must be jailbroken
• No phone clip in the case
• Not as easy to find games as it seems.

Both the Unboxing and Review videos on the T3 completed by THEMAN 7431 on YouTube have a different layout for the start and select buttons than the controller I received. His controller shows a side by side layout, whereas my controller (T3+) has them vertically stacked just under the home button. My controller did not come with the phone clip. The demonstrated clip would not work with the T3+ as the start/select button cut outs on the clip would not fit. AA quick search of the Internet, yet again, and we see that there is a new model of the clip that is available that works with this T3+. Additionally, the analog sticks on my controller are red, whereas other reviews show them as black. I am not certain but this may have something to do with the fact that my controller is a T3+ and shows this on the box and the reviews show only T3. I also had instructions in English, whereas other commenters on Amazon and YouTube suggest they only received Chinese instructions. The instructions are poorly written and provide little assistance. I did not try this with the PC version.

I refuse to buy games that may or may not work with the controller. I did download an NES emulator and found an NES ROM for Super Mario Bros 3. I was actually impressed with the controller and it immediately took me back to my roots with the NES. This is not for the average user, my wife would never have been able to figure this out. It seems that this device is not as universal as the packaging and the instructions suggest. Not working with IOS devices is a huge hit into the negative category. I had to search for games that were compatible. This is not the fault of the controller if the games do not support the controller. However, a longer list of games would be more beneficial to the consumer. Simply stating this supports all games that have controller function is not enough. The rating of this device was more difficult than I thought it would be. When it worked, I was really pleased with the device. When I was unable to get this to work in games, it was really frustrating.

For now, I have video evidence that GTA style games work, visual evidence that Emulators work. I also have proof that 2 of the games listed in the manual work as well. I will rate the device at 3/5 stars.
BUY FROM AMAZON

Originally published at macsources.com on April 29, 2016.