Razer Kishi V2 Review, Turn Your Android Phone Into A Nintendo Switch Like Hand-Held

So, if youre not familiar with these controllers, this is a telescopic, usb type c controller for your android device, and these are definitely some of my favorites. You can always buy a four dollar clip on amazon, for your xbox, your ps5 or your ps4 controller, and just mount your phone in it like that. But ive always been a big fan of these telescopic controllers, because it kind of gives you that handheld console feel once you mount your device inside of it. So a lot has changed with version two of the razer kishi and well get to that in just a second. But i did want to mention that my go to controller right now has always been the original razer key sheet. If youre not familiar with this, its actually a great controller, it comes in a bit cheaper, its a usb type c controller, with kind of a flexible back on it. You just mount your phone right inside of it. It holds it just fine, but there are a few devices that i have that dont fit in here. Very well, like the red magic devices, at least the newer ones from the 6 all the way up to the new 7 pro. And when it comes to my ios devices, ive actually been using the backbone for a little while now its a great controller when it comes to an iphone, its got a lightning port, and this expandable back. Some manufacturers do call these stretchy controllers, but ive always called them telescopic controllers and when it comes to the backbone.

This is definitely one of the best controllers you can get for your iphone right now and it looks like razer has actually taken some key features from the original kishi and the backbone and kind of melded it together. For version two, and to tell you the truth, i love the look of the new controller. Like i mentioned, there are some key features that have changed here and some people might not be happy with them, mainly when it comes to the d pad. Instead of using a conductive pad behind it, theyve actually swapped over to micro switches, but, as you can see, weve got this solid back slider here, which does make the controller feel a lot more sturdy once your device is inside of it and its definitely a lot. Sleeker than version one, its got analog triggers some people call them linear triggers and im really glad they didnt swap this out for just a single micro switch and it looks like more devices will fit version two. It does come with these two extra little uh spacers. These are a lot thinner than the rubber ones that come pre installed and you can swap those out so something like the red magic 7 pro will fit in here once you replace the rubber spacers with these thinner units that come along with the controller but yeah Weve got the same basic layout: weve got a d pad, weve got two analog sticks, weve got our home button back button start select av xy, theres, also a screenshot button, and up top here, weve got our shoulder buttons.

Our analog triggers and theyve added two extra buttons up top, and these can be mapped from software theyve also added some grippier texture on the back here, which does feel really nice its on both sides, so its not going to slip out of your hand easily and Down here, weve got a usb type c port for charging your phone up while its in the controller and real quick. I wanted to test if it supported fast charging. So what ive got here is the red magic 7 pro. This will do up to 120 watts fast charging, and you can see my watt meter here 75 with the charger i have so to do 75 watts just over usb type c. Unfortunately, the razer kishi 2 doesnt support fast charging. We can get up to around 12 and a half to 13 watts out of it, which is more than enough to play your games and keep your battery charged at the same time, but it would have been really nice if it did support fast charging. I wasnt expecting 120 watts, not even 75. You know even 25 watts would have been nice here and another thing it doesnt support is data over usb type c, while your phones in the controller as we saw the controller, does come with some thinner spacers and something like the red magic 7 pro is just A thicker device, so it doesnt fit in here properly with the rubber spacers installed, the rubber ones come pre installed on the device and, as you can see, theres a little gap there, because its got that rubber spacer.

But these are easily replaced with the thinner spacers that are included. Well, do the usb type c side. First, they just pop right out theyre, actually in here pretty good, so youre not going to lose them. You know if you dont have your device in here. They got these two little clips on them, but well go ahead and swap these out for the thinner, spacers, so yeah with these installed, the thicker gaming phones will fit in here. As you can see, it does fit under that lip, and now we can plug that. Usb type c, all the way in really glad to see this okay, so first things. First, i wanted to tackle the d pad, like i mentioned, theyre using micro switches here instead of a rubber conductive pad, like youll, find in older controllers and newer controllers personally im a huge fan of using those rubber pads. It just gives you that good feel, but what theyve done here with these micro switches does work out really well its got a little bit of a click to it, but its totally usable here and its raised up a bit. So it is easy to pull up these special moves right now. Im using the redream emulator with some dreamcast here marvel vs, capcom 2 and pulling off. These special moves is super easy with this new d pad, if youve only been using conductive pads on all of your controllers, there might be a little bit of a learning curve, but it does work and were not working with a retro inspired controller whatsoever.

Obviously it would have been nice to have that rubber behind it, but unfortunately they didnt go that route. Razer has also released a new application alongside of the razer kishi v2 and its called nexus. You can download it for free from google play its like a little launcher. I mean all of your games can be loaded up right here. All of your applications really theyve also got some suggestions for games. We can go into the settings and update the firmware for the controller im on version 1.0. Thats all thats out as making this video weve also got this record button and we can set it up for screenshots or screen recording its really up to you. This device here that im using right now has a really nice screen recorder built in so im, not sure how much im going to use that button. But we can also map those m1 and m2 buttons up top here by the shoulder buttons. So we can set these up basically any way wed like, and we also have a dedicated home button now, if you have nexus installed, itll bring you into the nexus app really quickly. You press it again. Itll bring you home, but if you dont want to install nexus its just basically an android home button next thing i wanted to take a look at. Were these triggers and im just using a gamepad tester. As you can see, these are linear triggers. So when it goes up to one were fully depressed, but for racing games, this works out really well and im going to test that in a second, but weve got full control over both of these triggers, and this does work with the game pass app.

So one game that i usually love playing is forza, horizon 5 and for drifting and stuff, like that, you know having that control over the gas pedal and the brake pedal is really awesome. So these arent, just on or off you know its, not just zero throttle or full throttle. Weve got a full range here. If youre an android user. You know theres a ton of games on google play that do support several different types of controllers. Like minecraft. Here weve got asphalt, 9 real racing 3 theres a lot out there, but then youll get into some games that only support certain controllers like call of duty, mobile and apex legends, and unfortunately, you cant use this controller without a third party mapper with those games. I was really hoping that would be fixed by now, but it really comes down to the app developer. They only support the ps4 ps5 and xbox controller for some odd reason, but with a third party app like mantis buddy, you can use this with any game from the app store. One of the main use case scenarios that i would have for using a controller with my android device is emulation. What youre, seeing on screen right now is launch box a front end that you can just set up with all of your games. You can download videos artwork and just have all of your retro games and emulators in one place, and as long as the emulator supports a controller, this things gon na work with it with psp using ppsspp.

I didnt have to do any mapping same thing with ether. Sx2 i just used the auto binding and yeah. It does work really well with these emulators. You also saw some redream for dreamcast at the beginning when we were testing out the d pad, but here we have some psp using ppsspp and it worked right out of the box. I didnt have to do any mapping when it comes to something like ether sx2 for ps2. I use the auto binding feature and it just automatically set up the controller for me works great with ps2 emulation, Applause, Music Applause. So far, i personally really like the new razer kishi v2 im glad that they added a solid back here now i did get used to the stretchy band on the original key sheet, but this does feel a lot more solid once you have your device inside of It unfortunately, it still doesnt support fast charging or quick charging, and, like i mentioned, i dont need 120 watt fast charging, but you know at least 25 watts would have been really nice plus having data support through that. Usb port would have been really really great. That way, you could plug in some usb type c headphones, because the way this is set up right now, youre really not going to be getting to the 3.5 millimeter audio jack on 99.9 percent of the devices youre gon na put in this thing – and i completely Understand that using micro switches in that d pad is going to be a deal breaker for some people, but you know im so used to using all kinds of different controllers.

I got used to this really fast and it does work out really well the way it is, but so far its actually been a really enjoyable experience using v2. Now the biggest downside to this thing is the price its coming in at 99 right off the bat – and we saw this same thing with the original razer kishi. It was either 89 or 99. I mean thats, definitely close enough, but its still pretty expensive. For a controller that youre going to be using just with your android device, but keep in mind for like the last 9 months, the v1 was down to around 45 on amazon and i think well kind of see the same price drop on this later on down The road i dont think its going to be anytime soon, but you know give it six months from now. You might be able to pick this up for 50 bucks, and it would be well worth that, but thats gon na wrap it up for this one. If youre interested in learning more, maybe picking one of these up, i will leave a few links in the description you can get this on amazon right now.