Review: GameSir X2s Mobile Controller – My Gateway To Mobile Gaming

Mobile gaming is a bit of a blindspot for me. I’m a hermit with big ogre hands who rarely leaves the house, so the thought of playing on a small touchscreen when my PC and PS5 are mere feet seems silly.

Now, having used the GameSir X2s mobile controller, I’m beginning to come around on the idea. With games like Assassin’s Creed Jade on the horizon, and a whole Game Pass library to stream, the idea of mobile gaming feels a lot more palatable than it ever has in the past.

GameSir X2s Type-C Controller

I’ve tried mobile controllers for phones already, of course. It’s not a new idea – take a basic controller, plug it into your phone, and it effectively becomes a mini-Switch. But I’ve never wanted to splash out too much on them, opting for the cheapest and naffest ones possible, and ending up dropping it after the novelty’s worn off. The X2s is different. It’s a bit pricier, coming in at £49, but for that you get something on par with a standard console controller.

The build quality is impressive, if not perfect. The extendable backplate to fit your phone has a nice bit of resistance to it, ensuring your phone isn’t going to slip out, and the textured grips feel really nice. But the plastic on the front plate and on the back do feel a bit toy-ish, but at only 171 grams, it does a good job of balancing not feeling flimsy with not adding too much extra weight to your already heavy phone.

Its layout is nicely spread out for my aforementioned ogre hands too, and there’s a satisfying tactile click to every button and bumper thanks to the mechanical switches underneath. This feels like it could be a first-party device, and playing on it feels miles better than even using a Switch JoyCon. The triggers are serviceable, if slightly light and smushy feeling, but sacrifices had to be made for the low weight and relatively low price.

GameSir’s big play with the X2s is its analogue sticks. They’re Hall effect switches, which use magnetic fields to have higher sensitivity, quicker response times, and, most importantly, almost completely eliminate the dreaded stick drift. While I’d have liked a bit more texturing on the sticks to make them feel less plastic, it’s hard to deny they’re not an absolute dream to play with – again, it feels more like playing on a first-party controller than being sidled with the grotty MadCatz at your mate’s house.

There’s no battery on the X2s, it simply feeds off your phone’s battery. Combined with the gaming going on, this can really drain your power quickly, but with the USB-C passthrough at the bottom of the controller, you’re still able to keep charged while playing. Throw a power bank in your bag when you go out and you’ll not have any problems.

GameSir does claim that the X2s is foldable-friendly, but make sure your phone is under 168mm long before buying.

The big problem with the X2s was its connectivity. My phone is a Pixel 7 Pro with an official Google case on it, and quickly found the USB-C connector isn’t quite long enough to fit in the port properly, which causes problems both with first firing up the controller and in maintaining constant connection while playing. Take the case off and risk my phone to the elements, and it’s absolutely fine – but the Pixel 7 Pro is hardly the biggest Android phone out there, and so anyone running something like a Sony Xperia 1 or other phablet-like design will possibly run into similar problems.

For the most part, I’ve been using the X2s to stream Game Pass games to my phone when I can’t be bothered to make the short trip to my Xbox controller. Firing up Grounded and carrying on my save over the cloud is brilliant, with the X2s really helping keep the control scheme consistent between Xbox, PC, and cloud on my phone. I’m sure I’ll be getting a lot of use out of this in the months to come.

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