Backbone Pro review: Mobile controller royalty charts a bold new course

Mobile gaming is having a moment, and with more fervor on Apple’s ecosystem than Android. Finding the right controller, however, can be an arduous task. In 2020, Backbone landed on the scene and instantly became a hot favorite for gaming on phones.

Over the years, the company has released two iterations of its One controller, and even one for PlayStation fans. With its latest, the Backbone Pro, the company hopes you won’t look for another controller. From mobile and cloud devices to PC and VR hardware, this is one controller to rule them all.

Backbone went back to the engineering table and made a host of changes to ensure that the Pro can be used in USB-tethered mode, as well as a standalone mode. That mandated a bulk-up, but also introduced perks that gaming enthusiasts will love. The price is still at a premium, but the sum total of this $169.99 package is more than what you would get from an average controller.

Thoughtful design, stunning build

The Backbone Pro is bigger and bulkier than its One sibling, though it still tips the scales at under 200 grams. Maneet Khaira, the founding chief of Backbone, tells me that the flagship controller has been in development for over three years and entailed hundreds of 3D-printed prototypes.

Over the course of testing, the team performed camera capture to finalize the most comfortable grip, button layout, and even the texture work. The updated thumbsticks required multiple micrometer-level adjustments to get them right.

All the work that went into design and engineering reflects during usage. I’ve tried nearly half a dozen game controllers in the past few months, including those with a telescoping bar like the Pro. The Backbone controller stands out with its superb build quality and weight balance.

A neat touch on the Pro model is the dotted texture on the handle. It’s not rubberized, but it still offers a remarkable surface-level grip. Khaira tells me that the team experimented with multiple laser-etched textures to ensure that it’s not too rough, and doesn’t get the palm sweaty either.

Jumping across different venues in Grid Legends in a sweltering 98 degrees Fahrenheit weather, the Backbone Pro did an admirable job at maintaining surface grip against my perspiring palms and prevented slipping.

The handles are thicker this time around, and I quite like them. It’s a personal perk because I’ve grown used to the official Xbox controller and felt right at home with the Backbone Pro. The added heft is also reassuring. In hindsight, it offers a more controlled experience if you are using gyro tilt in racing games.

The Backbone Pro also throws a couple of customizable rear buttons into the mix. Positioned towards the inner side of the handle, these curved buttons offer a satisfying click feedback and really come in handy for games with crowded controls.

The telescopic bar can fit any smartphone easily, including the big ones like the iPhone 16 Pro Max and Red Magic 10 Pro. It barely falls short of accommodating the iPad mini. Thankfully, the controller won’t cause any trouble if you don’t want to take the case off your phone.

The best-grade inputs out there

For all that increase in size and heft, the Backbone Pro added a serious functional perk. In addition to using it in tethered mode via the USB-C insert, this one can also act as a standalone wireless controller for all your devices, including TVs, tablets, and laptops.

I spent most of my time using the controller in wireless mode, burning up hours in Warframe, Alien: Isolation, and the new Resident Evil titles. I didn’t run into any issues with latency, and the pairing process was also fairly seamless across the screens I tried.

This dexterity also ties into a continuity feature for gaming. For example, if you left playing a game at a certain point on a large screen, you can seamlessly carry it over on a phone via the official streaming client, such as Xbox Cloud.

“We want to support every platform,” Khaira told me during a live demonstration of the Backbone Pro controller. So far, my own experience with playing games across various formats has been fairly smooth and hassle-free.

In wireless mode, the built-in battery is touted to last 40 hours. I couldn’t verify this number, and honestly, you shouldn’t be concerned about it, either. That’s because the controllers allow parallel charging via the USB-C port on the right handle.

When plugged in, the port can top up the phone as well as the built-in battery. Technically, I never ran out of juice during my gaming sessions. Thankfully, the companion app conveniently shows the phone and the controller’s battery levels, so you can keep an eye on the drain.

A versatile gaming experience

The buttons and sticks you get on the Backbone Pro are arguably the best you will find on a controller out there. Period. In retrospect, you shouldn’t settle for anything less at this asking price.

The round action buttons offer a nice clicky feedback with a satisfying level of vertical travel, perfect for mashing during your dungeon grinds. The D-Pad, in contrast, offers a quieter response, but they’re really well put together.

The slight elevation on the edges and a concave profile combine to offer a rewarding circular input for executing combos in fighting games. The Hall Effect triggers, unsurprisingly, perform just as well and keep concerns of drifting at bay.

My favorite element of the controller is the full-sized ALPS joysticks. They have a nice texture around the periphery for extra grip. The pair offers precise movement control, especially in racing games where cornering and hand-brake combos require nimble fingers and subtle radial movements.

You can calibrate the trigger depth and also configure the thumbstick dead zone. Button remapping is also part of the package, but I wish the app also offered an in-game launcher experience, the way labels like Red Magic have executed.

I had a fantastic time gaming with the Backbone Pro and can report that the aspects such as depth sensitivity, response time, and keypress feedback are all top-notch. The only misstep was the occasional bugs in the app, which is to be expected while running a TestFlight build.

In the stable version that I was running on the Red Magic 10 Pro and OnePlus 13, I didn’t notice any lag or non-responsive buttons. Depending on the platform, you can also save custom key presets and set unique profiles, as well.

A rewarding controller app

The most enticing element of the Backbone Pro experience is actually the mobile app. The layout and feel will be second nature to Xbox mobile app users if you’re on Team Green. The app has been beautifully designed, and the content organization is lovely.

Games are neatly sorted across platforms, categories, and the cloud service providers. The app acts more like an aggregator, where you can seamlessly pick up games across Android, iOS, Apple Arcade, Xbox, Nvidia GeForce Now, and other libraries. And yes, you can launch the games directly, as well.

The game cards are dynamic, which means even without tapping on them, you can get a short preview of the gameplay. When I launched the app, I got access to a bunch of freebies with the Backbone+ subscription, such as Discord Nitro and Apple Arcade for three months.

The biggest surprise? A native emulation tool in the Backbone app. The team has built a unified system where emulation cores for multiple retro Nintendo consoles have been placed in a single container. For now, you can enjoy games for SNES, NES, Game Boy, and Game Boy Advance platforms.

The Backbone chief tells me that the emulation stack will go as far back as Nintendo 64. When I asked about bringing more legacy console platforms, Khaira said it’s not about choosing a side (read: Sony or Nintendo), but technical capabilities. “We want to support every platform,” he put it bluntly.

Backbone is currently testing emulation cores for PlayStation 1, PSP, and Nintendo DS, in case you’re wondering. When I asked him to dig further into the challenges at hand, the Backbone chief told me that the “biggest constraint is memory on the phone.”

Tying it all together is the Backbone+ subscription, which serves a bunch of exclusive tools and benefits. Priced at $39.99 per year, it offers $35 worth of in-game benefits, a 30% discount on Backbone products, the ability to record game videos at full-HD 60fps with cloud storage, in-app voice chats, and Twitch direct streaming.

The best, however, is yet to come. Khaira tells me that the subscription bundle will bring more titles and content later this year. “We are working on adding licensed games into the subscription bundle,” he tells me.

In addition to new games, Backbone envisions offering free games as well as instantly playable games that can work offline with the premium bundle. “We want to bring down the barrier of entry as much as possible,” Khaira explains, adding that Backbone hopes to evolve into a gaming platform of its own by working with multiple partners in the gaming industry.

– Maneet Khaira, founder and CEO of Backbone.

Verdict

The Backbone Pro is an unabashedly premium controller. But for its $169.99 ask, it inches close to the territory where you find first-party controllers from the console warlords. But where the Backbone option races ahead is the sheer flexibility.

The buttons and joysticks are fantastic, and so is the flexibility of using it in docked as well as standalone mode across different platforms. From a hardware perspective, it is as good as it gets.

If your preferred gaming platform is mobile devices, and the best experience is what you seek, the Backbone Pro will serve you just fine. It goes a step further by offering a fantastic catalog aggregator in the mobile app. For fans of emulation, the built-in emulator will be a huge draw.

The Backbone One will remain on the shelf at its $99.99 ask, going against the Razer Kishi V2. And if you’re looking for budget alternatives, the GameSir X5 Lite is a great option. But for folks willing to spend on the Backbone Pro, you are in for a premium gaming experience par excellence.