PowerA OPS V1 and PowerA OPS V3 Pro Review: Pro Gaming For Less

Gamers on a budget will be mostly happy with the dollars they’ll save on the PowerA OPS V1 and OPS V3 Pro controllers, once they’ve tweaked them a little.

Score: 3/5

	Buy The PowerA OPS V1!	Buy On Amazon

	Buy The PowerA OPS V1 Fortnite Edition!	Buy On Amazon

	Buy The PowerA OPS V3 Pro!	Buy On Amazon

In this review

PowerA OPS V1/V3 ProDesign
PowerA OPS V1/V3 Pro Performance
PowerA OPS V1/V3 Pro Battery
PowerA OPS V1/V3 Pro Conclusion

PowerA sent me not one, not two but three of its “Overpowered Series” (OPS) controllers to review; the entry level PowerA OPS V1, the rather specific PowerA OPS V1 Fortnite Edition and the series flagship PowerA OPS V3 Pro controller.

They’re all essentially Xbox-styled controllers – though they’re pitched for play on PC, Android and cloud gaming services with the primary appeal coming from some pro-grade features at price points well below that of many specific “Pro” controllers. I’m talking here of the models that’ll run you north of $200 just to get started, specifically.

Against that crowd they’re fair value, though you do have to do a little tweaking to make the most of them.

Design

All of the PowerA OPS controllers share a similar, very Xbox-controller style visual presentation; your typical two thumbsticks, a single D-Pad and buttons in an XYAB layout, making them easy to pick up and play with as long as you’re comfortable with that style.

The PowerA OPS V1 is very much your basic style controller in a black plastic finish with just a little bit of heft to the controller body. I’m not going to say it feels cheap – it’s not an Anko controller – but it’s not quite leaning towards the solid and heavier feel that you might expect from a true “Pro” model either at 269 grams.

The PowerA OPS V1 has four customisable buttons at the rear of the controller, as well as positional switches to adjust the travel of the R1 and L1 triggers and a switch at the base to pick between direct USB connectivity, Bluetooth or 2.4Ghz wireless connection modes.

Here I do have a complaint, because PowerA has chosen to print the labels for each setting in black, in a tiny font, on black plastic. Yes, I know I’m getting older and my eyes aren’t getting any better, so I checked with an 18 year old with perfectly good eyesight, and they agreed 100% that it’s quite difficult to discern. This matters less for the trigger travel switches, because you can feel their impact immediately, but it’s an area where a little coloured paint wouldn’t have gone astray.

Speaking of coloured paint, there’s the PowerA OPS V1 Fortnite Edition controller, which is essentially the PowerA OPS V1 with a Fortnite makeover and a coupon for an in-game Assault Bomber Glider as part of the package. Not being a regular Fortnite player I can’t assign a value to that, though I will say you’d have to like Fortnite – and the concept of a controller labelled near endlessly with the word “Fortnite” on it – a lot to make this your controller of choice.

You might think that the white nature of the PowerA OPS V1 Fortnite Edition controller would make the positional switches easier to read. You would be wrong, because they’re printed in white, keeping the same poor legibility of the ordinary version controller for reasons that befuddle me.

Seriously, not even the camera can see the position labels at some angles. This is not good design.

Both the PowerA OPS V1 and the PowerA OPS V1 Fortnite Edition come with analog thumbstick caps if you like a considerably more raised approach to your gaming, as well as lengthy USB-C to USB-A cords for direct connection and charging purposes. You also get analog thumbstick caps that markedly raise the height of the thumbsticks, in black for the regular edition and white for the Fortnite model. I can’t say I like playing that way, but it’s not bad to have the choice here.

You also get a USB 2.4Ghz receiver, very similar to the style you’ll find with most wireless keyboards or mice, though annoyingly neither model has a storage space on the controller to keep them safe. That’s maybe not an issue if you’re just going to plug them in and never move them from a gaming desktop, but more of a concern if you’re moving them around, as those tiny USB plugs are very easily lost.

This isn’t an issue for the premium play in the OPS line, the PowerA OPS V3 Pro. No, I’ve no idea what happened to the V2 either, maybe it disappointed PowerA’s designers during production and went to live on a farm.

The reason you’re less likely to lose the USB receiver for the PowerA OPS V3 Pro is because it comes with a small charging dock that has a recessed hole for the 2.4Ghz receiver specifically, making it less likely to vanish behind your desk or into the sofa cushions, depending on your PC or cloud gaming preferences.

The PowerA OPS V3 Pro doesn’t get the analog thumb caps, but that’s because its party trick is extensible thumb sticks that pop upwards with a twist between three thumb heights.

Twist to choose your ideal thumb stick height. This works very nicely to adjust for different hand sizes.

Given everyone’s hands are different sizes, it’s a neat solution to the issue of controllers that are either too big or two large, and very easy to change on the fly if you’re sharing the controller around.

At the rear of the PowerA OPS V3 Pro you get six programmable buttons, which makes me wonder who has that many extra fingers on the fly, as well as (sigh) the same black-on-black labelling scheme as the cheaper PowerA OPS V1 versions. You can work this out by trial and error, and I do suspect most users will pick an approach and stick with it – but it’s still a design annoyance.

While the cheaper PowerA OPS V1 don’t have fancy lighting, the PowerA OPS V3 Pro does, with RGB lighting for four different zones around the controller. I’m on the record as not being the biggest fan of RGB lit peripherals – I find them distracting, but maybe that’s the competitive point – but you sure can go to town setting the PowerA OPS V3 Pro up to glow just the way you want it to if that’s your style.

Adding googly eyes to the PowerA OPS V3 Pro makes it look like a very happy spider.

Performance

All three models of PowerA OPS controller feature Hall Effect sticks and triggers, a big selling point for more durable gaming over time. I can’t say that I’ve tested them to the point where I might expect a regular positional stick to fail, but it has been interesting to see and feel the differences between the cheaper PowerA OPS V1 and PowerA OPS V3 Pro models.

For the fastest response rates you’d want to play cabled up, but who buys a wireless controller to use it in a wired way? For most of my game testing I’ve used the 2.4Ghz receiver to limit input lag, though Bluetooth is an option. One caveat here from my own testing is that while Bluetooth is an open standard, I’ve had zero luck at all getting iOS devices to even see the PowerA OPS V1 in Bluetooth mode; Android pairing on the other hand has been fast and flawless.

Basic stick response across all three controllers is very good, as is D-Pad sensitivity for more old-school retro fighting game types like myself, though you do have to be comfortable with D-Pads with a slight concave dip to them.

I did find that the slightly heavier weight and textured grip of the PowerA OPS V3 Pro felt a little more premium and comfortable to my hands for longer gaming sessions. However I could only properly kick back with the PowerA OPS V3 Pro once I’d actually tweaked its control sensitivity – and this took some digging to work out.

I’m a noted fan of EDF, and of late that’s meant playing once again through EDF 6 via its PC/Steam version. All well and good for the PowerA OPS V1 and PowerA OPS V3 Pro up until I got access to a motorbike, which uses the R1 trigger for its weapons firing. This worked fine on the PowerA OPS V1, but I could not get it to function at all with the PowerA OPS V3 Pro.

If it wasn’t for the fact that the R1 trigger also handles weaponry on foot, and that worked fine, I would have thought that the PowerA OPS V3 Pro was broken. Instead, it was puzzling, and at first I figured it might be some very weird glitch in the software. Other games, however, took the input from the PowerA OPS V3 Pro just fine, so I turned to PowerA’s PC HQ software, which lets you adjust each controller’s sensitivity settings.

Tweaking the R1 sensitivity slightly down did fix the issue, but PowerA’s software approach here did leave me a little wanting. The PowerA PC HQ software does say it’s in beta form right now, so hopefully this will improve, especially as at the time of writing, if there’s an app update you’re just sent to PowerA’s website rather than a specific download location to install the new version.

You can make the PowerA OPS V3 Pro glow all kinds of pretty colours (if that’s your style).

PowerA PC HQ is also where you can go nuts with RGB lighting schemes if you really must; if you’re like me you’ll tap the RGB off light on the back once and then never bother with it again, but everyone’s entitled to their own approach, I guess.

Battery

The PowerA OPS V1 (in either regular or Fortnite iterations) has a 550mAh battery; if that was a phone it’d be tiny, but the needs of controllers for power are much lower than anything with a regular display to power. As per PowerA that should give you around 20 hours of gameplay time before needing recharging via USB-C cable.

The PowerA OPS V3 Pro gets a battery boost, which is undoubtedly part of the reason why it’s heavier, with a 1200mAh battery. All that RGB must take its toll on the power claims, however, because while it’s packing in more than double the battery of the PowerA OPS V1 versions, PowerA only rates it for up to 30 hours of battery life.

I cannot in all honesty say that I’ve played with the PowerA OPS V3 Pro for 30 hours straight to test this out, because that level of continuous gaming is not healthy, but it’s certainly lived up to those claims across multiple days of testing. As already noted, the PowerA OPS V3 Pro comes with a pogo-pin connected charging dock that connects via USB-C. It’s not quite as fancy (or as solid) as the dock on, say, the 8BitDo Ultimate, but if you’ve got the desk space for it, it’s reasonable.

PowerA OPS V1 and PowerA OPS V3 Pro: Alex’s Verdict

They’re not quite as fancy as your full-fat pro controllers, but the PowerA OPS V1 and PowerA OPS V3 Pro are fair value for money given the inclusion of decent hall effect sticks and a quantity of customisability around button configuration and sensitivity.

There are some quirks, from the odd design choices around labelling to the slightly clunky PowerA PC HQ software to bear in mind, and you may have to spend slightly longer than you might like with trigger sensitivity settings to get them to your precise taste. Once that’s done, however, they’re a solid budget-centric option.

PowerA OPS V1 and PowerA OPS V3 Pro: Pricing and availability

The PowerA OPS V1 retails in Australia for around $89, while the PowerA OPS V3 Pro typically sells for around $179.

Want to support AlexReviewsTech and pick up one of the PowerA OPS controllers? Use the links below!

	Buy The PowerA OPS V1!	Buy On Amazon

	Buy The PowerA OPS V1 Fortnite Edition!	Buy On Amazon

	Buy The PowerA OPS V3 Pro!	Buy On Amazon

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