Welcome to my review of the NACON Revolution 5 Pro officially licensed PlayStation controller. This controller is compatible with PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and PC. At the time of writing, this controller can be purchased for just short of €230.
That’s a lot of money for a controller. However, just because it’s a lot of money, does it mean it’s a great controller? Keep reading to find out my thoughts.
The Hardware
For this review, I primarily used this controller on my PC. However, I did give it a rather extended go on my PS5 too. Connection to both platforms was super easy thanks to the provided USB dongle.
These fancy controllers that cost loads of money are new to me, and this is the first “high-end” controller that I’ve ever used. I’ve not used the Xbox Elite controller or the Dual Sense Edge.
So, let’s get started with the good stuff. In the box, we have loads of goodies that come with the controller. Of course, we have the controller itself. Otherwise, we have:
- Three-metre charging USB-A to USB-C charging cable
- A storage case to keep the controller nice and safe
- An accessory storage box to keep the various attachments safe
- Two D-Pads – the standard 4-way like a Dual Sense controller, and a disc-style like what we would see on an Xbox Series controller.
- Six different weights – 2 x 10g, 2 x 14g, and 2 x 16g.
- A total of six joystick heads so you can adjust the sticks exactly as you want. There are four convex and two concaved heads.
- The USB dongle to connect to your console/PC.
- An external microphone
- One cleaning cloth
- The usual leaflets/instruction manual
- Bluetooth pairing for PC
You get quite a lot for your money. The controller storage case is very tough and I say it would help your controller survive several drops. Of course, that’s as long as it’s in the case!
The controller also has loads of fancy buttons so you can customise your control preference to your heart’s content. For example, on the top of the controller on either side of the charge port, there is a button. One side allows you to switch from wireless mode to wired mode. You can use the provided cable to do this. Handy for those longer sessions where you don’t want the battery to die on you, which I must add lasts a bloody long time anyway. By long, I mean long, we’re looking at over ten hours here. That’s pretty impressive for a controller of this style, I’d say.
The other button is called the “Multi-Function Button”. This is what is used to set up your rear buttons, you can also adjust things like microphone volume and equaliser settings using this. You can press and hold the multi-function button for a few seconds and you’ll see a flashing light around the right thumbstick. You can then press the rear button you want to change, and then you press the button you want it to be. For example, the square button. As if by magic, the rear button you pressed now functions as the square button.
A Negative Point
A negative I must add about the cable/charging here is that the USB-C charging port is hiding inside a cut-out in the controller. See below. Out of a bunch of cables I have I could only seem to get the provided charge cable to fit properly, and stay in to charge. This is a little disappointing as this means if you break the cable, you will more than likely have to source a like-for-like replacement from NACON or elsewhere, if possible.
The NACON Revolution 5 Pro has tons of customisation options provided with it. You can change the weight of the controller, the thumbstick grips, and the D-PAD. It also has those fan-dangled magnetic Hall effect triggers and thumb sticks that people keep talking about. This is an evolution in technology to help prevent stick drift in the future. However, stick drift is something I have never experienced, even with all my hours logged on various games!
I do like how you can have a concave joystick head on the left, and a convex on the right, for example. I prefer concave as I feel that my thumb doesn’t slip off of the thumbstick with concave. If you’re not sure which is which, take a look at the PS3 DualShock 3 controller thumbsticks, they’re convex. Look at the PS4’s DualShock 4 thumbsticks, they’re concave.
Thumb war!
Either way, the sticks and triggers do feel very nice on the NACON Revolution 5 Pro because of the Hall effect stuff.
Something in particular that I like about the triggers is that there is a switch on the back which means you can press the trigger halfway in and it will stop there giving you a full press. This is good for fighting and shooting games as less travel means faster shooting therefore you could fire off a couple of bullets before your enemy has even got you in their sights. This could mean the difference between winning or losing. I did find in racing games I preferred to have the trigger set to the full travel option as I felt like I had more control over the acceleration.
Swapping out accessories is a breeze. For example, the D-PAD and joystick heads pull off so you can swap them out. At first, it’s quite daunting having to put quite a bit of pressure into pulling something off of an expensive controller. But once you get the knack for it, it’s simple.
There’s also a headphone jack on the bottom of the controller. This is where the external microphone plugs in, or you can plug in your favourite 3.5mm headset/headphones to h
You can also customise the rear buttons to be whatever button you want. If you’ve used a Steam Deck and played around in the controller settings for L4/L5/R4/R5, you’ll know what I mean. If not, essentially the controller has two extra buttons around the rear of it, these buttons can be pressed with your index fingers pretty easily meaning you can set one of them to be a weapon reload button for example. This means that you could potentially reload your weapon whilst still aiming/moving the camera around in a first-person shooter. As I mentioned above, it could be the difference between winning or losing.
One major issue with this controller, for me at least, was the rubber grips on the sides. Whilst I did feel the controller was staying in my hand, it also seemed to feel like my palms were getting very warm as I played my games. This unfortunately led to me feeling rather uncomfortable whilst using the controller for say an hour or more as my hands do get warm whilst gaming.
My last negative point is that whilst the controller has vibration motors, these are only compatible with PC and PS4 games. They are not compatible with PS5 games at all.
NACON does have an application that you can download onto PC to help customise the buttons of the controller. In my testing, this application seemed to work well and had no issues.
Conclusions
To conclude my review, I believe that money doesn’t always buy happiness. This controller is a prime example of this, for me. I keep saying that as I just feel that this is an overpriced bit of hardware.
Whilst it is good, I couldn’t get on with some of it and made me feel uncomfortable while playing games. That’s not to say that you won’t love it, because you might do.
I score the NACON Revolution 5 Pro a 6/10.
If you wish to learn more about this controller, please visit the official website.
A sample was kindly provided for us to review this product.
