【User Experience Review】An affordable Switch Controller that felt just right – Omelet Gaming Crystalline Pro Controller

Omelet Gaming Crystalline Pro Controller Review

I’ve bought a transparent Switch controller recently, the Omelet Gaming Crystalline Pro Controller for Nintendo Switch by Omelet Gaming. (Will be abbreviated as Omelet Crystal Procon henceforth).
After playtesting for a while, I’ve grasped a rough idea of the banes and boons of the said controller, and decided to write an article to share with you all. Do take note that the product is only available in Malaysia, priced at RM129.00. Without further ado, let’s move on to the actual product.

The Omelet Gaming Crystalline Pro Controller comes with a transparent casing.

Feast your eyes with its fancy interior.

I would say that the most catchy part about the controller is the transparent exterior. The transparent casing satisfies the needs of curious gamers to know every nook and cranny of the controller that they are holding. It is slightly disappointing that only the front part of the casing is transparent. The top and back part of the controller comes with a fogged texture. Though the use of transparent casing seemed very unique and catchy, it is not something without its own drawbacks. The thumbprints and sweat gets quite obvious under room light. And the lack of weight makes it feel less solid, but do fit the needs of gamers who prefer their controllers light.

Do take note that the casing is thinner than most controllers, and it might easy crack on heavy collision, and the crack would look quite obvious as well.Other than the buttons, all the other exterior features allows the user to see through and into the controller’s interior structure and parts. Other than the main board, the built-in LED lights satisfy gamers who love RGB and making their gears glow.

A multitude of illumination effects, but not as obvious.

The single colour illumination mode comes with choices of : Blue, Red, Green, Yellow, Light Blue,Orange, Purple, Pink, Rainbow. The illumination can also be switched off by double tapping the light button located at the bottom right of the controller. Other combinations of illumination effects includes:

• Light+A：Magic color mode – Breathing and cycling colour mode, can be swapped to other colours.
• Light+B：Vibration mode – Light turns on when the motor vibrates。
• Light+X：Rocker mode – The intensity of light is based on the left stick’s swing index, larger swings makes the light shine brighter.
• Light+Y：Gyro mode –  The colour changes based on the 6 axis, up (red) down (yellow) left (blue) right (green)
• Light+L：Magic breathing mode – Colour rotates in the order of Red, Blue, Green, Purple, Orange.
• Light+Direction buttons：Used to adjust light intensity, at 4 different levels：25%,50%,75%,100%

5 tiny LED lights, a rather lowkey “magic” illumination effect.

Though it comes with a bunch of customization options, the controller only comes with 5 tiny LED lights, and it isn’t that obvious. And to be fair and honest we really won’t focus on the lights when we play games, and switching the feature on might improve the battery life slightly?(To the degree of 2 minutes perhaps?)

Compact layout design might cause input error.

In terms of the overall feel of this controller, I may get a little bit subjective as this is quite personal, and may differ based on personal habits, hand size and grip styles.Here’s my experience for reference.

The controller feels decent when held on hand, and the design is ergonomically appropriate.But when it comes to actual usage, I feel that the keys are too compact and placed close together. It may cause input errors when I press the buttons too fast or move around the keys a lot. I’ve even accidentally pressed on the XL XR button when I grip the controller a little bit harder. 

Using the back buttons: In theory vs. Reality

Speaking of the XL XR back buttons, it is placed on the second joint of middle finger of both hands. In theory, the design sounds right and accessible, but in actual application, that doesn’t seem to be the case. As we’re not really used to using our middle finger from the back of the controller, it takes quite some force and time to get used to it.
Personally I would prefer the input method to be gripping the back of the controller with my fingers as it is easier, but gamers with smaller palm size might not suffer from the above issue.

Overall button feedback

In terms of the buttons, I’ve mentioned that the Omelet Crystal Pro Con had stiffer buttons, because the total travel distance/actuation point of the switches seemed to be longer than the original Nintendo Switch Pro Con. This meant that you’ll have to press the buttons in deeper for the input to register, which may cause delayed inputs, but may also prevent mispressing. The feedback and clicky-ness felt more intense. The above traits might be suitable for gamers who like to press their buttons harder or have a more solid feel on their buttons.

It looks real flashy and cool under illumination, would fit just great as a collection

The directional buttons felt more or less the same as the Nintendo Switch Pro Con, but the analog sticks felt a little hollow and didn’t feel as dense as compared to the Nintendo Switch Pro Con. It had a very direct resistance and made it hard to do very precise and micro inputs.

One of the feature that felt nice to have was the fact that the middle of the analog sticks caves inward, with little studs around the circumference, which adds extra grip to the analog. The sticks does not bounce back too hard and felt snappy, which is just nice compared to the Nintendo Switch Pro Cons which had occasional bounce back issues.

Size does not differ too much from the Nintendo Switch Pro Con, but felt more compact.

Other than the overall buttons feeling stiffer, the control and inputs are decent. But due to the handle being slightly smaller, it may better fit gamers with smaller hands.

 Battery Life

This is one of the weaker features of the controller. One may say that they sacrificed battery life for a lighter weight. Although it uses a rechargeable built-in battery, but full charge requires 2 hours, and only lasts for a measly 3~4 hours. Considering that if you play games that requires intense and continuous inputs, the battery life might shrink even more, which is quite a shame.

Though I couldn’t give suggestions for improvement from an engineer or designer’s angle, but as a consumer I wish that the controller could have longer battery life.

Functionality

Let’s talk about the basic functionalities. The controller comes with 2 modes, wired (via USB Type-C) and wireless modes. Both modes didn’t have any form of input lag. The controller is also compatible with Windows , MacOS and even Android phones.

The middle finger button is the MR button, the vibration adjust button on top while the XL button is placed below.

The Omelet Crystal Pro Con transparent controller comes with most of the basic features present in the Nintendo Switch Joy Cons, from the screenshot button to vibration feature. The extra feature that isn’t included in the original controllers is the extra buttons: The Turbo button, customizable XL XR buttons and ML MR buttons that configures the customization aspects, and the vibration intensity button.

Turbo button —— as the name states, is a button that allows pre recording of input sequences to be automatically executed, for example, executing a combo chain input with one button, and loops forever, until you cancel it. The feature might come in handy in certain situations, such as harvesting farm loots from farm simulation games and grinding battles in RPGs.

XL/XR Button —— Located at the back of the controller, near the middle finger location. The usage of it is similar to the Turbo button, except it doesn’t loop.The assigned button can be customised with the ML MR buttons, and the issues regarding these buttons are stated in the Back Button: In Theory vs. Reality section. 

Adjusting Vibration Intensity —— Let’s talk about the vibration. The vibration felt flat and direct, and is not as detailed as it is in the original controllers. But the fact that the intensity can be adjusted is a plus.

Verdict

The controller felt small in general.

Omelet Gaming Crystalline Pro Controller may not be comparable with some of the top tiered controllers in the market, but with its pricing and extra feature buttons, it may still be a selling point. The product is currently only available in Malaysia, priced at RM129.00. If you liked smaller controllers or prefer your buttons stiff, you may want to give this product a try.