Drone 2

Shout out to Maximilian Dood who said this was a good starting point for people who want to get into arcade stick and I’m very happy with my arcade stick!

As of July 2023 this is the cheapest new stick to get for PS5 (certified PS4 sticks will work so maybe look for a Drone 1 instead). Coming from a Mayflash f300 the buttons and stick feel similarly cheap, but the overall build quality, size, and weight feel better. It's a great size for me where it's not too big and not too small. It worked fine on PS5 and PC and is comfortable on my lap or on my keyboard tray. It's just that the price hike from the Drone 1 for PS5 support is a bit hard to stomach. I used a coupon code around fathers day which covered shipping and made it easier to pull the trigger. I would not pay more than $130 for this stick (including shipping). I found that the buttons were too noisy for my liking, so I swapped them for some Qanba Gravitys KS which feel nicer and are much quieter (though still not silent). It is relatively easy to mod, take out 6 screws, pop out the buttons, pop the new ones in. Opening it up voids the warranty though and it feels like it could be closed with a clasp/hinge instead of screws to make this easier. For this price it feels like this stick could have come with the Gravity Buttons, but it's still somehow cheaper to buy this and swap out the buttons than it is to buy a better stick. It would have been nice to at least offer the better buttons pre-installed for a bit more money. Side note, Qanba could kill it with a sub $200 leverless version of this stick imo.

Pretty decent sticky but I do wish it came with an option for an 8 way gate instead of a square one. Either way, I am happy with the product.

This is a great feeling controller, right out of the box it sits comfortably in the lap and the stick and buttons feel really tactile and responsive. Perfect for someone who is new to using this kind of arcade stick controller, and you don't need to mod this to make it feel good to use at all. The black finish on it looks nice and sleek, though it does require a bit of maintenance to keep up the look. However, even with the great feel of the stick, and all the parts of it working well, and the nice functions of PS5 compatibility and such, I can't rate this 5 stars because of two main reasons, The price is pretty drastic for what it is, I find it hard to believe the whole thing costs what it does, but I don't actually know much about the manufacture of some of the parts on/in this. Secondly was the fact that the cord isn't detachable. The cord on there is just what you get, can't take it out, and if the cord breaks, I assume the stick breaks too, which feels very out of place on the otherwise very modern and sleek feel of the controller, which really hurts my opinion of it. The place the cord is kept in, a large hole in the side of the left side of the controller, has you just bunch up the cord and throw it in, convenient, but it can damage the cord itself, very worrying when the lack of detachability makes protecting the cord so important. Outside of that, this I can't help but recommend this controller, and if you're iffy on actually using one to avoid something like the Titan or Obsidian 2, but still want PS5 compatibility, I would go for this.

Not my first Qanba Stick. Highly recommend it. Surprisingly light, but not lacking the quality feeling in the buttons and stick. I like the options available, and the compatibility is just what I needed.