Thrustmaster eSwap Pro Controller Review

A Closer Look

At first glance, it’s pretty much what you would expect a PlayStation 4 controller to look like. Of course, it does look different from an official Sony one, but anyone would tell you what it was easily enough. I do like the design too, with the big rubber grips on the side, and a nice matte finish on the rest. It looks less like it’s trying to be a swanky premium controller and more like it’s built to survive hours of abusive use… which is likely what it’ll get.

The rubber grips are really nice, they are lightly textured and made from a hard wearing rubber. Furthermore, they’re magnetically attached, so can be swapped out for a more custom look or simply replaced if damaged.

A simple bit of branding down the left side.

This is a cool feature, as you get two extra buttons here, a microphone mute and profile button. The controller is fully programmable, and you can hot-swap the profiles you’ve created. With so many custom features on this controller, that profile button may be one of the most important on the controller.

Moving around the back ,we have a nice two-tone set of rear triggers.

The L1 and R1 buttons are huge, with a double wide design. They’re also Z-shaped too, giving you something to really hook your fingers around.

There’s a standard micro-USB port in there, which will work with any standard cable. However, the included cable comes with a big wedge shape that fits in that huge recess, ensuring it locks in nice and tight.

Frip the controller over and you’ll find four programmable mechanical buttons. By default, they’re the four face buttons, but you can fully program this controller and change all that to suit your needs.

As you can see, you get two analogue stick, and a D-PAD, however, this is the eSwap controller, so it’s got a lot more going on! There’s a special key hole in the D-PAD allowing you to insert the included tool. However, all three modules are mounted using magnetic mounts, you can just pull on the sticks to take them out. We’ll do that in a moment!