Customer Ratings & Reviews

The product itself is great! So I will rate it 5 stars. When it comes to connections and lag, I found that physically removing the hdmi cable from the console SIGNIFICANTLY reduces lag and performance. My experience using the backbone at home is an overall 8/10. I've tested at work with AT&T 5G and the performance was on the poor side. I work at a mall and at the time it was the weekend before Christmas so I dont know if the amount of people in one area was the cause for this. If you're gonna be connected to a good wifi connection when away from home with good download speeds, then I say you're good. Although if you're traveling and plan on using your 5G, I'd think twice before purchasing. I'd also like to note that $100 is pretty steep for a controller in my opinion that doesn't have any vibrations at all. The backbone app is not amazing. I only use it to get to my PS5 remote play app. ----------- If anyone is wondering: my download speeds at home vary throughout the day. I get anywhere between 80-150mbps. Upload speeds are roughly 30-80mbps. I live in a rural area so my options out here aren't great. Mentioning this in case is it all helpful to folks in my situation. If you have speeds greater than mine, I'd say your Remote Play experience will be great!

Best portable controller for any iPhone! No lag at all! Great quality build.

The Backbone One is the first controller accessory I’ve ever had for my phone and I’m excited to share my thoughts about it with all of you. I’ll be using this with my iPhone 12 and reviewing it with several services, but specifically using PlayStation Remote Play. I’ll be posting my overall impressions first in case you don’t want to read the entire thing. My overall experience with the Backbone One was a positive one. Other than it missing a hard case or the ability to fold down for a smaller travel footprint, the device is a completely solid, well-built, and essential accessory for anyone wanting to elevate their mobile gaming. The ability to have actual physical controls for these games is a game changer and makes mobile gaming much more approachable for those used to PC and console gaming. If you’re looking for a premium gaming experience for your iPhone, look no further than the Backbone One. Unboxing/Build Quality: Unboxing the Backbone One makes you feel like you’ve purchased a premium device. The box is made of a soft velvety material and the Backbone is packaged front and center in a minimalistic way. You’ll get the Backbone One, an iPhone 13 Pro/Pro Max adapter, and a quick start card, along with safety instructions that you’ll probably never read. The device itself is light but solidly built. Once attached to your phone, it feels solid and like it’s a natural attachment for your iPhone. The buttons and analog sticks feel good, the triggers are also decent, but could use a little more resistance in my opinion. The D-Pad is a little on the mushy side, but overall the controller is built very well and feels solid. Anyone that has played on a PlayStation or Xbox controller will feel right at home with the layout. The only drawback I can see with the Backbone One in comparison with other units is the fact that it doesn’t fold up or come with a carrying case of any sort. Traveling with the Backbone One might be a little bit challenging when not attached to a phone. I have a fear that I may end up breaking the back support of the unit if I were to cram it into a backpack during a flight without a proper hard case. For the price, I think a case should have been included. Functionality/Ease of Use/Gameplay: The Backbone One is super easy to use. You’ll probably have to take the case off your phone to get the Backbone connected, but that’s pretty standard for devices like these. Once you connect it to your phone, you’ll be asked to download the Backbone application from the App Store. Once downloaded you’ll be granted 1 year of Backbone Plus which gives you a bunch of benefits as an owner of the product. None of these limit the ability to use the product but are niceties like access to a streamlined game hub, direct live streaming, and the ability to share gameplay and screenshots easily. You’ll also get some free benefits from places like Discord, Stadia, etc. To test the PlayStation Remote Play functionality, you’ll download the PlayStation Remote Play application from the App Store and sign in to your PlayStation account. After you’ve linked your desired console, in my case a PS5, you’ll see the home screen of your device on your phone and be able to navigate it just as if you were using the native controller in front of your console. The input response, video quality, and smoothness of the games I streamed were all very good. Everything from Demons Souls, to Spider-Man and Uncharted played fantastically via Remote Play on my Wifi 6 mesh network. I only experienced a few hiccups with the connection when moving locations in the house, but other than those few occasions where I felt a little lag or visual distortion, the experience was great. Don’t forget you can also stream from your Xbox or pick a streaming service like Stadia to stream from. Streaming from the Xbox was a smooth experience as well, minus the fact that the buttons aren’t labeled correctly for an Xbox controller, but that doesn’t hinder the experience much. Local gameplay is also fantastic. I played a ton of Diablo Immortal with the Backbone One and it was a great experience. CoD Mobile worked just as well and felt completely natural to play with the Backbone One. All other games that support a controller should also play great with the Backbone One.

The Backbone for iPhone for Playstation is aesthetically a great looking device, technically a great idea, and fundamentally a controller that can turn your iPhone into a next-level gaming device. In reality, personally, I feel it needs a lot of improvements to be a true 'Playstation' controller for your iPhone. What Backbone have done, is taken their regular controller, made it white and put some nice, glossy Playstation 5 controller-esque buttons on it, and a couple of proprietary PS functions. But fundamentally, the controller is more geared towards an X-Box or Nintendo Switch set up, than it is a Playstation controller. The biggest elephant in the room with PS vs X-Box vs Nintendo Switch controllers is the off-set joysticks. The Playstation is the only one of the 3 controllers that has symmetrical joysticks, on the same plane. So to be a 'true' PS controller, this one needed to step up it's game and have the symmetrical joysticks. I've had every iteration of Playstation from One through Five, and the joysticks have always been level and not offset. And while we're talking about the joysticks, they are tiny. Like tiny, tiny. Very similar to the Nintendo Switch controller joysticks, which are also tiny. As far as the aesthetic feel of a PS5 (or 4/3/2/1) controller, this misses the mark. And to a Playstation (only) gamer, this will feel weird. I do occasionally play on my son's Switch, but complain about those controllers all the time to him too! Yes, I am a Sony fan in this respect, and I am reviewing this Backbone controller, as a Sony product fan. Moving on to the better things, I love how they've captures the glossy/clear buttons of the PS5 controller, it being white ties into that design with the black bumper buttons up top. The other buttons are fine, they do what they need to, the Backbone button would have been more complementary in Blue on the controller, but that's a minor thing. Now in this form factor, you aren't going to have the feedback sensors/motors in a controller like this, I totally get it. But a more substantial click from the bumper buttons would be welcome. The way this controller slides open with a spring loaded mechanism makes it very easy to attach your iPhone, and also comes with an adapter to mount an iPhone 13 as well. But... you have to remove your case, this controller does not work with your case on your iPhone. Minor inconvenience, but worth a note. On the bottom edge, right hand side, there is a USB-C charging port to be able to charge your phone while using it, no cable is included tho. On the left hand side there is a 3.5mm jack for hooking up some wired headphones if you so choose. Once you plug your iPhone in, you are prompted to download the Backbone app, set up an account, and even though you get 1 year of Backbone membership with the controller, you are forced to set up a recurring payment with Backbone through Apple, in order to even begin using the controller. Being forced to do that ($50/year), while understandable as Backbone want to make money, was annoying when just trying to get on and try/use the controller. Playing Games: I found the controller to have little lag, depending on the game, which was nice, and games like Gran Turismo 7 played nice and smoothly with the controller. I had some good fun racing around the tracks. The functionality was there, little to no lag, smooth turning, accelerating and brake was all to be found. You can also capture and record clips just like you would on a PS5 controller, with a dedicated button. Moving on to my go-to game, Call of Duty (Cold War in this instance) things got a little different. In a fast paced and frenetic online game, the controller was simply too jerky in it's joystick motion to remain accurate and on target, I tried all sorts of different options, holding the controller slightly differently, and while you could control the game, the sense of urgency required wasn't there and I was habitually second to the trigger. Ultimately ended up quitting out of the game due to the awkward joysticks and feeling like I was always playing second fiddle to the other players. For context, I am not an Elite Gamer, nor am I novice to Call of Duty, I've been playing online consistently since Call of Duty 3. Overall, I really wanted to like this product. It's a quality product, and it's well screwed together, it feels sturdy and durable, it's connectivity is good, little to no latency on smoother games, but frantic, high speed games it struggled, in my experience. The aesthetics are nice too, it looks good. But overall, the joystick layout (and size of them - too small) really make this NOT a dedicated PS controller substitute, and for that reason alone, makes me not want to pick it up. And being forced to sign up for the $50/year subscription right out of the gate, before even testing the product was annoying as well.

Works good. But for personal reasons I didn’t get the experience I was looking for. Controller felt entirely too small for me. & there was a little but of a delay when gaming. As if either the controller/phone couldn’t keep up. For maximum efficiency when gaming its Better for me to just play on the console. Haven’t used the backbone since I first got it. Outside of those two reasons I had no issues with it.

Love it so far. My only concern was the lag some people mentioned in their reviews. But i played GTA 5 online and couple of other games and did not experience lag so i was happily surprised. Just a hassle to take off iPhone case every time. i have iphone 14 pro max and had to use the adapter to make it fit (it comes in the box).

The product works great and as advertised! The analog sticks are way softer than the ps5 dual sense controllers which threw me off at first, but you get used to it within a few hours. It's a great product and you definitely don't need the paid backbone app for the features and functions. Just note if you are going to be using this for remote play on your playstation 4 or 5, it's probably best to have your ps5 hard connected to the internet via ethernet cable and your phone on a fast wifi, else it's not worth the latency and lag.

A simple device to bring with you on the road & it’s easy to manage with any game you play there’s a slight delay depending on the game you play but it’s great.

I bought this for my son and he definitely loves the games you can play for free with the 30 day trial from backbone. It does lag when playing online and I have the top speed from Cox cable, which is the gigablast. We dont lag on our PS5's but when he plays the backbone he does. The games that you can play have great graphics and I would recommend to get it.

Felt well built and worked well under optimal connection situations, however lag caused me to return it. Nothing wrong with the controller but the connection to PlayStation even on my iPhone 14+ with 300mb internet still experienced lag

I have a laptop and a ps5 controller that works better, latency is rough especially over wifi or mobile data, if thats all you can use then yeah its great, if not download the remote play apps on a laptop, hard wire it, and get lower latency that way

Rethinking my life right now after making item purchase. Raging is real parents no matter where lol so if you don’t want to be caught of guard while driving. Dont buy or set boundaries lol

It definitely takes a little bit to get used to it. Gets very hot and loud (fans) when gaming. When plugged in, great graphics for a 3060. No lag. There’s no G-Sync monitor although it is 144hz. You can always turn on V-Sync if that’s your thing. Battery is great, keyboard is good. Touchpad is solid in terms of size and feel. I dont think you can play without it plugged in, otherwise youll get maybe two hours before it dies. I did invest in a 2TB nvme Hard drive. I do wish it cane with an extra slot but again, youre getting a Ryzen 7 paired with a 3060 for $899. I will also invest in increasing the ram.

Great handheld for on the go casual gaming, or offline gaming. I get quite noticeable lag when I try to play online, definitely do not want to play Call of Duty with it.

This is actually quite enjoyable depending on the quality of your connection. I would still be careful of games that require tight timing. There can still be some noticeable lag.

It’s awesome that you can connect to your system at home. But it tends to lag and if u you don’t have the greatest internet or Wi-Fi at home it’s not very good

I had one of these controllers for about a year and barely used it the lag was terrible and i wasnt crazy anout paying for another yearly subscription and mostly used the ps remote app once i upgraded my iphone coildnt use it so i bought the new PS portal remote which is much better

This is a must for any gamer. Can successfully remote play my PS, XB and certain mobile games (must support controller). No lag and super comfortable. Hit it on sale during BF. Totally worth the full price tag though.

Amazing portable assistant to play the PlayStation 5 on the go….or in bed. Lag times aren’t bad with internet connection but the hardware is solid.

I like it so far. Feels like i could break it pretty easy. But i do like how it connects with my iPad / ps5! Lil glitchy / laggy but connecting from anywhere is nice