Unless you’re terrified of the FBI keeping tabs on you, or of wireless signals bouncing around your body, chances are you’re carrying a smartphone in your pocket every waking moment of the day. Chances are, you’re also using it to play games on, especially as we see devices like the iPhone 15 Pro boasting the ability to play some of the latest AAA games. Turtle Beach continue to see this as being an important market for them, and following the excellent Cloud Recon, they’re now releasing the Atom, a handy device that fits in your pocket and turns your iPhone into a Switch-like handheld.
Well, if we’re being honest it only fits into your pockets if they’re fairly large pockets, though the handy carry bag means you can alternatively chuck it in a backpack without fear of it picking up any dinks or scratches. The Atom has to have one of the smartest designs we’ve seen yet for when it’s being stored, seamlessly slotting its two halves together so that it’s one, palm-sized unit.
The two halves of the Atom clasp onto each end of your mobile phone, and thanks to the snug fit they provide they don’t move around to any significant degree. There’s a batch of additional padding as well if you own a slimmer model, and I’d expect most people to find that the Atom fits perfectly. My iPhone 14 Pro fit perfectly without any changes, and that was despite the oversized camera unit and having its case on. Officially, it supports any iPhone since the iPhone 11, but I imagine an older iPhone X would be happy enough in there too.
The Atom belongs to the school of ‘edgy’ gaming device design, but I love its bold blue colouring and gold detailing. It does look as though it’s slightly too angular, but in your hand, it turns out to be comfortable and ergonomic enough not to notice. There’s large protrusions at the back of each half that make it much more comfortable to grip, something I often wish was present on the Nintendo Switch.
Once you’ve attached the two parts of the Atom you need to sync them up, holding down the home and menu buttons on each part to power them on. They attach to each other and your device via Bluetooth, and pairing was as straightforward as you’d hope. Following that, you’ll have a chance to check out the different controls, and the Atom features everything you’d expect to see from the standard Xbox layout, including asymmetrical sticks.
Each stick is full-sized, and they feel taut and precise, with textured surfaces around the edges. The triggers have a similar texture and a comfortable curve to keep your fingers from slipping off, and there’s a decent level of analogue movement to them, allowing me to happily play F1 2021 and the new Forza Motorsport via Xbox Game Pass.
The shoulder buttons elicit a satisfying digital click with every press, and they feel great under your fingers. Unfortunately, the weakest element of the controls has to be the face buttons, with the ABXY nubs feeling suspiciously spongey. They are at least accurate and perfectly functional, but they don’t feel as nice to use as the rest of the controller.
The Turtle Beach Atom is perfect for mobile streaming, and across Amazon Luna, PlayStation Remote Play and Xbox Cloud Streaming, each service worked flawlessly with the controller. The only limitation remains your WiFi connection, and you can’t blame the Atom for that.
Of course, you can play native mobile games as well, and the Atom certainly made Call of Duty Mobile a significantly better experience than using the touch controls. I mainly spent my time with Genshin Impact though, and continued to wonder just how good Zenless Zone Zero might be when it launches. Here’s hoping you’ll be able to use the Atom with that as well.
The separate sections mean that there are at least two downsides to the Atom, and they revolve around charging. Firstly, the controller itself can’t be charged while in use as the halves aren’t connected, and you also have no charging passthrough either. There is a cunning way around this on iPhone, as Magsafe charging operates perfectly with the circular attachment able to comfortably fit on the rear of your phone in-between the two controllers, the magnets within ensuring the charger isn’t going anywhere.
You also miss out on having the option of the Atom serving as a full controller that you can detach from your phone if you want. It would have been ideal if there was a central piece to make that happen, a bit like the Joycon controller docks you get for the Switch, but it’s likely only a small annoyance for an even smaller group of people.
At this point, there’s a great array of mobile controllers out there, with the Atom offering a compelling package to compete with them. If you prefer a standard controller with a mount and multifunctionality, Turtle Beach also offers the Cloud Recon, but it’s certainly less portable than the Atom is. Nacon’s MG-X Pro is a very similar styled controller, and while the design is marginally less comfortable, its ABXY inputs are of a higher quality.
