As a primarily PlayStation player, I’ve admittedly not put a huge amount of time or thought into my choice of input peripheral. It’s been DualSense – and occasionally DualSense Edge – all the way, and that’s suited me just fine. But with recent stints in more multiplayer online titles like Fortnite and Arc Raiders, I’ve been curious to see if a pro-style controller from another brand could help improve my game, or if perhaps it’s less the sword and more the wielder that’s the issue.
Enter the Razer Raiju V3 Pro, a recent release from a peripheral maker that I tend to fuck with pretty heavy these days. It joins the company’s catalogue of serious pads for serious players, this one specifically geared towards PS5 and PC users, meaning it sports all the necessary inputs for Sony’s modern machine and mimics the symmetrical layout that my fellow PlayStation tragics are accustomed to.
Opening up the box for the first time is an experience pretty typical of a new Razer product, the relatively plastic-free packaging revealing a nice complement of accessories adjacent to the main event. Printed on the inner box are the words ‘FOR THE PRO’, echoing PlayStation’s classic ‘For the Players’ tagline while implying that this is a controller for the real ones, the elite, the dedicated few. And you’d probably want to be in that number, or at least believe that you could be, if you’re thinking about forking out $349.99 for this bit of kit.
Extra bits include a very nice carrying case, a Razer HyperSpeed 2.4GHz wireless adapter, 2m USB Type-A to Type-C cable, a pair of replacement thumbstick caps, four back button covers and a tiny screwdriver.
As you might infer from that list, there’s a bit of customisability to the Raiju V3 Pro, with changeable thumbstick toppers offering the option of a taller stick and a short convex one not unlike what you’d see on older DualShock controllers. You only get one of each, but for most folks I wouldn’t see the need for changing the left thumbstick from the default. The other bit of DIY potential comes from the added back buttons, all four of which can be removed and replaced with covers if you’re not interested in using them and would rather the backside of the controller handles feel more flush.
For the asking price, I feel a couple more thumbstick toppers and/or some alternate back button attachments wouldn’t have gone astray. After seeing more elegant solutions in other controllers, I also reckon the idea of having to pull out the rubber stops and shove a screwdriver in to remove and re-attach the back button pieces is a bit old-school.
Connectivity-wise, the Raiju V3 Pro works either wirelessly with the included HyperSpeed dongle or simply by plugging it in, a set of switches on the back toggling between wired and wireless, and PS5 or PC mode. I’m a little disappointed that the included dongle is USB Type-A only and doesn’t feature any kind of adapter or extender to Type-C – between newer PS5 consoles, like my PS5 Pro, and a lot of modern PCs, Type-A ports tend to be at a premium compared to the newer standard.
When it comes to the design of the pad itself, I’m impressed with the level of comfort and overall placement of every input. It’s bigger and flatter than a standard DualSense, but the length and angle of the handles sits really nicely in the hand with everything at good reach.
Holding it with a common grip, my pinky and ring fingers naturally rest exactly on the four back buttons, which is a big improvement on other controllers I’ve tried. I did find myself accidentally activating the top and bottom ones at the same time and ended up just removing one set, though. There’s yet another pair of additional keys at the top of the controller next to the bumpers and triggers, so I felt spoiled for options anyway.
Coming from Razer, you can expect all of these buttons and inputs to feel incredibly tactile and responsive. The L2 and R2 triggers are especially satisfying to hammer, individually switchable between a longer, analogue pull or a short, digital actuation that feels as fast and clicky as a mouse button. The d-pad and added ‘M’ buttons are all similarly ticky-tappy, while the R1 and L1 bumpers and touch pad have a more appropriate ‘clunk,’ to throw around some very scientific terms. And finally, the face buttons sit somewhere between with a tactile click that hits a rubber membrane to give you a comfortable feel that still presses reliably and bounces back nicely.
The Razer Raiju V3 Pro utilises TMR (Tunnel Magnetoresistance) thumbsticks, which in simple terms represent something of an evolution of the Hall Effect sticks that we all love to froth over. While offering all the same benefits when it comes to eliminating dead zones and stick drift, TMR also uses a lot less power than Hall Effect while managing even better accuracy. The end result is that the sticks on this controller feel superbly accurate and reliable, although the limiting factor here ends up being a disappointing 250Hz polling rate when connected to a PS5.
That’s through no fault of Razer’s, but it’s emblematic of the only real issues with this controller as a DualSense alternative. Thanks to Sony’s ecosystem for third-party devices, the Raiju V3 Pro features no internal speaker, adaptive trigger or haptic feedback support, which is unavoidable but still disappointing. I find myself continuing to go back to my regular DualSense when it comes to immersive, single-player experiences, which is fine for those types of games, but even when playing multiplayer shooters the lack of any kind of vibration definitely removes an important avenue for feedback in the moment.
All that said, the lack of immersive features and the efficiency of the TMR thumbsticks makes this a comfortably light (but not too light) controller with a very healthy battery life, rated at up to a huge 36 hours. That’s obviously a massive improvement on the DualSense, and especially the power-hungry DualSense Edge, and I’ve certainly appreciated not constantly reaching for a charger every few sessions.
For all the benefits the Raiju V3 Pro offers as a PS5 controller, it’s actually ended up becoming my go-to on PC. Here, it benefits from a polling rate up to 2000Hz, but most of all it’s made it easy for me to transition from my lounge to my desk and not have to rethink controller layouts and button placements on the fly.
Plugging it into a PC (or using the HyperSpeed dongle), you’re also able to play around with things like M-button remapping, stick and trigger calibration and some handy d-pad tweaks – hooray for being able to switch between 4-way and 8-way input – to suit your playstyle even further, all of which are saved to the controller in order to carry across to PS5 use as well. There’s no hint of Chroma RGB features here, but I wouldn’t call that much of a loss.
Final Thoughts
So, after all that, the question remains – has the Razer Raiju V3 Pro improved my game at all? And the answer is…inconclusive.
I’m not simply not playing at a level where a skill ceiling was being reached that my trusty DualSense controller wasn’t able to break through. But, I can absolutely attest to Razer’s crack at a pro-level PS5 controller being my preferred way to play twitchy, online multiplayer titles by pure virtue of the level of comfort, customisation and tactility it offers.
Would I go out and spend 350 dollarydoos for those benefits alone, were I not in the privileged position of testing one out for this review? Probably not. But if you’re someone in the market for specifically this type of gear, either because Sony’s standard pad is letting you down or you just want a PlayStation-flavoured weapon for your PC, this should absolutely be on your shortlist.
Review unit supplied by the manufacturer
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