QRD Stellar T5 Wireless Joy-Pad Review - A Customisable Joy-Con Alternative

For the Nintendo Switch’s many strengths, the Joy-Con certainly isn’t one of them, which is why so many third-party Joy-Con and similar controllers have popped up over the years. QRD’s Stellar T5 Wireless Joy-Pad is one such device and boasts a host of customisation features to set it apart from the crowd.

Out of the box, the Stellar T5 is more lightweight than it looks, as the almost-transparent covers show the inner workings of the pad. However, it’s instantly comfortable in your hands, and feels good to play with from the off.

The Hall Effect sensors in the joysticks claim to ensure the controller will be drift-free, and I can feel the smoothness in the design here, but only time will tell if this claim rings true.

The controller comes with two swappable options for the d-pad — one that’s flat, and one where the directional buttons are more prominent. You can switch between them easily, as you just need to pull it out and slot the other one in. However, I did find the flat d-pad had a looser fit in the controller and was prone to slipping out, so if you use that area regularly, you’ll want to make sure it’s slotted in tightly to avoid unnecessary frustration or deaths in tight platformers.

You can use the controller as is (once you’ve selected the d-pad and slotted it in), but there’s a lot of room to customise it to your liking, too. Cosmetically, you can change the colour of the LED lights in the joysticks. This is an easy and intuitive process — simply hold down the T button on the Joy-Con, and press R3 or L3 depending on the Joy-Con you want to customise.

You’ll cycle through seven colours, and a final rainbow option. Most beneficially, the LED lights on each Joy-Con don’t have to be the same colour — you customise them separately. The bright LEDs are a pleasing contrast against the dark greys of the controller, bringing a much-needed pop of colour to the otherwise all-monochrome pad.

Alongside the LED lights, you can also adjust the level of vibration. Again, this was simple to experiment with and set up — you just need to press one button and cycle through the options until you find which one you prefer. The default is 30 percent, but you can increase this to 50, 75, or 100, or turn it off completely.

Once I’d played around with the controller itself a bit, I was eager to try the Joy-Con attached to the Switch itself, as I primarily play it in handheld mode. Sliding the individual Joy-Con off the attachment was easy enough, but you need to be forceful to get them to slide onto the Switch and attach them properly. When they clicked in, though, they felt secure, and again, lightweight.

I hopped into The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom to try out the controls, and found them just as natural as any Joy-Con or Pro Controller. Though the individual controllers are slightly bigger than Nintendo’s, they’re still comfortable to use in handheld mode.

As QRD notes the controller has six-axis motion-sensing gyro, I was keen to test this out with some bow and arrow action. The gyro controls were immediately smooth and responsive, so I easily took out some Bokoblins using this. This feature is about on par with official Joy-Con, if not slightly more responsive.

The controller may be a little too bulky to use directly connected to the Switch while travelling, but I can definitely see myself using these at home for a better handheld controller experience. For its affordable price, the Stellar T5 Wireless Joy-Pad offers a lot of customisation options and a comfortable design, and it’s a great alternative option to Joy-Con and Pro Controllers.