Backbone One in the test: The second generation addresses major criticisms and there is a clever innovation in the update

God of War Ragnarök can be played via Remote Play on your cell phone with the Backbone One.

Update from November 29, 2024:The Backbone One is significantly reduced during Black Friday, which is why we looked at what has happened in the past few months. There is a clever innovation that allows you to play games using a clip-on pad that don't actually support a controller, such as Genshin Impact or PUBG Mobile.

With theSony has launched an official streaming handheld for the PS5. This is a fusion of an 8-inch display and the DualSense controller. Your console only serves as a base station.

Not a really new idea, after all Remote Play has been around since the PS3 in combination with the PSP at the time. From the PS5 and PS4 onwards, the operation also works on the smartphone and the Backbone One takes advantage of this.

This is how the clip-on controller works

In contrast to Sony's streaming handheld, the Backbone One is exclusively a controller that you connect to your cell phone via a USB-C or Lightning connector. The smartphone then serves as a display and can be operated with the plug-in gamepad.

Clipping it in was a bit difficult for me at first, as the left side had to be pulled out and it popped back in relatively quickly.

Fortunately, the pulling force of the mechanism has been defused in the current model, but with a little practice the process works quite quickly even with the first generation.

You also have to remove your cell phone case, otherwise the USB-C or Lightning port will not be seated correctly. At least with the first generation, the second comes with magnetic adapter clamps that are deeper and thus compensate for the thickness of cell phone cases.

You can find a selection of compatible cases for Android and Apple cell phones on theManufacturer's page, but a few other products are likely to be compatible, after all, the cases are very similar in shape and thickness.

Without a non-slip rubber case, I had a few problems with my very outdated Samsung A50 smartphone: Since the cell phone is rather small, it sagged a little in the grip. It never slipped out, but the slight tilt was a bit annoying.

This is where the Backbone One shines

In contrast to the PlayStation Portal, which only supports remote play, you can use any app with the Backbone One controller due to the Android or iOS platform.

Including the Remote Play alternativePSPlay, which is a bit more complex to set up and has a slightly higher latency, but runs much smoother.

You can find out more about it here:

You can also play with the Backbone One via Xbox Game Pass without any problems, just like any mobile game with controller support, for example. I haven't encountered any compatibility problems so far, actually only when controller support has not been implemented.

In the to Backbone Oneassociated appAll the services are also bundled, so the controller doesn't skimp on comfort and flexibility.

The Backbone app is clearly designed and combines all of your apps.

The Backbone One is missing some features

The feedback from the buttons on the plug-in controller is really good, but after prolonged use you notice the rather spongy pressure points on the control pad. This is probably where the second generation of Backbone One starts - Jan Stahnke from GameStar colleagues reports, for example,that the pressure points have now been chosen much more precisely and offer better feedback:

Despite the elongated structure, the Backbone One and smartphone also fit well in the hands, and the grips have a very comfortable shape.

The rickety R2 and L2 triggers, on the other hand, fall off a bit and offer hardly any resistance–also in the second generation.

Because of its mini-small sticks, the Backbone One wouldn't be my first choice for shooters. At a rapid paceor action-packedCamera rotations feel much too jerky.

In addition, the cell phone extension comes without haptic feedback or a rumble function and the PS5's adaptive triggers are also missing.

The full range of functions of the PS5 is only available with PlayStation Portal, but the Backbone One is definitely enough for a comfortable, mobile gaming session.

TouchSync makes titles playable without controller support

A few games in the Google Play Store do not offer controller support out of the box, including the popular Hoyoverse RPGsand. Backbone has delivered an update for such titles that contains the so-called TouchSync function.

This makes it possible to map the touch controls of the games precisely to the controller buttons and still play them using a plug-in gamepad.Here in the video you can see how exactly the feature works:

Link toYouTube content

However, I noticed that not all apps work with it.If you have downloaded a game not from the Google/iPhone store, but rather via itch.io, for example, it will not be recorded in the backbone launcher and cannot be used with TouchSync.

TouchSync is compatible with both first generation and second generation.

Editorial opinion