Mad Catz, the folks behind the crazy convertible R.A.T. gaming mice, have unveiled a product which aims to make mobile gaming suck a whole lot less.
The L.Y.N.X. 9, which was unveiled at this year’s CES in Las Vegas, is what you’d get if a regular gaming controller and a Transformer had kids. It’s a folding Bluetooth control pad which converts to hold all manner of smartphones and comes bundled with a stand for your tablet too, so you can prop it up on the table and get some serious gaming done.
Its usefulness doesn’t end there though. The controller sports a full bolt-on QWERTY keyboard, for smack talking and replying to emails, and also splits into two halves, so you can click it on to either side of your tablet and hold it like a handheld gaming console of old.
At $299 the thing isn’t cheap, and you might wonder why a person would spend that sort of money on a controller rather than just grabbing a PS Vita or Nintendo DS. But Android gaming is flourishing of late and the L.Y.N.X. 9 also plays nice with smart TV’s, media streamers like Amazon’s Fire TV and will even serve as a super smart remote for your own home PC, where its media playback buttons and micro trackpad will really come into their own.
To top things off the L.Y.N.X. 9 will give you 20 hours of gaming off a single charge, owing to its integrated Li-ion cell which charges via USB, so you won’t have to worry about propping up shares in Duracell while you try and knock off the next mission on GTA: Vice City.
We’re not quite sure if the L.Y.N.X. 9 is quite as portable as Mad Catz claim – we certainly don’t own a shirt with pockets big enough for it – but its versatile form certainly seems to be a step in the right direction in terms of true mobile gaming.
If you’re serious about your Android gaming, you can pre-order one of these bad boys now.
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