I like Redragon. I've owned a number of Redragon peripherals. They're embracing a segment of the market that don't want to pay exorbitant amounts of money for gaming stuff, especially when there's an alternative that essentially does the exact same thing. They're usually the one who provide the most affordable alternative at a very good quality. I had the Redragon Kala K557 and while it wasn't the most amazing keyboard, it was perfectly serviceable for a mechanical keyboard at its price.
So when I got my hands on the Redragon Harrow G808, I was expecting it to be at a quality level at par or better than the same devices at similar price points. Did it meet these expectations? Well, no.
Specs
The box comes with the controller, a manual, a short micro-USB cable, a bluetooth dongle, and a mini-CD with the driver. Yes, it has a mini-CD. Who the hell even has a disc drive anymore?!
The dongle is tiny - sort of like those small bluetooth receivers for laptops that don't come built in with one. That's a pro and a con at the same time. Its small size makes it sit almost flush against any port, which is great because it doesn't awkwardly stick out of the side of a laptop. It makes leaving it in a laptop an option. However, I'd really like it if the controller itself had a compartment that can house the tiny dongle for easy transport, sort of like the way Logitech does with its mice.
And yes, while I'm aware that the Redragon Harrow G808 has been in the market for a while now, but I'm still disappointed that it's got a micro-USB.
The Redragon Harrow G808 works on PC and PS3, supporting Xinput.
Build Quality
I understand that with cheaper peripherals, you'd have to take some shortcuts to maintain profitability. Unfortunately, I think the Harrow G808 took way too many. The back plate plastic quality is a far cry from similarly priced controllers. It feels like a cheap toy. The front plate is much better, with a matte, anti-slip texture to it, but it still feels flimsy all around.
The materials of all the buttons and sticks and triggers all feel like they cost less than what you pay for. I guess that's not too bad, but a bunch of other controllers at the same price point feel like they're made of better materials. Good thing that front plate really saves the over all feel of the controller.
Comfort
It feels fairly similar as the Dualshock 3 in the hands. It's quite small, like it was build for Asian hands. Even with my relatively small and stubby fingers, I find fitting three fingers wrapped around the handles to be quite a tight fit. The middle finger's position is the worst, resting right where the handles meet the back, which makes figuring out a good resting spot for that finger quite awkward. Good thing there's enough of a gap right by the triggers that nicely cup your middle finger knuckles.
Fortunately, the angles on the face plate are ergonomic enough to make cupping your palms comfy.
Nothing hurts or anything. It isn't terrible to hold, but it's a far cry from the most comfy experience I've had with a controller.
Face Button Quality
The face buttons are labelled 1-2-3-4, like old generic PC controllers from yesteryear, instead of having the more standard X-Y-A-B. It gets read as X-Y-A-B on Steam, though, because it's detected as an Xbox 360 controller.
Each button has a pretty lengthy travel distance, and on top of that, they're quite springy. The combination of those two things makes pressing the buttons feel unpleasant, like a child's toy. I half expect it to make some kind of goofy sound when I press anything. The springyness and travel distance and the weird squishiness of the face buttons make pressing button combinations really inaccurate. While I find it hard to pull off King's Rolling Death Cradle using a Dualshock 4, it isn't impossible. With the Redragon Harrow G808, I literally cannot do it. No matter how many times I try. I just cannot.
Okay, maybe it isn't that impossible. But good luck pulling that off during an actual game.
Shoulder Button Quality
First of all, the shoulder button plastic quality is terrible. And even though they work fairly well, the bumpers are really annoying to press. Not only do they feel way too clicky, they also sound horrible. It's like power button on an old CRT monitor or one of the buttons of a VHS player - they all feel very dated. And if you need to press it rapidly, you're out of luck because the shoulders don't go back to neutral as fast as I'd like.
As for the triggers, they have a resistance that I don't quite like. Plus because of the material they're made of, the sound of cheap plastic rubbing on cheap plastic is present every time you pull the triggers. This went away over time, but it didn't make for a good first impression.
Deadzone Accuracy
I hated aiming with this controller. The deadzones seem small, and once you leave them, the acceleration is terribly fast. So you go from no motion to zipping from left to right. I couldn't aim straight even on a game that doesn't require much aiming at all - Anthem. Even moving the Sekiro camera around required a ton of muscle control and even then, the results weren't the greatest.
D-pad Accuracy
One of the best things about this controller is the accuracy of the d-pad. Pulling off ff+1s on King is a breeze, even the big boy combo with the super tight timing wasn't too hard to do - the controller wasn't the limiting factor, at least. The Harrow G808 achieves this by placing each directional button pretty far apart from each other. So pulling off f,d,df moves or crouch dashes, you have to really mean it, really put the motion in - no shortcuts. It gets easier over time but it'll throw you off initially if you're used to a Dualshock 4.
Other Notables
Battery life is a strong suit of the Harrow G808. I played for hours and hours on end and it still retained a charge. It'll likely last you maybe 8 hours of continuous gameplay, at least. It did for me. It charges fairly quickly, as well.
But one thing I abso-freakin'-lutely hate about this controller is the shape of the select and start buttons. They're so aggressively angled that you can't possibly glide your hand to them to press them. It becomes quite a chore to just open up a menu or something, and while that might not seem like such a big deal, it gets annoying if you have to do it every so often to manage skills and your inventory.
Overall Verdict
3.3Overall3Build Quality3Function4Value
Pass on this controller. You're better off buying a Gamesir T4 or one of those unbranded OEM Switch controllers - both of which are superior in terms of build quality, button quality, deadzone accuracy, and overall comfort. This is a disappointing one from Redragon, who usually makes pretty good gear. But if you want to buy one, you can find them on Lazada.