Many companies have tried to capitalise on the problem of drifting Joy-Con sticks, and the usual tactic is to rely on Hall Effect technology, which uses magnets to get around the issue of wearing components. CRKD is the latest to tout a drift-free experience using this technology by way of the Nitro Deck, a hunk of plastic you slide your Switch console into, rather than controllers you slap on its sides.

It features all the face buttons, shoulder buttons, sticks, and whatnot that you’d need, plus a few extra ‘paddle’ buttons on the back that can be mapped to any other button on the controller should you wish. A super great feature for sure, but not really our thing. However, when we tried to follow the instructions provided with the device to clear the programming entirely, it just refused to work. A quick look on the company’s support page helped provide correct guidelines, but if you’re providing printed instructions at all, they should at least be accurate.

CRKD Nitro Deck 1
Image: Alex Olney / Nintendo Life

The controller feels quite comfortable in your hands, and the build quality is fairly good. It feels curiously light without the console in there, but there’s clearly a balancing act between build quality and weight that CRKD has attempted to tackle, and once the console’s in place it feels as it should. You don’t want to be lugging a great chunky monkey around now, do you? Speaking of which, the way it locks the console in is simple and quite ingenious. Two sprung plastic tabs lock into the rails of the sides of the console once it’s fully inserted, and prevent it from being removed unless a latch is depressed on the back of the unit. This gives it a cosy, snug fit whilst also being easy to slip in – and largely painless to slip out – whether you’ve got an OLED or an original form factor console. Top marks.

What doesn't get ‘top marks’ is the kickstand. It’s better than the OG Switch's by some margin, but frankly, that bar is already pretty flipping low. It’s unusually short in order to make space for the latch we mentioned above, meaning the result is a kickstand that works, but has few usable positions. This kickstand’s hinge also blocks a final screw on the back, making non-destructive disassembly seemingly unlikely, which is a shame, and limits the user’s options should something go wrong later down the line.

Despite all that, the Nitro Deck is actually quite nice to use; the buttons are nice and responsive, the grip is solid for larger hands, and the full-sized sticks are a welcome relief compared to those found on the Joy-Con. Well, the left stick is welcome at least.

CRKD Nitro Deck 4
Image: Alex Olney / Nintendo Life

Unfortunately, the right stick is in an utterly baffling position considering the available space on the Nitro Deck. When we rested our hands in a neutral position with our right thumb on the face buttons, we found ourselves almost touching the right stick. Thankfully we had just enough clearance to prevent any accidental inputs, but it’s honestly weirdly close. Things get a lot worse when you need to use that stick though, and if we’re honest it’s an awful experience ergonomically. For any game that required constant use of the right stick such as a shooter, we found ourselves bending our wrist around at a tremendously squiffy angle in order to get the best grip because of how far to the right (and low down) the stick is.

There’s enough real estate that it could easily be at the very least a few millimetres to the left for greater comfort (admittedly at the cost of symmetry), but instead, it’s almost comically uncomfortable to use, even for short periods. It’s a crying shame, because for games that don’t require the right stick, it’s really a very enjoyable method of control, but this is sadly a real deal-breaker. We even gave this to gaming friends and family to make sure it wasn’t just our mitts being an issue, but they all agreed that it was awkward at best. If we say that we’d rather use a pair of standard Joy-Con to play DOOM Eternal, that should hopefully make our point disappointingly clear.

CRKD Nitro Deck 2
Image: Alex Olney / Nintendo Life

Whilst we’re on the subject of sticks, we didn’t doubt the claims of this manufacturer at all, but with so many companies touting Hall Effect technologies, we decided to devise a test to see if any controller was indeed relying on this more expensive technology, rather than just fibbing for a quick buck. By placing chuffing powerful neodymium magnets near the sticks when powered on, we could indeed interfere with the signal on Hall Effect sticks and wiggle things about a bit, but not typical potentiometer-based sticks found in the likes of the official Pro Controller. With that in mind, the Nitro Deck passed without issue, badly positioned right stick and all. Phew!

If you’ve seen any close-ups of the back of this unit, you might be forgiven for thinking, ‘What the flip are those bits on the back for?’, presumably referring to the ‘input’ and ‘output’ USB-C ports (we hope). The ‘input’ is for charging the console whilst it’s in the Nitro Deck. An obvious and simple solution, but one that works effortlessly. The ‘output’ port is another matter. This is designed so that you can use the Nitro Deck as a wired controller when the console is docked. No, we’re not joking.

CRKD Nitro Deck 3
Image: Alex Olney / Nintendo Life

We have no issue with this being a feature, but it strikes us as decidedly weird to include a port for a use case that we just can’t see more than a handful of players using. We tried both ports in case there was some sort of passthrough so that the console could be docked whilst in the grip, but nothing we tried came close to working. We could speculate that this port originally had more uses, but as it stands right now, it really is so that you can use it wired in docked mode. How bizarre.

We also encountered something we couldn’t reasonably explain. Whilst the console was off but still in the Nitro Deck, the indicator light came on all of a sudden and then disappeared after some seconds. This happened at least twice, and whilst we doubt it’s anything of concern, it’s still clearly unintentional and something we felt was worth mentioning.

The Nitro Deck is a great product in principle, but sadly one major design flaw leaves us unable to recommend it without an asterisk of titanic proportions. If all you plan on playing are games that leave the right stick alone for all but a few simple functions, you could well be advised to give this a look. However, if you plan on playing anything that requires significant right stick usage, its poor positioning means you might be best to give this a miss.

But hey, at least it won’t drift.