CRKD’s Nitro Deck turned my OLED Switch into an OLED Switch Lite, in a way. The Nitro Deck’s lightweight frame added chunkier grips to both sides of the screen, a more logical USB-C charging passthrough and substantial triggers, it felt like a proper controller enveloping my favorite Nintendo games. And you could get it in Gamecube purple.
The company has since followed it up (after some experiments with the Neo S) with a plus version of the deck. The Nitro Deck+ is largely the same premise, a handheld deck for your Switch slate, no detachable Joy-Cons (and thus no drift) programmable buttons and — I hate to write this — a better hand feel.
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CRKD’s Nitro Deck+ is one of the best ways to play on your Switch. With better ergonomics, drift-free sticks and programmable buttons, it has a lot to offer over Nintendo’s own Joy-Cons.
- Hall Effect sticks that won’t drift
- Comfortable grip
- Quieter, improved vibration features
- Marginal improvements over the original Nitro Deck
- New stick placement won’t be for everyone
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The biggest visual change is a shift to symmetrical thumbsticks, which make the Nitro Deck + look more like a knock-off Steam Deck than a Switch peripheral. Both joysticks have Hall Effect sensors, which are contactless. This means you’re much less likely to experience any drift and the sticks should last substantially longer too. And coming from Joy-Cons, yeah, it’s a good thing.
The shift stick placement is going to be divisive – especially if you’ve been playing mostly on a Switch, with Joy-Cons. The stick is now above the A, B, X and Y buttons, making it look like a lot of the gaming PC slates out there. The company said this change was based on user feedback, but there is a learning curve, coming from either the base hardware or the original Nitro Deck. I’ll be honest: I still miss the traditional asymmetric layout.
There are four remappable back buttons, now joined by unusually placed “Sidekick “ buttons next to each analog stick. That’s six extra buttons to play with. I tested them out, mostly for weapon swap-outs, but the regular button layout worked completely fine for most of my Switch game catalog.
If you’re playing a competitive shooter that might need more button shortcuts – or any game that demands fast reflexes – you’re probably not using your Switch undocked. Honestly, barring Smash Bros., you’re probably playing on a different platform.
In their defense, however, you aren’t going to tap these buttons unintentionally. That’s something I’d often do with the mostly flush S custom buttons on the back of the original Nitro Deck.
You can also adjust the sensitivity of the trigger buttons, something that wasn’t on the Nitro Deck at launch but is now available through a firmware upgrade. This is all done on device, by holding down the ZL (for example) and plus buttons for three seconds. The LED will flash cyan and then you can increase the distance needed to push the trigger by pressing the plus button, or do the opposite with the minus button. The Nitro Deck+ will indicate your setting by vibrating up to three times. It’s nice to have this level of customization in a handheld console. It also helps that the triggers are solid. If anything, the Deck+’s triggers seem to offer a bit more travel compared to the first model.
Another improvement on its predecessor is that the replaceable thumbstick tops grip a lot better. The Nitro Deck’s tops tended to pop off as I’d slide the Switch into my bag. A few times, they’d fly across the train carriage I was sat in. On the Nitro Deck+, they’re a tighter fit.
My colleagues asked about changes to the rumble function, which I’d already switched off when I first started testing. CRKD says it improved the adjustable rumble with the Nitro Deck+ with upgraded motors and drivers, and while the improvement to how it feels is subtle, the difference in noise isn’t. The original deck was a loud, grumbling controller, while the Deck+ feels a lot closer to the Switch’s HD rumble experience.
The major benefits of the Nitro Deck are still here, of course. A chunkier body to grip, more substantial buttons and triggers, and a smarter USB-C pass-through for power, still at the top of the device, with an extra USB-C port to charge peripherals as you play.
I can’t say I regularly used many of those six (six!) new custom buttons, but dedicated Switch gamers may gain more utility from them than I did. Whether you should get the Nitro Deck+ or its predecessor hinges on what stick arrangement feels most comfortable. That’s the biggest difference and, for some, might be the biggest draw here.
