- 3RD-STRIKE.COM - A La Une - 25/Aug 01:08

Trust GXT 542SM Muta Wireless Gaming Controller – Hardware Review

It’s been a while since we featured any of Trust’s products on the site. We have always known Trust to be a budget-friendly gaming brand that offers great hardware for a fair price. In the past, we have featured keyboards, a headset, and even a backpack, all of them being rather nice products. Today, we are taking a closer look at their Muta Wireless Gaming Controller to see how well it performs. For our review, we were given the Superman version of the Muta controller, and we quite enjoyed what it had to offer. Design The Superman version of the Muta has a very cool design. The controller has a similar design to Sony’s DualSense controller in terms of shape and stick and general button layout, but the menu buttons are similar to Nintendo’s Pro Controller. The dark blue color looks classy, and the subtle, darker red Superman logo looks really neat. The plastic also looks to be of decent quality, but the different D-Pad options look a bit cheap and very plastic-y. The buttons look solid and have the Xbox symbols (A, B, X, Y). Other than that, the Muta doesn’t have too many bells and whistles. There is an LED indicator, and that’s about it. Even with the DC theme, the Muta is a very classy-looking controller with a premium vibe. Comfort As stated above, the Muta pretty much has the same button layout as a PlayStation 5 controller, and the shell itself is also very similar to Sony’s DualSense controller. There is some weight to the device, making it also feel a bit more solid. The face side of the grips has rubberized padding, which makes the Muta controller a lot more pleasant to hold. The buttons also have nice tactile feedback and have a quality feel to them. The interchangeable D-Pads felt a bit on the cheaper side, and we preferred the one that was already on the controller over the other two that are included in the box. The Muta has concave sticks with some grip applied to the edges. The sticks also have a fair amount of resistance to them, as do the triggers. The menu buttons and the Turbo button are spaced out a bit in the middle of the face of the controller, but are still easy to reach. All in all, the Muta is a fairly ergonomic controller. Overview For the most part, Trust’s Muta controller is fairly easy to set up for different platforms via different connection methods. Unlike PowerA’s OPS v1 Wireless Controller for Cloud Gaming, the Muta controller does not come with a switch or button to swap between the different connection methods. To boot the controller up in certain modes, you’ll have to press the home button in combination with one of the other buttons. This way, you can connect to the wireless dongle, set it to Bluetooth mode, or simply turn it on in wired mode. While a bit clumsy the first few times you try it, you’ll remember the button combinations eventually. When everything is set up and done, you’ll experience nothing but smooth sailing. While all standard functions are present, the controller also comes with a few more advanced features, such as regulating rumble intensity and turbo settings. The latter is a rather cool feature for games with repetitive actions (that also support this), as it allows you to perform simple actions a lot quicker. For example, if you’re a retro game fan, and a game requires to to press a button every single time to fire one bullet, you can negate this with the turbo button and have a rapid fire mode. With a battery life of around 10 hours on a single charge, you probably won’t have to charge the controller after every gaming session. The battery life, of course, also depends on what pairing mode you use, and probably how intense some games are, and how much the rumble feature consumes. As stated above, you can also customize the intensity of the rumble feature. Conclusion Trust’s GXT 542SM Muta Wireless Gaming Controller is a great multi-platform device that only suffers from a fairly clumsy setup process and plastic-y D-Pad options. Other than that, however, the controller performs great in all types of games, and the 10-hour battery life does ensure you don’t constantly have to charge the device. On top of additional functionalities, the Superman version of the Muta Wireless Gaming Controller also looks great!