If you’re someone who loves to use their phone for entertainment, there’s a good chance that you have some words to say about your favourite games. Whether or not your phone is your main method of playing, you probably know that as good as the touchscreen is, nothing really beats physical controls on the side.
There’s a reason the Steam Deck has controls on the side, and there’s a reason why Nintendo’s Switch keeps them as part of the package as well: it’s difficult to beat the actual interaction and speed a physical controller offers, even if they come with the caveat of needing to actually bring that hardware.
We’ve seen a few of these over the years, with recent arrivals such as GameSir’s Pocket Taco making the tech much smaller, but Razer’s latest attempt could be one of the smallest yet.
Called the Prio, it is a decidedly tiny take on the portable gaming controller, arriving in a small slab sized similarly to a credit or debit card, but coming apart and allowing you to place a larger phone inside its grip. The design is such that you’ll pry it apart and place a phone up to 7 inches between, making it suitable for either the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra or Apple’s iPhone 17 Pro Max (or presumably the iPhone 18 equivalent when it launches shortly, too).
Like Backbone’s take on the idea, it’ll use the USB-C port we all rely on to power the controller, meaning there’s no wireless driver and no battery; you plug it in and it works. We’re told it will even work inside of a case, something not every game controller deals with well.
Razer will also offer the Cortex Mobile app to let you open a library, making it similar to what Backbone offers, albeit in a much smaller design.
The price of the Prio won’t necessarily be cheap, with Australians set to find the Razer Prio for $169.95 when it launches shortly.
