Asus ROG Tessen review: "I never felt it did anything truly remarkable"

Gaming is without a doubt my biggest hobby. Sadly in adult life my time spent gaming is rapidly decreasing thanks to work, travel, and other factors that drag me away from my PS5 and TV. So in the past few years, I’ve turned a lot of my attention to mobile gaming to make up those precious hours when I’m away from my usual setup. The latest little gadget to walk into my life and promise me gaming on the go is the Asus ROG Tessen, but has it done enough to convince me to leave behind my go-to controller?

Asus arrived a little late to the party in 2024 too, because we saw some heavy-hitting best mobile controller contenders last year from brands like GameSir, Razer, and most notably for me, Scuf. Earlier in the year I had the opportunity to review the Scuf Nomad and it quickly became my number one pick for a mobile controller. Leaving my Backbone One to efficiently gather dust.

Landing on the market and in the hands of gamers for $109/£109, The Asus ROG Tessen offers some nifty features that do make it stand out from the pack, but is it worth it compared to more affordable options?

Design

As I’ve said, I often rely on mobile controllers to do a good percentage of my gaming and so one of my biggest factors in choosing one is comfort for long playing sessions. I have unfortunately had one too many game-winning kills foiled by cramps in my hands.

Usually, that issue is prompted by a couple of factors; the size of the controller, its weight, and the placement of the thumbsticks. I can thankfully say that the Asus ROG Tessen addresses two of those problems for me. To kick things off the device is surprisingly lightweight and is made of textured plastic, making it comfortable to hold for long periods without it putting stress on your wrists.

Secondly, the device is small. I adore the Scuf Nomad for its larger size meaning it feels more substantial in hand and I really dislike the Backbone One for its smaller Nintendo Switch Joy-Con-like size, so more often than not I prefer a larger mobile controller. This leaves me shocked as to how much I like the Asus ROG Tessen’s size, particularly because it’s smaller than the Backbone. While the physical dimensions are technically smaller than the Backbone One, the actual shape of the grips gives a much nicer feel in-hand rather than it feeling flat and hard to grip.

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Finally, like most of the best PC controllers, the Asus ROG Tessen has opted for the classic offset thumbstick layout. This means on the left-hand side of it you’ll find the thumbstick at the top of the device with a d-pad towards the bottom, with the right-hand side of the device featuring the XYAB buttons at the top and the thumbstick at the bottom. Unfortunately, you won’t find hall-effect sticks here, something that most mobile pads now offer, which means that over time they are more likely to experience stick-drift.

What you will find instead is two programmable rear aluminium paddles which give you extra functionality while gaming, it’s very rare to see paddles on any controller not made by Xbox or PlayStation, as you’ll most often see plastic buttons. I felt this was a nice departure from the norm, and it was refreshing to see as someone who’s tested a few controllers in the last year.

Features

As previously mentioned, you’ll find the traditional Xbox-style layout of controls on the ROG Tessen which makes it very easy to use if you’re familiar with those commands. The buttons themselves have a very nice tactile feel to them and produce quite a satisfying click - I’m not sure my girlfriend would say the same thing when she was lying next to me in bed trying to sleep, however. This is even more present in the D-pad which I actually found to be annoyingly clicky but only when pressing right on it.

Rather than having the usual extendable clamp bridge mechanism, the ROG Tessen features a very unique hinge design allowing you to fold up the controller for easier storage. This also doubles as an easy way to connect your phone to the USB-C port rather than having to stretch it around your mobile. Connecting your phone could not be easier and you’re into the games you want to play within seconds. Despite it being USB-C it has been confirmed by Asus that it is not compatible with the recent generations of iPhone, so this is a purely Android-focused device.

Speaking of USB-C, you’ll find an additional port at the bottom right of the controller to allow passthrough charging so that you can game for even longer. And of course, like most pieces of gaming technology, you’ll find some very subtle RGB along the rim of the controller.

The rear paddles at the back are easily mapped thanks to a function button on the front. Simply press the button to re-map, press the button you want to assign, and then press the paddle. Easy.

Performance

I have to admit, the paddles were hands down my favorite aspect of the ROG Tessen. They are perfectly located at the back of the controller and I found my middle fingers always gravitating towards them. This is particularly helpful in first-person shooter games like Call of Duty as I was able to assign my reload command and my melee command to those paddles. Not once did I find them having any issues or not working as they should - on top of that, they are incredibly satisfying to click, it makes me want a full-sized controller for PS5 or Xbox with back paddles as opposed to buttons.

The process of remapping them was super simple and can be done as I mentioned above or via the Asus Armoury app. I never found the app particularly useful and opted for the button on the controller for 99% of my button remapping. This was primarily because it was much quicker. Jumping between games via GeForce Now or XCloud I was constantly needing different commands assigned and this was the easiest solution.

While the thumbsticks are nothing to write home about, I can say they do the job. It’s a marked improvement over something like the Backbone One but not nearly as good as the Scuf Nomad or the GameSir X4 Aileron. I put this mostly down to how small they feel compared to the latter two I mentioned, but I just found them uncomfortable for long playing sessions. Via GeForce Now I managed to survive until round 25 on Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Zombies but most of the issues I ran into were sparked by the thumbsticks, both because of their placement making it uncomfortable to play longer than 20 minutes or because of how small they are. This is an issue that pops up for me frequently with mobile controllers that choose the offset design, and as someone with larger hands, I’d prefer if more controllers moved away from it.

Thanks to the USB-C connection I never found there to be any latency issues at all, something I have occasionally seen in Bluetooth devices. So any deaths in-game are purely down to your actual skill rather than the controller letting you down.

I spent roughly 15 hours playing the ROG Tessen both at home and out and about using a variety of native games such as Call of Duty and cloud-based games via GeForce Now and XCloud and it works okay most of the time. I did have a significant issue with Call of Duty where the controller was not recognized by the game initially without going into the Armoury App.

Overall, I never felt it did anything truly remarkable to justify the higher price tag than the Scuf Nomad, or even the GameSir G8 Galileo. While the back paddles are genuinely fantastic, I feel they really are the only standout feature to be had here.

Should you buy the Asus ROG Tessen?

If you’re like me and use mobile controllers a lot then I actually find it very difficult to recommend the ROG Tessen when compared to similarly priced controllers on the market. Everything that the ROG Tessen does well you’ll find another controller doing just that bit better. Aside from the back paddles, which are genuinely great, I don’t feel there‘s anything else that makes it a must-buy for me.

However, if you’re looking to start your journey into mobile gaming then I would recommend the ROG Tessen over the Backbone One if you can find it cheaper than RRP, but I would also encourage you to look at alternative options such as the GameSir Galileo G8, or for maximum size, the Razer Kishi Ultra.

How we tested the Asus ROG Tessen

I used the Asus ROG Tessen over a period of a week with a Samsung Galaxy S20 and used it as one of my main sources of gaming. Throughout my time with it I played a variety of games including Call of Duty Mobile and Black Ops 6 (via GeForce Now), Watch_Dogs 2 (via GeForce Now), and Star Wars Outlaws (via GeForce Now). I used the controller for approximately 15-17 hours across multiple gaming sessions that varied in length with the longest being around 3 hours.

For more on how we test controllers, check out the GamesRadar+ Hardware Policy.