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Consoles and handhelds · Sony DualSense

Sony DualSense PS5 controller

11owners with an opinion
38%of verdicts positive
3/5positive/negative since 2024
0happy after 3+ years

Praised for reliability and performance; criticized for durability and battery.

What owners wrote

Likes it
It does not. Source: have a dock. Latest firmware installed from deck. And because the current Steam controller is a recent release, I had to try a whole mess of third party controllers before settling on PS5 controllers because everything else I tried had Bluetooth pairing issues / disconnects as you approached four controllers. SteamDeck as a handheld is great plus or minus a few nits baked onto the power / battery life choices Valve made. SteamDeck -> TV and SteamDeck -> USB-C KVM are both workable, with caveats. I had hoped we would see the bug fixes you describe before the Steam Machine release. Alas, no.
Neutral
If you want a steam controller included. You can use also PS4/PS5 or Xbox controllers easily on linux (and thus steamOS) nowadays. I use a Ps5 controller on my setup, even though I never had a ps4 or ps5.
Likes it
I switched to Linux for everything but AAA FPS PVP games last year and have had a great experience so far. Steam+Proton makes everything I play just work: Helldivers 2, Slay the Spire 2, No Rest For The Wicked, FF7 Remake, Stardew, modded Lethal Company (using r2modman) are the main things I've been playing recently, and all worked out of the box with Proton. My PS5 controller may have needed me to install one package or something but has been working flawlessly after that. I keep a Windows drive around for stuff like Apex Legends, Battlefield 6, but I pretty much never boot into Windows anymore except for those. (I probably sound like a shill at this point, having commented something like this on multiple Linux threads now, but I continue to be impressed at how well Linux performs for gaming these days!)
Neutral
Steam on Linux works really well now. I sort of built my own steam machine a few months back with a framework desktop that now sits in my TV rack. Gaming on it is a really good experience. Had to buy a PS5 controller though because I could not get the XBOX controller to work over bluetooth which was a bit of a bummer. For me the new controller is most interesting as most games have XBOX controller support (with xbox button captions) and the steam controller adopts the button naming.
Likes it
On the other hand, PS5 controller - unlike an Xbox controller - gets you gyro control, which makes for a very nice mouse experience. I play tons of mouse-only games (e.g. Mechabellum) from the couch thanks to the DualSense.
Doesn’t like it
I have a 1st gen Steam Deck (256gb), and it has supported wake from bluetooth peripherals for a while. I've only tested it with a PS5 controller, but it works. [EDIT: btw I use the official dock. Idk if it'll work with others] I use my SteamDeck as a streaming device too, and since my TV is connected via HDMI, waking the console also wakes the TV. So I can start playing/watching anything by just turning on my PS5 controller (which is not ideal because the PS5 controller has terrible battery life and is often dead when I need it, but that's a different issue)
Doesn’t like it
My PS3 controllers are still working perfectly almost 20 years later. Yet I’ve had to replace my PS5 controllers three times so far, due to the joysticks not reading their position correctly. Each one lasted about a year and a half.
Doesn’t like it
> But I wonder if they have run afoul of the EU Radio Equipment Directive in this case, by refusing to receive power from some devices. Sorry for being out of the loop, but is this recent? I have been annoyed on my ps5 dualsense controller since purchase, as it wont take charge from several of my USB-C cables. Most notably it refuses to take charge from my macbook USB-C charging cable. One of those small annoyances, I need a "special" usb-c cable around just to charge my usb-c controller...
Doesn’t like it
Damn you're worked up. Some of my gripes with Windows come down to peripherals, where I'll spend a lot of time troubleshooting why my bluetooth device or speakers or mic don't work. There also seems to be no way to bypass using a password or PIN on startup without changing the registry. I'd like my computer to just stay on at all times so I can remotely connect to it, but what do you know, a forced update caused it to restart, and because it requires a passeord to get to the desktop I have no way of getting Parsec to connect. Yeah I tried to disable automatic updates but nothing seems to stick. Why is the mic on my PS5 controller connecting and disconnecting ten times a second. Ok let me just try to unpair the controller, oh it just... won't unpair.
Doesn’t like it
I struggled with keeping my thumbs on the pads properly, probably needed sensitivity adjustment too but I just couldn't get myself to _want_ to try harder with it. Sticks work really well for me in terms of controllers, I just wish we weren't being shafted by stick drift all the time when manufacturers could be using hall-effect sticks; I've got 2 PS5 controllers and 3 PAIRS of Joy-Cons with drift, while I also have my original 2 x PS1 controllers from my childhood, neither of which has drift.