We compared the $200 Scuf Vantage PlayStation controller to the $25 EasySMX controller

The Scuf Vantage is a $200 PlayStation/PC controller with tons of customization. We compared it to the $25 EasySMX to find out which controller is better.
If you value customization, extra buttons, and the ability to change your controller for each game then the Scuf Vantage may be a good fit.
But if you’re just looking for a budget controller that works with PC, then you can save a ton of money by going with the EasySMX.
We tried both controllers to see how the Scuf Vantage compares to the EasySMX controller.
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Following is a transcript of the video.

Clancy Morgan: How much would you spend on a controller? Fifty, 60 bucks? What about $200? The Scuf Vantage controller is packed full of features like back paddles, side buttons, and tons of customization, but all of those features don’t come cheap. But what about something cheaper, more like $25? The EasySMX controller is just that. It’s a cheap build with no fancy features.

I tried both of these controllers to find out if the Scuf Vantage is really eight times better than the EasySMX. So right off the bat, it feels a lot better than I expected. It has a decent weight to it, which will only get a little bit heavier when there are actually batteries installed. It feels a little bit smaller than I’d like.

So this controller, it is wireless, but it doesn’t use Bluetooth. The dongle’s honestly bigger than I was expecting. It wouldn’t matter if it was plugged into a desktop PC, but on a laptop, they might look pretty silly.

So next up is the Scuf Vantage controller. It’s a super large box. I mean, compared to the EasySMX box, the difference is pretty substantial. So this controller has a ton of features. Some of those extras include these four bottom paddles you can see down here, as well as the side "Sax" buttons. This one feels way sturdier than the EasySMX. That one almost felt hollow. This feels like there’s some weight to it. You can’t really take this controller in its first iteration because you can change a lot of this out to exactly what you want it to be. It can work over either Bluetooth, or if you want the lowest latency possible with this controller, you do have the option to use a wired connection. I do like that it’s an internal battery. You don’t have to worry about always having AAs or switching out AAs. But there’s actually a lot more included in this box. So you have different thumbsticks, you also have longer triggers. You could easily swap these in.

We are gonna test both these controllers out to see how the $200 Scuf Vantage compares to the $25 EasySMX wireless controller. So after using these controllers for a while, I got a pretty good idea about how they compared. And honestly, the result surprised me. This controller is really good, but it’s not perfect. And I almost expect it to be at this price point. I really love the customization of this controller.

You have so many options, and it was a lot of fun trying out each of the different control sticks and just seeing what I could do for each game. In "Sekiro," for example, I tried to remap things like one of the bottom paddles to using an item so I could easily heal while still controlling the camera with my right thumb. But it still didn’t feel super necessary.

When I was playing the game normally with the EasySMX, for example, I didn’t feel like I was missing out on anything, and the innermost paddles are actually really difficult to press, and I didn’t end up using them at all. But with all of these added features, I’m still not sure if it’s worth $200. So now on to the cheaper controller, the EasySMX. It feels like it’s worth $25 but not much more. The EasySMX controller gets the job done with literally no bells or whistles at all. This controller does feel kind of cheap, like it would probably break if you dropped it.

I don’t think it would survive as long as the Scuf would, but you kinda get used to that. At least I did after half an hour to an hour of using it. Although I will say that for a little less money, if you don’t need wireless, you’re almost better off going with the wired option of this controller because you don’t have this giant battery pack. I can ignore it a little bit, but every so often if I adjust my grip, you can just kinda feel it between your fingers. But this is only part of the picture. There are a lot of game genres that I just don’t play, so I asked two of my coworkers to check these out.