I love a weird little gaming accessory, particularly when it solves a problem I didn't realise was annoying until someone actually fixes it, and 8BitDo's new FlipPad is one of those neat new gadgets. It's a tiny USB-C gamepad that turns your phone into a portrait-style handheld, complete with a proper D-pad and ABXY buttons, and then, neatly, you can just flip the whole thing out of the way when you need your phone back. If you don't want to buy one of the best retro games consoles and play on your phone, this is a smart little phone accessory.
This new little gadget aims to solve one of phone gaming's biggest frustrations: when someone calls mid-game, and you have a controller attached, you have to wrestle with it to get to your messages and calls. As the name suggests, the FlipPad's answer is basically to, well… just flip it down. Okay, so there’s a small part of me that loves how we’re heading back to the ‘90s with accessories like this, and I remember clicking on lights and magnifiers to my Game Boy in much the same way. And that’s part of the appeal, for me anyway.
