OnePlus Ace 6 Ultra Pairs a Strong Phone With a Snap-On Controller That Turns It Into a Portable Console

Smartphones have long promised a world of gaming on the go, but most of the time we’re still tapping away at our glass screens, with nothing to grip onto when things get hot. OnePlus took a close look at this and set out to solve the problem by designing the Ace 6 Ultra around a simple concept: give the phone an optional add-on with genuine buttons and a reasonable grip while keeping the screen open for touch controls. Surprisingly, it feels exactly like upgrading to a standard handheld console, and it works much better than you might expect.

When you slide the phone into the lightweight case, it simply clicks into place, wrapping around the back and stretching out to each side for a comfortable fit in your palm. Four buttons on the back perform their functions, two of which double as triggers and two of which are conventional input buttons, all of which can be customized in games as desired. You keep your thumbs on the screen for movement and camera control, just like many people do while playing claw-style, and the back buttons handle things like aiming, firing, and special powers without requiring you to relearn everything. The switches inside those buttons have a 1000hz polling rate and a response time of roughly 1.8 ms, so your inputs are nearly instantaneous, even in ultra fast shooters.

If you spend hours playing the most demanding titles, you’ll welcome the extra cooling option. A small fan clips in between the back buttons and discreetly draws heat away from the phone, maintaining frame rates rather than allowing the processor to go down after 20 or 30 minutes. The cover also helps by shifting the USB-C connector to the bottom of the phone, keeping it out of the way when playing, and a built-in antenna boosts signal strength for online matches. However, the configuration does not need you to abandon touch controls entirely, as it simply adds some great, dependable physical feedback to what you currently get from the screen.

Inside the Ace 6 Ultra, the hardware has been adjusted to match the controller’s emphasis on long-term performance. The phone’s 8600 mAh battery allows for long sessions without worrying about it running out of energy. When you need a recharge, fast charging gets it back up and running quickly. The 6.78-inch flat screen operates at 1.5K resolution and refreshes 165 times per second, so browsing through menus or playing games never seems choppy. The star of the show here is MediaTek’s Dimensity 9500 processor, which is supported by other components designed specifically for esports tasks such as low-latency touch response and graphics features such as ray tracing in games that support them. RAM and storage options include up to 16GB of RAM and 1TB of storage, giving you plenty of room to download your favorite games and background apps.

At launch, you’ll have two color options to pick from: a deep black finish that’s unobtrusively black and a sandy metallic option that catches the light without being too blinding. At the back, you’ll find a 50 megapixel main sensor, which is useful for taking quick photos between matches, though, let’s be honest, photography is probably way down the priority list when gaming is the main event here. OnePlus plans to unveil the handset + controller on April 28th in China, but there’s no word on when it’ll be available in other parts of the world, or how much it’ll cost.
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