[Shield Tablet General] seh6183:
Hardware Section

Dual Shock 4

What a mess. This is one of the best controllers money can buy. It's comfortable, it has a touch pad, the analog sticks are amazing, excellent d-pad, it has the highest quality build, it's rechargeable, and it just doesn't work with android.... If you try to connect the controller directly through the bluetooth section in settings, it will connect and then within 30 seconds be lagging like crazy. I then installed "sixaxis controller" (requires root) and connected that way. Controller worked almost perfect with this app and it let me totally customize the controller. However some things were still broken. For example in the game Half-Life 2 Episode One, the d-pad doesn't function correctly. No matter what I try to do to the mappings, it just won't work right. It works in some menus, but not most. Too bad because this is a really great controller. One last thing to note. I connected this to my S7 Edge running Nougat (hoping that the new native gamepad support would do something) and it connected right away. However the controller did absolutely nothing. I could see that it was connected and it showed up in the bluetooth menu, but no buttons would respond and games wouldn't detect it. Too bad.

Nvidia Shield Controller (1st gen)

I did not test this controller for a very specific reason; it does not use bluetooth. All of the big-name companies have moved over to bluetooth. Sony has always used it, Microsoft just added it, and even the next Nvidia Shield controller is bluetooth. The bluetooth option has lower bandwidth and less range than the wifi controllers, but is more power efficient. Who needs a controller that can stay connected at 200 feet when you can't even see the TV from that far? LOL There also seems to be zero difference in latency between the wifi and bluetooth variants, so I would pick a bluetooth controller for the energy savings.

Amazon Fire TV Controller (1st gen)

Well this thing sucks. I got this when I purchased my first Amazon Fire TV and use it occasionally. I hooked it up to the Shield for testing and I was not impressed. The d-pad likes to click multiple directions at a time (even when you are extra careful), I literally had it register an up and a down at the same time LOL. Not only this but the trigger buttons for some reason have compatibility problems with a lot of games, sometimes the controller randomly loses connection and you have to pull the batteries for 30 seconds to get it reconnected, the thing just sucks. It's something you use when you just want to play a quick game on your Amazon TV or hand it to a little kid to play some games for a bit, it's not to be taken seriously. Oh and the "dead zones" on the sticks are way to wide. You can move the stick about 25% in any direction before anything responds on screen. And sometimes for no reason at all there will be delay between button presses. Just stay away from this one, seriously.

Xbox One S Controller (bluetooth)

Well this controller comes in at a close second to the Dual Shock 4, but has one major advantage; it works. You power this thing on, hit the connect button, and connect it straight to the tablet in the settings menu under bluetooth. That's it. No special apps or mapping problems, or lag, or stutters. It works exactly like it would on an Xbox. You hold the home button and it auto connects to the tablet and when you are done you hold the home button and the light goes out and it powers down. All mapping is done for you and everything works perfectly (new info below). The analog sticks are great, the new d-pad is a ton better than the old 360 one, it's nice and clicky now. This is a great controller and it's on sale right now everywhere for $49.99 so you should pick one up. Also, if you plan on gaming a lot you may want to get the rechargeable battery unless you like buying a ton of AA batteries and swapping them out. These new controllers charge with a standard micro USB cable, so it's super convenient to get the charging pack.

**update**

Turns out this setup isn't exactly perfect either. It may be an Android 6.0 problem though because it doesn't act like this on my s7e running 7.0, who knows. Everything works as described above, but if you reboot the tablet, toggle bluetooth, or enter console mode (VERY annoying) the controller will need to be deleted and paired again. It wouldn't be such a big deal if console mode didn't trigger it because you can avoid rebooting and toggling bluetooth, but the console mode thing is a huge inconvenience. I really hope this gets fixed, either by android or microsoft updates because it really messes up an almost perfect controller experience. Also, to properly pair the controller you have to use the pairing button at the top. When you first power on the controller with the xbox button it will try to pair with the tablet, don't let it and instead hold the connect button on top of the controller to enter pairing mode (the light will flash fast) and then select the controller from the bluetooth list to pair. If you don't do it this way, the controller will never actually talk to the tablet.

Dual Shock 3

It's a Dual Shock 4 without a touchpad so it has the same issues.

Nvidia Shield Controller (2nd gen)<------------------ Buy this controller

I just purchased the new Shield TV and it came with this controller. What a great controller this one is, definitely rivals the Xbox and Sony controllers for quality and performance. However this has one major advantage over the other two, it works perfectly with the Shield Tablet, Shield TV, and any other bluetooth device that you want to connect it to (as long as it isn't a PC lol). This brings me to the one single problem with this controller, it doesn't work right with PC, yet. When you connect it to a PC via bluetooth, it connects just fine and actually does work, however the mappings are wrong so when you push up on the left analog stick it registers as a trigger pull or something. I have a ticket opened to get this controller fixed for PC so I'm sure it won't be long before they fix it or I fix it myself. I am trying to find the config file on my PC that generates when you install this controller, then I could fix the mappings myself. Unfortunately this makes Gamestream unusable as the input lag is just too much for me when connecting straight to the tablet. Once the mapping is fixed this controller will be flawless for any Shield device, Android device, or even as a full time PC controller. Even though this controller has the mapping problem, it does eliminate the bluetooth glitch that the Xbox controller has (where if you toggle bluetooth it has to be re-paired to the tablet), so that effectively makes it the number one choice for controllers at this time. It also has a capacitive volume slider built into the face of the controller and is rechargeable right out of the box as well. So far the battery life has been insane. I never even charged it when I took it out of the box Thursday and have been using it multiple times a day for at least an hour each time and it still has over 50% charge. It doesn't look like it has lost a percent honestly lol The controller also powers down automatically after you don't touch it for five minutes and then when you pick it up it auto powers up and reconnects for you.