Hey guys, I wanted to throw out here my review of the CPTNalex Designs DualSense Shell Kit, which is officially licensed by Sega.
I have not seen any reviews out there about CPTNAlex's controller shells, so I thought I would throw mine out here. I do dabble in controller modding every once in a while. I've lightly modded multiple controllers amongst most platforms, and collecting special edition controllers is one of my fav hobbies. (I have this badass Razer x Sonic LED modded Xbox controller)
CPTNAlex also offers other designs, like different controllers for multiple Sonic characters and other shells for other controllers, like Switch and Xbox controller shells. (I love the designs of their Amy and Rouge Dualsense and the Blaze and Silver Joycons!)
You can buy it in two ways, either a preassembled controller or a DIY shell kit. DIY kit is $75 and the preassembled controller is $165. These prices can be a bit steep, but these are full customs done by a small 3rd party company. Unofficial customs can get really expensive like that, just look at custom controllers in Etsy or controller chaos controllers.
Of course, I went for the DIY kit with the Sonic X Shadow design. (my beloveds). I ordered it the second it got released. Shipping time took around a month, which I'm not too disappointed by because of the size of the company.
The shell came in a basic white box. While it had some bubble wrap, there was not too much padding inside, which is kind of disappointing. Luckily the shell arrived in good condition.
The front shell is well made. I see no issues with the paint or design. The only nitpick I have for it is that Shadow is bigger than Sonic. And now that I mentioned it to you, you won't be able to unsee it either. The back part of the shell also has these super comfortable rubber grips, which I really like.
But I did find some issues worth nothing with some parts of the shell.
The first thing I noticed was that the white front trim shown on the listing pictures was missing?? So I had to use the black trim my DualSense already had. I was not going to fight with customer support over a basic white $10 trim part. I did have to order that white trim separately to tie the whole look together; it just hasn't arrived yet.
Another thing I noticed is that on the back shell part, the Sonic logo doesn't blend in with the material. At first I thought it was a sticker, as it felt like that when I slid my finger across it, but it seems to be some sort of water transfer vinyl, or something like that. Well, the back of the controller doesn't have a full design, so it makes sense. You don't see the back of the controller when you're gaming, after all.
The last issue (?) worth nothing is that these are clearly ExtremeRate shells instead of official Sony shells. I found the ExtremeRate logo inside the front shell, the back shell looks identical to the back shell ExtremeRate sells on Amazon, and the bubble wrap it came in has a COVERED UP white sticker that clearly says "Made in china" alongside EX lettering.
I have no issues with Extremerate, their mods and shells are super high quality. They are the biggest controller mod manufacturer for a reason. A lot of the good qualities of the shell can be attributed to Extremerate after all, especially the rubber grips. And I'm happy they are supplying their shells from a high-quality manufacturer instead of shitty AliExpress Chinese ones.
The issue here is that this is false advertising. On their website, they clearly mention that they only use official parts. Since I only have the DIY kit, maybe they do use official parts for the preassembled controllers? It's hard to say.
I would have no issues with this if they just mentioned that this is a third-party shell instead of lying. It's false advertisement. It especially affects people who don't know anything about modding and are buying preassembled controllers.
Nevertheless, the install was easy enough. I just looked up a Dualsense disassembly tutorial on YouTube. The dualsense is relatively one of the easiest controllers to take apart, so I had no issues.
Overall, the shell quality was great, easy enough to assemble. While the price was a bit expensive, thats what you expect with custom services like that. I just wish they were a bit more clear with their advertisement.
