Tablets have become popular for playing some games, but classic arcade games still feel awkward on touch screens. After decades of playing with physical pads and sticks, a completely flat surface that gives you no feedback or any idea of the center and edges of the play area can be tough to master. The ThinkGeek Joystick-It ($24.99, 3.5 stars) tried to help, but its suction cup slides around, and the joystick design, while attractive, isn’t comfortable under your thumb. Logitech has come up with its own approach to gaming controls for tablets. This $19.99 (direct) thumbpad adds a comfortable physical control to any tablet game with a virtual joystick that stays securely in place. It’s too big for a smartphone, but it works with most tablets, and for tablet gaming, Logitech's Joystick for iPad earns our Editors’ Choice.

Design

The joystick is a black thumbpad mounted on a clear plastic swirl. The two arms of the swirl are anchored to an outer circle, which is held in place by two suction cups that can stick to the bezel or screen of the tablet. The arms are flexible, and bend to let the thumbpad move around the circle, providing just enough resistance to move the pad back to the center. For what amounts to a fancy fan grille of thin plastic, the joystick is quite sturdy and can withstand most bumps and knocks.

Just place the thumbpad over the center of the game’s virtual joystick and press the suction cups down until it stays in place. After that, just rest your thumb on the pad and use it to move around the game. The suction cups are remarkably secure; they were even difficult to remove when I was adjusting the thumbpad during testing. This is a minor nuisance when you want to get the joystick placed just right, but it’s better than the suction cups coming loose while you're playing. It’s designed specifically for tablets, and smartphone owners will find it mostly unusable; the joystick took up more than half of my Droid X’s larger-than-average screen. The joystick will fit on any screen large enough to hold it, but it works best on tablets with a flat bezel and no break between the bezel and the screen, so the suction cups don't take up the display.

Performance

I played Final Fight on the iPad with the Logitech Joystick, and I was impressed by its performance. The thumbpad held in place and covered the full range of the virtual joystick, making controlling ninjutsu master, Guy, almost as easy as if I were using a physical gamepad. It stayed in place securely, and didn’t wiggle or come unstuck when fighting crowds of criminals. It turned the usual tablet gaming experience of a finicky, awkward virtual joystick and a thumb that doesn’t know where to go and turned it into a genuinely enjoyable gaming bout.

If you want to play arcade games on your tablet, the Logitech Joystick for Tablets is the best add-on you'll find. It performs the same role as the ThinkGeek Joystick-It, but stays in place much better, feels much more comfortable, and costs $5 less.

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