Pros & Cons
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- Inexpensive.
- Built-in battery and storage for Switch games.
- Grips feel sturdy.
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- Phone grip doesn't currently work with Nintendo Switch Online app.
- Joy-Con mounting rails feel flimsy.
If you want to keep your Nintendo Switch Joy-Cons charged, you need to keep them attached to the system itself. If you have more than one set, you're basically out of luck keeping them powered up without an accessory like the $29.99 Joy-Con Charging Grip. Nyko offers its own version with the Clip Grip Power. The $24.99 peripheral is slightly less expensive than Nintendo's own, and features a built-in battery for keeping your Joy-Cons charged without having the grip constantly plugged in. It even has a mount for your smartphone, which you can also power with the battery. It's affordable and very useful, despite a few issues with build quality and the limitations of the Nintendo Switch Online phone app.
Design and Grip
With the phone clip removed, the Clip Grip Power ($19.90 at Amazon) looks almost identical to the Joy-Con Grip included with the Switch. It's a black shell with large, grippable sides and a central plastic slab on which the two Joy-Cons click. The central slab is about a quarter of an inch wider than the mounts on the Joy-Con Grip, and the hand grips are slightly thicker and more angular as well. It isn't uncomfortably bulky, and isn't particularly heavier than the Joy-Con Charging Grip, but it is notably larger.
The Clip Grip Power feels sturdy enough in the hand, but the rails on which the Joy-Cons connect are another story. The rails are plastic rather than the metal used with the Joy-Con Grip and Charging Grip. The softer material means the Joy-Cons don't clip quite as securely into place. They don't sit loosely on the rails and won't fly off with casual use, but I found the clicking lock sometimes buckling when I exerted firm forward pressure. This was particularly annoying with the left Joy-Con, which dislodged and slid forward half an inch sometimes when I pressed forward on the left analog stick with any amount of force. Since the Joy-Cons connect wirelessly to the Switch this won't completely kill your game, but it can be a nuisance.
Battery and Phone Holder
The center chunk of plastic holds the Clip Grip Power's 3,000mAh battery. The battery can charge your Joy-Cons through the mounted connection, as well as your smartphone or other mobile device thanks to a USB port on the back of the Grip. A micro USB port next to it lets you keep the battery topped off, and a button on the front panel shows the battery's status through four indicator LEDs. A door under the battery lights slides open to reveal slots for seven Switch game cards and two microSD memory cards.
A spring-loaded gripping arm clicks onto the top of the Clip Grip Pro for holding your smartphone. The jaws of the arm open from two to to four inches wide and feature grippy rubber pads to hold your smartphone in place. The arm pulls off of the grip if you don't want to use your phone, which is a very likely scenario.
The Clip Grip Power has a bit of a design hitch, at least if you want to use the Nintendo Switch Online app with it. The grip can hold most smartphones easily in landscape mode. However, the app only renders in portrait mode, so it will appear sideways when your phone is clipped to the grip. This isn't a problem if you follow our voice chat guide and use Discord instead, but it's a nuisance for using Nintendo's own app.
Playing With the Clip Grip Power
I used the Clip Grip Power to play Splatoon 2 with my Switch docked to a TV. It worked just as well as the Charging Grip in both making the Joy-Cons feel like a solid, conventional controller and keeping their batteries topped off. I actually found myself preferring the slightly larger Clip Grip Power, since it fit a bit better in my large hands, but that will obviously be a matter of personal taste and hand size for other users.
As mentioned before, the left Joy-Con occasionally became dislodged and slid forward when I pressed firmly on the left analog stick. It requires above-average pressure for this to happen, and I could adjust my thumb-driven vigor slightly to minimize it, but the mounts simply don't hold up as well compared with the rock-solid metal mounts of the Joy-Con Grip and Charging Grip.
The Nyko Clip Grip Power is a handy accessory for the Nintendo Switch. It's $5 less expensive than the Charging Grip and can keep your Joy-Cons and phone charged while you use it, and even provides storage for your physical Switch games. The portrait-only Nintendo Switch Online app currently renders the phone-holding arm useless (unless you use Discord or another voice chat system), and disappointingly weak mounting rails that don't lock the Joy-Cons in as securely as they should. Even with these flaws, however, the Clip Grip is still a very useful peripheral for Switch fans.
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