Xbox One Elite Wireless Controller

First thing first, the price of this pad is ludicrous, no question. I finally caved-in and reached for my wallet when I found out I could separate evasion rolls and cover buttons on Gears of War 4 on to the new back paddles. By adding the weapon selection to the bottom two paddles I can now play my favourite online shooter without my thumbs leaving the thumbsticks. I can now wallbounce better, without making those accidental rolls that are predictable and often fatal. An Elite pad will not turn you into a pro-gamer, but it can help claw back some silly deaths if you have a specific need to customise control schemes like I did.Although it's disappointing that the top portion of the pad is not metal as it appears, many other components are. The paddles, thumbstick chafts and crosspad variants are sturdy metal that can be swiftly swapped over via a satisfying magnetic click. The thumbsticks can be used with virtually zero deadzone tolerance never wander. The trigger stops are also a superb addition that allow perceptably quicker snap-fire when engaged. The stiff carry case and retail packaging are all excellent, exactly what you'd expect from a premium product.The Xbox app provided to customise your layouts is far deeper than I had imagined too. Not only does it allow complete button/stick/crosspad function reassignments and multiple saved configurations, but it also goes beyond my expectations and offers options to alter stuff like thumbstick input inertias.In all, it's a spectacular peripheral that can provide a slight edge. The downsides are the price and the fact that you won't want to use any of your standard Xbox pads anymore!

There are lots of reviews here talking about the high quality of this controller, and they are pretty much all correct, but not many have mentioned if this pad made much of a difference to their actual gaming experience afterwards.I'm a PC guy at heart - I'm not afraid to spend a lot of money to get the best out of my games, so something like this pad isn't far off what I spent on my mechanical keyboard and gaming mouse on PC.I usually play MMO's and RPG's, and the odd single player FPS. In most online shooters I'm the free kill wandering the map constantly dying and spawning whilst I try and get used to the maps, the sightlines, the camping spots, the sniper nests. You will see me mostly trying to get to an area, fail the jump and casually get shot by some other guy sprinting to their next kill.I got an Xbox1 this summer to try the Master Chief collection and Destiny mostly, and it turns out one of my workmates plays Destiny too, so he's been helping me gear up for raids. As such I've been farming the daily Crucible quests in Destiny for the last 6 weeks for the currency reward, I'll put up with some competitive PVP if it augments my solo gaming or getting my light levels higher for the raids but only with the same enthusiasm I show when I have to do the gardening or the washing up - its a necessary evil to be endured.My KD is usually 0.4 and I'll be in the bottom 2 spots on the leaderboard with maybe 3-4 hard won kills at the end of the match, and sheepishly claim my reward whilst feeling kinda sorry for letting the team down with my general lack of skill/experience, and instantly quit out to carry on with something else far more enjoyable. I do still get a thrill when I claim my kills though, whilst feeling some sympathy for the other guy at being taken out by someone at the bottom of the scoreboard.Anyway, I got this pad 2 days ago, just like everyone else here, I'm very impressed with the look and feel, but it loses a star as it relies on AA batteries and cost me £179. The analogue sticks deserve a special mention though. Interchangeable sticks are great, but the feel of them as they rotate around the housing is AMAZING. The difference is huge, and I don't think I can go back to a standard pad again after this.So I started out with some light zombie bashing for a few hours with friends in COD Black Ops 3 and I did about as badly as usual, I didn't manage to rebind my intended sprint and jump keys to the two rear paddles I opted to leave attached, but I found changing the left thumbstick to the domed attachment was far more comfortable, and I was able to play a little better purely because of the lack of discomfort, I had also set the rear triggers to the hair-trigger setting so they actuate faster than the standard setting.It was fun, the pad is very comfortable compared to standard pads and the limited edition Halo 5 pads I also own, but I didn't really feel the pad added much value to my gaming, however I hadn't yet managed to try a new layout with the rear paddles so I decided to try that next.I bound the jump and sprint buttons to the bottom left and right rear paddles and decided to do the daily Destiny crucible match, took a deep breath and BOOM!!!!! I was a killing machine for the *entire* match.I was actually shocked! A real OMFG moment. I took the lead within 30 seconds, I was killing 2 guys at a time, got my first ever 5-kill streak, getting revenge kills and assists left and right, winning 1v1 fights without much difficulty the majority of the time.I got nervous a few minutes in, I thought this was just a fluke and the game had put me in a match full of guys worse than me, but there aren't actually that many guys who are consistently worse than me. I was afraid I would revert back to my free kill pre-elite controller self, but as the match wore on I got more used to my tweaked layout and gained more confidence.I took out 3 guys guarding an enemy capture point, defended it from another enemy player and stole it solo, something I never thought I would be able to do before. Don't get me wrong, I still died a fair bit, but I gave as good as I got most of the time unless I got cocky and took a stupid risk, or got tag-teamed by 2 guys at once.The match ended the me wearing a HUGE stupid grin and my heart racing and actually excited to jump into the next game to do it all again, 22 kills instead of my usually desperately won 3-4, and a KD of 1.5, 6 kills clear of the next guy down the list. I had gone from the bottom of the pile to actually being worth having on the team for once, and it felt great. My second match wasn't quite as impressive, but I came second of the scoreboard with and still way better than I had ever played using a standard pad.Tonight I'll try out some more games, but my initial experience has been overly positive. I'm sure everyone using this pad will find some sort of benefit, either through improved comfort, better quality components, or rebinding the controls. The big question is "is it worth the money?" For most players the answer is probably "no", but I love it and have no buyers remorse even though I probably got price-gouged due to limited stocks and high demand.

For around a year or so I've listened to my mates go on about how good this controller is and that although it is expensive, it was one of the best purchases they had made. I decided to take the plunge and boy am I pleased I did! If you play a lot of video games using a controller, whether on PC or Xbox, this controller will only further enhance your gaming experience. Keep in mind that the additions made to this controller over the standard Xbox One controller are designed to be played with, adjusted and mixed/matched to the users preference to help elevate their performance and improve their experience with the games they play. They do not all need to be used, they are there to give you options.First ImpressionsThe feel of the controller is a lot nicer than the standard plastic one. The black rubberised face of the controller along with the textured grip on the back of the handles and the metal triggers / bumper buttons make the controller look and feel like a premium product. It is noticeably heavier, which is nice because it feels much more solid and the rumble when in games is noticeably aggressive than the original controller without being disruptive and without having that irritating rattle sound that you sometimes get. The analogue sticks feel more responsive and tactile than the original controller and the metal bumper buttons on top no longer have that area at the top of them that wouldn't click in, you can now click them wherever you press them. It's worth mentioning that all the customisable parts on this controller are held in place with strong magnets, enough so that they do not drop off but are still easily removable when required.So lets look at the customisable features.Hair Trigger ModeThe hair triggers are designed to reduce the travel of the triggers by about 50%, this would be most useful in shooters but I've not given them a proper test yet. Don't worry! you still have the normal triggers with the full travel, these are activated by switches located at the back of the controller above the paddles. As with most of the customisation options it's down to personal preference.Paddles (not the kind you use in the water!)Possibly the most useful feature I've found are the paddles on the back of the controller. These can really help you improve your game as long as you find the right setup for you, as I said, it's down to personal preference. Keep in mind these ARE NOT extra buttons (although there maybe some software out there for PC which can convert these to extra buttons... I haven't looked into that yet), these are to replace the need to use X, Y, A and B. They take a bit of getting used to but the way I use them is just with the one big paddle on the right (back) of the controller in the slot which replaces the B button. To give and example, I have two games which I use this in at the moment, Dark Souls 3 to dodge as this keeps my thumb free to move the camera and see what's going to kill me next... Then Rocket League to boost keeping my thumb free to jump (press A) at the same time as boosting. There are lots of other ways you could use these but thats where I've found them most useful. I've removed all the other paddles so they are out of the way.DPadThe DPad has a standard 4 direction option (again in metal) and a second, what can only be described as metal dish option. This allows for smoother multi-directional control via the DPad. I guess this brings it closer to an analog stick in a way but I'm not sure where this would be useful as when I need to use a DPad I tend to prefer the standard 4 way plus shape. Any suggestions let me know!Analog SticksLastly the analog sticks. There are 3 sets of these, the standard concaved ones with the textured edges (my preferred ones). Some raised (taller) ones which are supposed to give more precise control, again I guess this would be used for shooters? For me they were a bit too far raised off the controller, so I tend to stick with the standard ones. There are another pair which are convex, if you've played games using a PlayStation3 controller they are the same as those. Personally I can't stand them, I just keep slipping off them all the time, but again it's down to personal preference.Profile SwitcherThere is a slider button in the middle of the controller which will quickly switch between profiles you have premade on the Xbox Accessories App. This allows you to change the locations of buttons on the controller to fit your play style amongst other adjustments you can make. I can't talk about it too much as I've not used it myself, but more options to customise is always good. The only bad point is for some reason you cannot make the paddles unique buttons, they have to mirror buttons already on the controller. This is something that a lot of users are complaining about and with any luck Microsoft will do something about it... or some genius techy will create a 3rd party option (for PC, sorry Xbox users you have to wait for Microsoft).Other than that the controller comes in a nice hard case for when you want to take it out of the house on travels and this holds all the other parts neatly in a foam holder. There is also a USB cable with the controller which is braided and feels solid, a nice addition and something you would expect when your paying this sort of money.So there you go, make of it what you will but if you put a fair few hours into your games and are thinking about investing in a decent controller, you can't do much better than this one. Is it necessary? no. You can have the fun you want with the standard controller and perform just as well. But if you have the budget and are looking for a high end product to enhance your gaming experience, this is definitely a product you should consider. It's pricey...very pricey! But once you've used it for a while you will wonder what you were doing using that cheap piece of plastic you have now left sat on the desk gathering dust!