Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 starsIt's an easy Buy for me Turtle Beach Stealth Ultra
Reviewed in the United States on January 29, 2024
I’ve had the controller for more than a week so far. Before this I have been using the elite and elite 2 controllers for years.
First the hall effect sticks are everything I’ve ever wanted. So precise I didn’t realize how out of spec my old controller was. I set the stick dead zone to zero on both sticks and no problem, it snaps back to the exact center and no matter how hard I try I can get the targeting icon to stay put if the stick is moved all tall. I’ve tried used multiple games calibration as well as the system ones for the elite controller, always the same result. Compared to my elite 2 controller that is back from service about 3 months ago, there were spots on the calibrators at level 10 that the stick would register as center.
So as far as accuracy the Stealth Ultra is amazing, in fact they are so much better I recommend the controller for that improvement alone. There are other things in the pros and cons but I’ll just say that from here on out it’s small things that I’d put in the personal preference category so if you don’t care about what I’ve listed please disregard.
Pros:
Hall Effect sticks are significantly better than anything you have used before.
The Stealth Ultra is noticeably lighter, but it doesn’t feel like its cheep or flimsy. It still has a solid in hand feel to me so lighter is better in my opinion.
This controller charges fast, I know people are hung up on the fact that you need to turn the lights down to get a good battery life out of it but if you need RGB in your face at all time just put that controller on the charge pad for 5 min and just like that you have a hour or so to play.
The screen, to be clear I could care less about screen or trackpads or any other gimmick that gets put on a controller unless it offers something so the screen is pushing its luck, but the controller’s screen is my preferred place to adjust the controller settings. When I got my unit, it mapped the R3 & L3 buttons to the underside but I accidently flipped them. 1 Button press to open controller settings a few lefts and rights on the D-pad and then A button to confirm. I fixed my mistake while in game without having to back out. The screen on the controller is my preferred way to change settings too, although that’s partly due to the software being a bit clunky on the xbox. It’s the kind of setup where you make your changes then you have to upload the changes to the controller, or at least so I’m told, I like the screen so I use it.
Active software updates are happening. In the past few weeks there have been 2 firmware updates and while game developers deserve the abuse, they get for needing to patch there half-baked garbage on day one I feel very optimistic about Turtle Beach backing and improving this control in the future. 1 update allowed more buttons to be mapped to the underside buttons. The second update helped with stability and fixed a led setting. I haven’t had any stability issues but the more stable the more gooder. Who knows could we gain the ability to adjust game and chat volume without taking our hands off the controller, please I’m begging here. Or could the screen show me the setting on my Turtle beach headset, that would be cool.
Cons:
The Stealth Ultra takes a second to boot up and to do so you have to hold down the xbox button a bit longer. Not a big deal when gaming, you can set the seep window to be up to 10min long, but when you are streaming and you want to skip to the new episode or stop the skip to watch a after credits seen you will be racing the countdown clock to wake up your controller.
Vibration on the Stealth Ultra is just ok. At full force I would say it’s 7 out of 10 but at lower pulses it’s pretty bad. Most likely something that was sacrificed to lower costs and weight was the rumble. For me it’s good enough but I would still buy this controller with no vibration, the sticks are that much better.
The placement of the “view” button, I call it the select button, is in a tough spot. You have to reach over the top of the left joystick and it takes some significant getting use to. I bet it will be worse for those of you who like tall sticks. You can’t map the view button elsewhere so no luck there.
As soon as your controller starts charging on it’s included charging stand it disconnects from the xbox and will need to be turned back on slow boot up and all. It’s more annoying that it sounds but pretty minor overall.
*All of the “cons” are minor to me but they may mean more to you. This controller cold take a 3 times longer to boot, have no vibration and no view button and it would still be the best controller I own.
Other Things.
This controller is a bit wider than the elite. Had to make room for the screen, I guess. I think it a little more comfortable, but you may not notice.
All buttons are clicky mouse buttons. Dpad, ABXY the shoulder and trigger buttons sound a feel like a mouse click. If I press a button on both my elite controller and the Stealth Ultra there is more feed back and longer travel on the elite. The mouse click to me feels slightly “mushy” to me but it’s minor. I don’t notice while playing games just when doing the comparison. With less travel distance on the buttons, you can pretty much ensure that you can click faster on the Turtle beach controller so that is good enough for me to not care as much about the feel part.
The only time you can get a battery like % is when it is charging. Otherwise, you get a battery gauge with 4 bars. Hate the bars, they are dumb on cell phones and dumb here too. You can’t even hit the xbox button and check the gauge near the time in the top corner. It always reeds full, my guess is that the usb dongle is what it is showing there but that is just a guess.
You can’t adjust the center spring tension like you can with the elite controller so if you have a strong preference for that you got nothing here but the sticks snap back fast with a good force. And do I need to say how accurate they are again.
This controller can get notifications for your phone, or so I’ve been told. I didn’t set it up and don’t care if I ever do.
