Full Disclosure: This is my first Amazon review. I felt like I owed it to the Elite to share my feelings about its greatness.
I bought the Elite, because I was sick of having only 4 layout choices in Rainbow 6 Siege. I wanted to use the right stick click as a crouch button. Unfortunately, Rainbow 6 does not allow this, and mapped crouch to the B button. The right stick click was mapped as my melee, and to be completely honest, I RARELY ever use the melee button in FPS games. Something had to be done, and so I sprung for the Elite.
PROS:
- It has so many options for mapping the controller. Every single button, bumper, trigger, D-pad direction and click can be mapped wherever you want it.
- You can adjust the sensitivity and tracking speed on the thumb sticks. This is pretty cool; I have the right stick, for example, set to "Smooth" for FPS games, which means that the it moves steadily at first, slower in the middle of the arc, and then steadily again the further I move on the axis. It's great for slight aiming adjustments that you have to make in shooters. There are 5 total presets for the thumb sticks currently.
- You can make up to 250 different controller configurations, name them, and save them in your settings. It reminds me of the games on the Super Nintendo that let you map all of the buttons...why did they ever stop letting you do that?
- The controller is solid; it feels like something that should cost $150.
- The thumb sticks and additional paddles on the back are magnetic, so you don't have to worry about wear and tear when connecting and removing them constantly. It's genius!
- The paddles are really cool and easy to customize and move around. You can add as many or as few as you want. I currently use 1 on the left side and 2 on the right.
- The carrying case is solid and super functional. All the extra thumb sticks and thumb pads fit perfectly.
- It comes with 3 different sets of thumb sticks: convex long, convex short and concave medium. I use one set of thumbsticks for shooters and a second set for Diablo 3.
- It's compatible with Kontrol Freaks. I have a set of them that I use on top of the concave short thumb sticks.
- The braided USB cable looks cool and is sturdy, too.
- The rubberized grip is nice.
- The trigger stops (I'm not sure what they're called exactly) allow the triggers to have a shorter arc; therefore, you don't have to push them all the way in to get input. This feature is awesome for FPS games!
- It's compatible with the Play & Charge battery.
- Everything else about it.
CONS:
- I want to be objective, but I'm not sure. It's $150, which is 3X the price of a standard controller.
- You can only have 2 presets active at once. They are toggled on the face of the controller between slots 1 and 2. I guess if you were playing 3 different games in quick succession, and each had its own configuration, you'd have to go into the settings and swap one out when you played the third game. This would take approximately 30 seconds from your life. I'm not an expert on this topic, as I typically do not play 3 games at the same time.
- If you don't intend to remap the buttons or utilize the paddles, you could probably save your $ and buy a standard controller.
SUMMARY:
If you are sick of games with rigid layouts and limited options for their layouts, you should check this out. I'm excited to know that I can configure all of my FPS games with the same layout: Battlefront, Rainbow 6, Tomb Raider, Fallout, Battlefield, etc. You can remap every button. If you want to map Up on the D-pad to a trigger, do it. If you want to have 3 different buttons mapped to the right trigger, do it. The Elite is awesome.
From the manufacturer
Improved performance and fit
The Xbox Elite controller adapts to your hand size and play style with configurations that can improve accuracy, speed, and reach with thumbsticks of different shapes and sizes.
Interchangeable paddles
The Xbox Elite Wireless Controller has four slots for interchangeable paddles that you can attach or remove without any tools.
Hair trigger locks
With the flip of the Hair Trigger Locks, you can fire faster and save valuable time with each trigger pull. Hair Trigger Locks stop the trigger movement after the shot and get you ready for the next one.
Limitless customization in the app
Customize your experience even further with an easy-to-use app.* Adjust trigger min/max values, thumbstick sensitivities, button assignments, and more.
Designed for performance
Every surface and detail is designed to meet the rigorous demands of competitive gamers: low-friction, reinforced rings around each thumbstick minimize wear and provide buttery-smooth action.
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Reviews with images
Definitely an upgrade but multiple problems within a few months make the price debateable.
First the bad, got this in 2016 and was a little disappointed that the extra paddles can't be mapped as a stand alone function. What I mean by that is you can only map other standard buttons to them so a,b,x,y,rb,lb,stick press etc. You cannot use these like a joystick button to map a function directly to upper left paddle for instance, rather you have to map it to "a" and then map "a" to the paddle. So you're essentially getting four additional placements for buttons' functions the regular controller already has. Secondly, the rubber grips are terribly made and will start to bubble and warp within just a few months of using them as the rubber gets very stretched or loose quickly. I've heard you can get replacements free from Microsoft via warranty before the 1 year mark but I've taken to cutting them to resize and gluing them as without the grips the controller is terrible to hold and I didn't get replacements before the 1 year mark. My left joystick began registering as leaning slightly right within just 3 months of use and the customization basically only allows you to fix this by desensitizing or increasing the dead zone. It can be worked around but I was expecting better for the price I paid. I don't like that it doesn't (or at least my 2016 version) have Bluetooth support for PC without a dongle like the one s/x controllers do now. You can however plug it directly into a standard usb and it will power it and work just fine. Lastly it took 2 years but the nylon charging cable no longer works, and I'm getting a replacement from amazon.Now for the good, I do like the feel of the controller and it's metal/rubber components much more than the regular plastic controllers. The paddles really do help you gain more flexibility with hand placement as you can now keep fingers where they need to be and map pesky bumper or otherwise large movement functions to the paddles instead of removing your fingers from triggers to push a bumper. I find using them for functions where you have to keep the buttons pressed much better as it's easier on the hand than mashing or holding a,b,y,x. The extra d-pad option is great, especially for fighting games and side scrollers; the extra sticks I guess are cool but they all feel too long/awkward compared to the regular ones so I haven't really used them. I do like the controller customization interface and really like that you can save the loadouts and they follow you to PC or any other Xbox using the same interface for both. I also really like the zipper padded case it comes in and the cutouts for all the extra pieces so they aren't just rattling around in the case. The battery compartment is standard and there's nothing different about the headphone jack.TL;DR: it's a nice upgrade from the standard controller but the quality seems somewhat lacking for the price and I had issues within just a few months of use. I still enjoy using it but I've had to resort to cutting and gluing to fix the grips, buying an aftermarket charging cable, and awkward work-arounds for the loose left stick.
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