Turtle Beach Stealth Ultra High-Performance Wireless Gaming Controller Licensed for Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows PC & Android – LED Dashboard, Charge Dock, RGB Lighting, 30-Hr Battery, Bluetooth, Black

EDIT: Now that I've owned this for a few months I have found some flaws I want to note as my original review was based on the first few weeks. One challenge is that I'm finding the controller does crash occasionally. As it has restarting it takes time between the boot up sequence and connectivity seeking this can lead to losing competitive matches. Also, it seems that sometimes the controller glitches and doesn't respond to input immediately or holds the last command too long. I found my character would keep walking in a direction for a second or two after I already stopped using the stick.I still think it's a great controller and I'm hoping a firmware update is going to help fix those issues. But I'm the last few weeks I've run into some issues that got me killed in games more than once.ORIGINAL REVIEW: I'm writing this on a comparative basis as it is understandably hard to drop so much money on a high-performance controller without understanding what makes it better than its peers. Aside from owning standard Xbox controllers I also have an Xbox Elite, Xbox Elite 2, and a Scuf Instinct Pro controller. By far, this is my favorite of the high-performance controllers! Recently I decided I had to either get a new Scuf or find something similar because the stick drift had gotten so bad on my Scuf after 2 years. You can only wander off a tight edge accidentally so many times before you decide to retire your big investment! I decided to risk it on this new Stealth controller because of the hall effect sticks which will avoid the drift issue altogether.BACK BUTTONS & TRIGGERS: Of those controllers I own, I would say this feels more like a Scuf controller in design due to the back button placement. The buttons on the back depress like a mouse click so it has a very instant response feeling to it. The trigger pull switches work much the same way. I find they are useful in scenarios where I don't want to full draw the trigger for an action that isn't dependent on proportional input. Shooting a gun? That's your feature to use!DESIGN & FEEL: The controller is slightly more flared outward on the back than a standard Xbox controller. For me that is perfect because I have big hands and it feels less crunched in. It will fit an average person's hands fine, it just felt a little more "roomy" for me and that was appreciated. Where my fingers are bigger I found myself appreciating the large back buttons that function more like a push/pull motion. The Elite series' paddles are tiny and my fingers would push both simultaneously, or I couldn't differentiate between the paddles easily in the heat of an intense moment and would hit the wrong one. However, the Turtle Beach Stealth avoids this entirely with those clearly defined and separate buttons on the back. The sticks feel fantastic and smooth. The rubber grips they provide are actually good quality and make me feel like my investment is protected, too. I notice that my other controllers' stick heads do eventually degrade from constant use. The Elite allows me to wholesale swap them out while the Scuf doesn't. And 3rd party stick covers are hit or miss. But these delivered ones feel high quality and do the job just right. As well, the D-Pad is contoured in a way that feels intuitive and the material is decent quality. The buttons all work just fine, too. I wouldn't say they have any ups or downs compared to their peers.The only downside I have found is that the double square and menu buttons have to sit so far off from where they normally sit on an Xbox controller. It isn't a big issue, but I have years of muscle memory to retrain so I'm not pushing on the screen every time I try to pull up the map or menu.SCREEN & LEDs: Speaking of the screen, I would say that this feature is amazing! And if you are like me, this was both intriguing and also the big unknown variable unique to this controller.I love being able to quickly look at what my button mappings are right on the screen. You can adjust virtually everything by toggling into the system mode with the + button at the bottom of the controller (under the media capture button) and navigating the menu right on your controller. You can update your profile presets and controller light options right there. You can also adjust input curves and vibration levels. The customization is off the charts and you can store up to 10 profiles on your controller itself. You can also build up profiles with custom names and send them to your controller via your Xbox or phone app. I think you could have more than 10 profiles set up on your Xbox and just send the top 10 you need to your controller, but it beats the 3 basic profile options I had on my Scuf and the labor of managing your device profiles for the Elite series. Accessible is an understatement!A cool extra feature is you can use an app on your phone to allow messages to be sent directly to your controller. It's neat, but I wouldn't say it is essential. Every time you turn on your controller you have to remember to turn on the app on your phone to allow communication via Bluetooth. Reading on the controller is fun but it isn't super clean. Good for letting you know what your buddy sent you in response to your "Getting on, u joining?" message, but the value is limited given the hassle to sync it every time.The LED lights are stylish and you can adjust the pattern, color, and brightness pretty well. I found some patterns were distracting and damn near seizure inducing. For example, "Breathe" mode wasn't a steady ramped up glow to the color of choice then fade as I expected, but was instead more like a frenetic flashing that made me think my controller was having a panic attack! And "Responsive" (I think that's what it was called) didn't seem to be responding to anything that I could tell, but maybe I just need to read the directions further. To each their own, I wound up using whichever mode it was that makes it look like the color runs from top to bottom and cycles back.FINAL THOUGHTS: I highly recommend this controller if you are in the market for a high-performance pro Xbox controller! Be prepared to get used to a different feeling when holding the controller due to the contour differences. For me it is a positive change at least.

Update: The X and Y buttons are inconsistent and it looses connection about every hour. when it drops connection you have to put it on the charger to force it to shut down and then wait for the controller to boot up and reconnect, it's a painful process. Its rubber grips are peeling up on both sides. This isn't a good controller. The only thing still working well are the hall sticks. It had promise but it doesn't last.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.