Turtle Beach Recon Controller Black - Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One and PC

best one i’ve ever used lasted longer than any other and has great settings

THIS IS NOT AN IN DEPTH REVIEW. I will not cover the audio side of it or the programmable buttons.I bought this replace an XBox One controller that was used for PC gaming. While I didn't want to go back to a wired controller, it was something I was willing to consider.The connection for it is USB-C, and the cable supplied is braided (feels quality), but also extremely long so if it's going to be used at close quarters you might want to get a slightly shorter cable. As for installation it's plug and play with Windows 10 and 11 (and probably earlier OS versions), and once it's been detected by Windows, you're good to go. Or at least you'd think so.If the controller is shipped with the 1.03 firmware, after a while it can power itself down. Once this happens you have to unplug the controller from the PC and plug it back in again. This is far from ideal because there's an added level of stress on the components and sooner or later something is going to break. After a bit of investigation, it turned out that the controller needed to have the firmware updated. I went to the Turtle Beach site, downloaded the software, and the firmware was updated pretty quickly. This seems to have fixed the issue, so if you have this problem then there's the fix.In use the controller feels sturdy enough. Flex is at a minimum (you really have to apply crazy pressure), and it's not overly heavy nor unduly light. It's got a really nice texture and it's also not as prone to making your hands sweat. You can use this controller for ages and it not be a problem.Something that counts in it's favour is the travel distance of the triggers and sticks. They're slightly less than on a standard controller and this leads to less input lag (smaller dead zone) and increased responsiveness. If you play FPS or racing games then it's definitely better than a lot of other controllers out there. I play a lot of racing and simulation games, and I've noticed that my game has definitely upped ever so slightly. Anything that requires fine control (as opposed to fully depressing a trigger or going in a direction) will require a bit of refinement, but it's not unduly difficult and pretty soon motor memory will kick in with the new values.Something worth noting is that there are also trigger buttons underneath, and these can be mapped to functions. If you've ever driven a paddle shift car or used a paddle shift control wheel, it feels quite natural using these as gear shift buttons, but they're also useful for FPS and simulators.The buttons also have just the right amount of tactile feedback, and you can be fairly confident that a press has registered. Tactile feedback is also where it fails as well. The vibrations are mediocre at best. I've had controllers in the past that have been physically unpleasant to hold and I'm surprised they haven't shaken themselves apart because of the vibrations, but this is a bit of a buzz (my XBox controller danced all over the desk, this doesn't). I don't particularly like overpowered motors, but these could definitely do with a little more oomph.There's the nice addon of a screenshot/video button. This seems to tie into the XBox PC app, and a short press grabs a screenshot, while a long press activates screen recording. This seems to be handled by the XBox client and overlay, but it's useful enough to hit without requiring you to remove your hands from the controller.As far as the lights on the controller go, they're not bad. Visible in bright lighting, and not glaring in low light conditions. When you're playing, you can easily reference what you want, but it's not bright enough that it's drawing attention away from the screen or ruining your vision in low lit areas.If you're a mid level gamer then you can do a lot worse than this controller. Everything seems to be done to the "just right" specification, with possibly the exception of the vibration motors.

Update: After 4 months the controller has developed bad stick drift despite having never been dropped or mistreated and within 2 days of it first getting stick drift it has become useless due to how bad it got. Very disappointed in Turtle Beach with this issue.This controller ticks all the boxes id expect from a controller from comfort, weight, wire length, button access, additional features and one particular one I enjoy is when you connect a headset through controller the super hearing button in certain games lets you even hear the wind whistle.My big gripe is a very annoying one in my opinion, I use it on my PC which which I can only get it to turn on by disconnecting and reconnecting the cable which over time becomes very irritating.

At first I thought it might have to be sent back because the sound didn't seem to be working. Followed the instructions and was getting nowhere. I'm going to be honest I've got no clue what we did to get it working properly.Unplugged it a few times, turned the Xbox One X of a few times. It seemed to be giving us sound after pressing the mic down button and now it all works as it should.Already have the wireless or wired 8BitDo Pro2 for the PC and my lads Switch and I much prefer this Turtle beach model. The pro buttons underneath fir my hands easier than the 8BitDo one as that feels a little smaller. The right pro button really does help with head shots etc, it's a great idea.The d-pad on the Turtle Recon is excellent, way better than official one and a different league to the dreadful 8BitDo one. The sticks and triggers are really easy to adapt to and very responsive. The sound controls are great and do help with different sources. The mic is super clear for others hearing me and I can turn them down when they get too excited. The aim helper is fully adjustable mid game BUT this has drawbacks. Great against AI or bots, humans react much quicker though so I try to have it set a certain way for a particular game and leave it there. Humans kill you when you mess about like that in a game. :)Plugged it into the PC and it is just as good, no messing around with anything it worked immediately. No sound on the PC, maybe there's a way to get it to work but I don't know how and it does clearly say the mic port is for Xbox.We need another controller to replace a broken official one and I reckon I'll be buying another one of these soon and not the new 8BitDo for Xbox.

I purchased this product last September and when I first got the controller I thought it was a bargain the back two button's are in a perfect place and easy to use and make a difference. However after a month or 2 I got stuck drift in the right stick which only really affected using the map on warzone which is the main game I play so I stuck with it although it was annoying at times. By the 5/6 month mark the controller became unusable and the left stick would randomly stop working when trying to move forward and after a week of this the left stick pretty much stopped working when pushing up. I would have given this product 5* when first using it probably 4* with the stick drift in the right stick as I don't mind wired controller's and to me it felt better to use than a original Xbox controller with extra functions as well. The sound boost worked well with my headset to hear footsteps more clearly. However overall the product has lasted nowhere near enough hopefully turtle beach have another go at making a controller maybe adding 4 similarly placed buttons and same style to what they have on the back now and making it more durable is a must.