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

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.

I have used the normal Xbox controller with attachments and a series elite 2 as well and for the price this is the best out of them both, I have a wireless headset so I can’t use all the features but I’ve been told that if you also have a wired headset this controller is a no brained as it improves the wired headset with the sound presets and the superhuman hearing function but that aside this controller feels great, awesome response time, great button feel but the sticks are maybe a little to clicks and loud and the bumpers aren’t clicks enough but you don’t notice the sticks when you have a headset on and you get used to the soft feeling of the bumpers, the back paddles are easy to assign and are super good and I actually prefer them over the back paddles of the series’s elite! The most important thing for me is how good the analog sticks feel to actually move though as they have a really nice tension and from coming back to Xbox from PS4 I’ve always loved the controller but the series controllers have also felt super loose when it comes to tension but this recon controller feels perfect and more akin to a DualShock which I like! Makes me want to try more wired controllers in the future but for now I will deffo stick with the recon and I’m going to sell my series elite controller now as this has impressed me so much!

Overall built quality is excellent. Feels good in the hands.Triggers and buttons have a textured surface which takes some getting used to, but should prove much better than the slippery triggers of a normal xbox controller.Thumbsticks are also textured, which is a very welcome addition. The sticks themselves also feel great and they have a good springy feel with no drift that I could detect.Onto things I am not so fond of:D-pad travel is quite a bit more than standard. Makes using the D-pad awkward and slow.Shoulder buttons are AWFUL. They feel spongy and often don't register, or if they do register and you need to hold them down, the slightest reduction in pressure will disengage them.The triggers are inexplicably the exact opposite. They stop dead against the controller casing and it is actually audible. Not a big deal in itself, but the difference between the triggers and the shoulder buttons are vast and that makes it uncomfortable, with a weird tactile feedback.The addition of the additional buttons underneath the controller is great. They are positioned absolutely perfectly. And although they can be mapped to the thumbsticks, shoulders or D-pad as "alternative" buttons, they can't be mapped to the menu selection buttons, which is a big disappointment for me because that was one of the main reasons I pre-ordered this. Because they claimed the buttons could be mapped to "any" buttons on the controller. This simply isn't true.I will persist with this controller, but it is not a comfortable transition from my older XBOX ONE controller.