I love the standard Official Xbox Wireless Controller; it’s reliable, comfortable, and gets me through the best Xbox Game Pass games with ease, so I’ve never really felt the need to upgrade to a premium pad with all the bells and whistles. Now, after spending several weeks with the, quite frankly, ridiculous Turtle Beach Stealth Ultra controller, I don’t think I can go back. The Stealth Ultra controller is Turtle Beach’s latest premium controller designed for Xbox, Windows, and Bluetooth devices. Despite its eye-watering $199.99 / £179.99 price tag, the controller is jam-packed with features such as a 1.5-inch, full-color display for on-the-go customization and displaying of phone notifications (more on that later), hall effect thumbsticks, a chunky 30-hour battery life, and even RGB lighting.My first impression out of the box is that the Stealth Ultra looks OK. While I’m not the biggest fan of the sort of futuristic aesthetic Turtle Beach is going for, it’s not the worst-looking thing in the world. The fully customizable RGB lighting that runs down each grip is a nice touch, although completely unnecessary, it does serve a purpose by flashing red when the controller is low on battery or glowing green when charging. In the hands, though, the Stealth Ultra feels great with its matte finish and textured grips. It appears to be a little larger than your standard Xbox controller, which I found comfortable, and despite this larger size, I could still reach all inputs with ease.Sporting an Xbox-style layout with asymmetrical analog sticks, you’ll find a circular, concave D-pad, a button to access the controller’s menu, all of the usual face buttons you’d typically see on an Xbox controller, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. On top, there are, of course, shoulder buttons and some excellent analog triggers, each with a switch to shorten a trigger’s pull for use in shooters. There’s also a USB-C port here, but you probably won’t ever need to use it as the large battery in the Stealth Ultra, and the included charging dock will keep the controller constantly topped up with juice. On the back, there are four reprogrammable buttons that are positioned well and can easily be accessed. Also included in the box is the magnetic charging dock, a wireless dongle, a carrying case, a long 3m USB-C cable, and four rubber thumbstick caps. The dongle can either be plugged directly into an Xbox or a PC, but Turtle Beach has also made it so you can slot the dongle into the charging dock, which is handy as it’ll save you from using another UBS port. Sadly, unlike the Elite Series 2, you won’t find any extra paddles, different thumbsticks, or an alternative D-Pad, as the Stealth Ultra has no swappable components, which is a bit of a shame for those who really want to make the controller their own. While you might not be able to swap out the thumbsticks or the D-Pad on the Stealth Ultra, there are plenty of things you can customize under the hood — and this is where the LCD screen comes into play. Hitting the ‘+’ button on the controller allows you to fiddle about with a wide array of features and settings, including the RGB lighting, button mapping, vibration strength, the dead zones of triggers and the thumbsticks, equalizer settings (if you’ve got headphones plugged in), and much more. All of your changes can be assigned to one of ten profiles, and you can easily switch between each one for the type of game you’re playing. You can also do all of this using either the Xbox app or phone app, though they are an absolute misery to use. The phone app barely works or connects, and the Xbox app, while slightly better, ended up bricking my first review unit, turning the Stealth Ultra into a paperweight. Turtle Beach was quick to send a replacement out, however, and the second unit has worked flawlessly. Unfortunately, you will need to wrestle with the phone app if you want to pair your smartphone with the Stealth Ultra to view notifications sent to your phone. While it was a novelty to be able to quickly glance at WhatsApp messages from my friends on the gamepad while gaming, it quickly became distracting. I was also unable to clear the notifications, so the number of notifications would continue to rise despite reading them. The biggest annoyance of all, though, is that you have to manually connect to your phone each time you want to use this gimmicky feature, which is more hassle than it’s worth. While all of these features are nice to have, what really impressed me about the Stealth Ultra was just how damn good it was to use. The hall effect thumbsticks, with their “antidrift” technology, felt incredibly precise while piping golf balls down the fairway in the EA Sports PGA Tour. On harder difficulties, EA Sports PGA Tour is a real challenge if you’re not consistent and accurate when swinging with the left stick, and I found myself playing better with the Stealth Ultra when compared to playing with a standard Xbox gamepad. The hall effect thumbsticks are probably the main reason to buy Turtle Beach’s latest, as they offer a high degree of reliability and shouldn’t succumb to the dreaded stick drift. The face buttons and D-Pad are also a joy to use, thanks to the tactile microswitches Turtle Beach has gone with. While the buttons are maybe a little softer than I would have liked, they are satisfyingly clicky and are dependable, especially when it came to hammering the ‘A’ button in an attempt to drive over 400 yards on Bandon Dunes. For me, the battery life is a real plus point. Turtle Beach claims a full charge will last you 30 hours, and while I only managed around 15 hours with headphones plugged in, the RGB brightness set to medium, and a few other features turned on, I never did run out of juice while playing, largely thanks to the dock making it simple to keep the Stealth Ultra charged.Overall, the Turtle Beach Stealth Ultra is one of the best Xbox controllers I’ve ever used. Sure, it is expensive, but I feel it justifies its price with premium features such as those hall effect thumb sticks and that handy screen that lets you change just about everything to do with the controller on the fly. It’s reliable and performs well in games, and while the companion apps are terrible and one or two features superfluous, the Stealth Ultra is absolutely worth considering if you’re in the market for a premium pad.Turtle Beach provided a sample unit for this reviewSometimes we include links to online retail stores. If you click on one and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. For more information, check out our affiliate policy.
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