Full disclosure: My camera lens was a bit foggy, which makes white things have a halo. I wasn't trying on purpose to make the c... Read More
Full disclosure: My camera lens was a bit foggy, which makes white things have a halo. I wasn't trying on purpose to make the controller shimmer like the One Ring.Controller is shown next to an Xbox One Elite Controller with Chatpad and a PS4 Controller for size comparison. It manages to fit in every single button except L3/R3 and the View button, in a package that's compact and elegant. Nice! Also, the white is gorgeous, I can't even begin to find words to describe how perfect I think the shade of white they chose looks.I'm a big person with big hands. But dang it, I can't explain why but I love small things. The Nintendo Switch's Joy-Cons? Perfect. Small, firm buttons, thin wafer of a controller, and yet an incredibly precise stick. I regularly sigh at the lucky people who were old enough to have a Game Boy Advance Micro when it came out (a full video game system with a screen about the size of an Apple Watch).So, naturally, I love the Stratus. Not the XL. Just the Stratus. I have both, but the Stratus is the one I like best.I use it mainly with my Apple TV. It's good for RPGs, arcade games like Pac-Man Championship Edition, and so on.Also, I've set up multiple generations of Apple TVs with it as a remote, and while it takes an occasionally long time for the magic to happen, it's possible to use as a standard Apple TV Remote. Make sure you have the firmware update, you might need to use Windows to install it, but if you're a Mac user who doesn't have Boot Camp you can get the Windows ISO free from Microsoft and get a free trial of Parallels which is enough.Also, important note: You might need to manually go into Settings and Restart your Apple TV. You also might need to play a few games that require a controller before it gets set up properly. But eventually, somehow, even though it takes a while, you can use this as a TV remote.This is a big deal, because the Siri remote with trackpad that comes with the newer Apple TVs only lets you pair one of them with an ATV at a time. This is bad, because we have more than one person in the house who likes to control it, usually at the same time (we tag each other in for a round of getting to pick what to watch). What's worse is the main options you've got are dragging out your iPhone (if you have one), which stinks because it's not as fast and snappy. Or you can buy the IR remote, which stinks because you have to point it directly at the TV.The Stratus is one of the only things small enough to look like a remote that can be used alongside the Siri remote and it's fast and you don't have to point it at the TV to use it. Yay for twin couch surfing!But really, even if it didn't do any of that, I'd love it for the nice controller it is. The L1 and L2 buttons are crammed together in a way that looks impossible to use but actually makes it very easy to pick out which button is which. I'd say it works dramatically better than standard console triggers, especially if you need to push all or almost-all of the buttons at once.The ABXY buttons are quick and responsive, they don't give a mechanical click even though it looks like they could, but it doesn't matter because they're plenty firm and spring back as soon as you let go.Some people dislike a directional pad (or D-Pad) that is circular, because they have trouble pushing a single direction at once. But the way the pad is built makes it very obvious which way you're pressing, so I think it's the best of both worlds here.My only gripe, and it's a big one, is that the sticks aren't the best. If you only need to go in one direction like in an arcade game, or precision doesn't matter like in a RPG, you'll do fine. But I wouldn't try in a million years to play Fortnite on this and win. MAYBE Minecraft. In fact, I have played Minecraft on it and it's quite nice. But there's a certain precision lacking, which makes me avoid taking risks I normally would.I wish that SteelSeries would create a Rev 2/Version 2 of the Stratus instead of just releasing stupid XL models over and over again. Give the sticks more precision and resistance, give us the L3/R3 stick click, and I wouldn't want to use anything else. Seriously. I love my Xbox Elite Controller and other controllers I've got lying around, but if this had stick clicks and more precise analog controls, I'd be spending dozens of hours trying to figure out how to make it work on every system I've got.SteelSeries, please release a new model! It would be so much fun if there was a new one that learned the lessons from the flaws of the original. You've got something unique with this product - a tiny controller that doesn't feel cheaply made. It's a full-on professional game controller, way different than those crazy silicone VR controllers that random Chinese companies sell on Amazon. You're actually trying, your design is stellar, it just needs one little push.Until then, do I recommend this controller to interested buyers? Heck yeah. Just don't try to be a FPS Pro on it and you'll do fine. Read Less
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