Xbox One S controller review: New features and custom colors make for a great successor - lowtherforeavieve

At a Glance

Expert's Paygrad

Pros

Custom colours give Xbox One restrainer more life
New features: Textured back, 3.5mm jack, and Bluetooth
Bumpers are less clicky

Cons

Still eclipsed by the quality of the Xbox One Selected controller
Design Science laborator is full of ugly color combinations

Our Verdict

It's no Elite controller, but the Xbox Design Lab and parvenue Xbox One S controller fix for a colorful step up from the blood line Xbox One gamepad.

My $80 powder-dirty-and-orange Xbox Design Research lab controller arrived recently, and I've dead in love with its expression. Maybe you're not so well swayed. Maybe you hate it. That's elegant. More than powdery, actually—that's forgiving of the undivided manoeuvre.

Utmost twelvemonth Microsoft released the $150 malodourous-end Elite controller for a segment of the market traditionally supported by third parties and aftermarket parts dealers. That undertaking was by all accounts a provocative success, way on the far side Microsoft's predictions.

And so at E3 this year Microsoft announced it would live stepping into another traditionally aftermarket realm: custom controllers. Xbox Design Lab lets you construct your personal Xbox One S controller: For $20 more than the stock Xbox One S controller (available for its heel price of $60 on Amazon), you tail blue-ribbon the color of the front, rear, bumpers and triggers, D-pad, thumbsticks, brass buttons, and the Menu and Aspect buttons.

Artistic expression

I took a spin through the process, which is how I ended up with my GT40-divine controller. The Design Lab website is easy sufficiency to navigate, though often harder to use effectively. You fundament create whatever truly impressive monstrosities.

Honestly, the pool of colors to take from isn't that broad, especially for some of the components, like the thumbsticks. Many of the colors aren't complementary, either. It's much, much easier to contrive something hideous than attractive. Microsoft can tout however numerous millions of color combinations, only the realness is there are probably a hundred that look after middling inoffensive. Maybe a few 12 that feeling capital-G g ood.

But you motionless get quite second more tasty than I'm misused to with first-party controllers. I washed-out about an hour tinkering with the website, creating various Frankensteins and even a tongue-in-cheek rendering of the stock Xbox One controller in front looking at the highest-rated community designs for inspiration and settling on powder blue sky and orange.

I'm pretty excited by the result. The color here is infused into the fictile, not painted on afterward corresponding with more third-party shops' customs duty controllers—a small distinction, but vital to maintaining that "confirmed first-political party controller" sensuous. And the pad looks even ameliorate in person than it did on the site—the difference between the matte moldable of the body and the glossy plastic of the bumpers/triggers is a perceptive relate I didn't anticipate.

Place in the lineup

Now, the big question: How does this controller (regardless of custom color or not) stack up against the original Xbox One controllers?

Xbox One controller trio — From left to right: The seminal stock Xbox One controller, custom Xbox One S, and Xbox One and only Elite (with rounded sticks).

Truncated serve: The Xbox One Elite control is still best of the good. That's no surprise to Maine—I've still got an Elite controller hooked to my Personal computer and use information technology time period for various cabinet-first games.

Withal, the Xbox One S accountant is a dance step up from the original interpretation of the Xbox One controller. It even has a extend all over last year's slight redesign. First and foremost, the Xbox One S restrainer has Bluetooth. You nobelium longer need to buy in Microsoft's heavy Xbox United wireless dongle then try to agree it into uncomparable of your USB slots (while blocking half a dozen others in the physical process).

You commode only tie one Xbox One S controller at a metre with Bluetooth, but I doubt most people care about that restriction. And it's ruffled into other environments too—Valve issued an update so the Steam Link works seamlessly with the Xbox Same S controller through Bluetooth, besides. That makes the Xbox One S controller more practicable for wireless PC use (say, in the life room) than the Xbox One controller.

It also folds in improvements Microsoft has introduced into the blood Xbox One controller since 2013, like the 3.5mm jack on the bottom of the controller. The necessary chat adapter thingamajig you needed for the original Xbox One controller was an ugly wart, and I'm felicitous to see it die. You also stupefy the unnumberable small design tweaks: The rear of the controller is now unsmooth where the original stock Xbox Ace controller was smooth. The central Xbox logo jewel is slightly little, and the contour lines around it give been familiarised. The controller's overall Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe has been slightly tweaked for a more ergonomic grip.

And the bumpers are forthwith softer and squishier—more like-minded the Elite restrainer. That's excellent news, because the original Xbox One's bumpers were so loud and firm in 2013 as to constitute obnoxious. Unfortunately the Xbox One S D-pad seems similarly soft and soft, which I don't the like. It's calm down better than the Xbox 360's mushy D-pad, but it's a quit from the original Xbox One accountant.

Prat line

My official superior whole? The Xbox Combined Selected controller on top, then the Xbox I S, Xbox 360, and in last place the original blood line Xbox Nonpareil controller. The Elect still has quite a bit going for it—even after almost a year of use, my Elite's analog sticks still glide like they've been freshly oiled. It's a beautiful controller, and I'd love for Microsoft to make up an Xbox Design Lab for custom Elite controllers.

Only the Xbox One S controller, in all its various distort variants? Dependable, you can get the stock Xbox Nonpareil S controller for less, but the customization is damn nice. The Xbox Design Lab would've been great to experience while growing up in a household with three other siblings. We could've settled the "No, this is my controller" tilt once and for all.

Hell, that's pretty much my plan for this one. The powder blue controller? That's mine now. You want to play at my mansion, you bottom use the Xbox One controller that came with my console, clicky bumpers and all.