Microsoft Xbox 360 Wireless Controller for Windows

I've owned the Xbox 360 Wireless Controller for Windows device for about a week, and the only thing I am unhappy about is that I waited so long to buy this controller.

Combined with Xpadder, a free program that lets you emulate key presses and mouse movements directly from the controller (google the program), the 360 controller has become a great way to websurf, play games (e.g. Gears of War, Resident Evil 4), and even control media applications such as Cyberlink PowerDVD. If you don't want to bother programming the Xpadder software yourself, you can download predefined profiles for each of your programs and modify them as you see fit. The range of the controller is sufficient for me, but I have a pretty small apartment :-) I do not know how long the batteries will last and I am considering getting some kind of rechargeable setup. I've run this controller on both Windows XP and Windows Vista without any bugs or other problems.

Overall, I rate this product...Read more

If you have Vista and play games then you need this controller. Works perfect without the need of installing drivers or gamepad/game configuration. Finally an easy care-free gamepad for Windows! Remember not to install the CD that comes with this controller if you have Vista. I've had this controller for over a month now and it works perfectly. Take note that the batteries go fairly quickly.

The transceivers that come with the controllers are crap, shame I didn't learn about it until after I picked one up but these things have been failure prone for years. The power draw is high and users have had USB devices that were plugged in simultaneously fail (actual device failure, just just plug back in failure), and even if it doesn't kill other devices, the receiver is prone to fail itself. There was a link on Engadget years ago describing these issues and user feedback.

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The problem with the receivers themselves is that the power draw is so high the F1 fuse on the unit is blowing (which could potentially kill underpowered USB devices on same computer). It can be opened up and hacked manually, but why should you have to do that? Now you've got a device which takes too much power, and exceeds the operating limits that even MS defined.

Oh - and product only warrantied for 90 days, never mind that the receiver doesn't get the wear...Read more