The Box:
After opening the box you will see the Controller itself shining right into your face. After you take it out of the box you will find the reciver and 2 AA-sized Duracell batteries
wich are still at 100% after one week of usage lol. Underneath it you will find some user manuals and surprisingly a micro USB cable and a micro USB to "normal" USB adapter even though the shop page still states that there is no micro USB cable included.
USB 2.0 via Micro USB port (cable not included)
So you can either plug in the adapter somewhere into your computer and use the cable for the controller when you want to or you do it like I do and use the USB adapter and the micro USB cable as an extension cord for the reciver and unplug the cable from the adapter when you want to use it wired. However I was not able to drag the reciver out of that adapter for some reason because it feels like someone glued it so you can't pull it out. Neither me or anyone else I know managed to pull that thing out. And well thats about it for the unboxing.
The Controller:
This thing is probably the biggest controller I've ever held. I mean... just look at it! For a controller this thing is huge but it's a relief to me because I've got big hands. That means if: you can hold an Xbox 360 controller you are also able to get comfy with the Steam Controller. However if you prefer small gamepads this thing probably isn't your thing. The tackpads sizes are pretty decent and I dont feel like they are too small or something like that. The sticks position is just right and so are the ABXY buttons. Also using the left Trackpad as a D-Pad works out fine too. Using the L and R buttons works fine too but I have to say that the LT and RT buttons have too short travel lengh for being fully pressed. You reach the maximum pretty quick wich is not ideal for racing games. The grip buttons are usefull as well but at the beginning you might be pressing these all the time by mistake. And last but not least you have the Start, Back and Steam button wich are self-explanatory. Using and getting used to that controller might take some time but after you've got the hang on it it is a pretty amazing device.
The Installation:
After placing the batteries into the controller and pluging the reciver into my computer and connecting my controller wirelessly, Steam said I should launch Big Picture mode now as the controller will only function as a controller in Big Picture mode. After starting Big Picture mode it said that the firmware of my controller needs to be updated. I don't really know how long the update took because I was AFK while it was doing its update but it cannot be longer than about 3 minutes. After I came back it said that it is recommended to run Steam Beta for better controller compatibility so I did that as well. So with the preparations finally being done I've searched for some games on my library...
The Setup:
On each game you can go to settings and configure your controller for the game you want to play. The really great thing is: you CAN configure the controller like YOU want to have it. This is where the Steam Controller shines bright for me. You can decide whether you want to map keyboard bindings to your gamepad or XInput bindings. Uppon setup you can load templates ("gamepad", "gamepad with high precision camera/pointer" and "keyboard (WASD) with mouse") wich are a great basis to getting started with. If you are too lazy to make a gamepad layout by yourself you can use gamepad layouts recommended by the developers of the game or by the community. You can even upload your own layouts for friends and others to use. Also you can save multiple layouts for one game to use. You can also change the layout ingame by pressing the Steam button and entering the configure menu there. You can even re-map buttons in games wich are not allowing this or you can play keyboard only games with a gamepad now too. I can talk a lot about the different configuration settings you can use but that would be way too long so I suggest that you just watch a video to that toppic if you are really interested in what this thing can do. But fact is: you can customise this controller in thousands of different ways.
Playing Games:
The latency between input and output is almost non-existent, even wirelessly. The input comes immediately after pressing a button wich just feels great. The feedback of the buttons is also great. Hovering over the trackpads will make them vibrate to give the player feedback that he is on the pad and whether he is moving his/her thumb or not (you can also disable that if the vibrations are irritatating you). So I can say the input feedback works great however the controller does not feature regular rumble. I mean something like: "the controller rumbles when you get hit by something" does not work with this thing even when you disable the force feedback on the trackpads. That is actually pity. I was expecting some mad controller rumbling in certain games like I am used from several other gamepads. Using the trackpads as a mouse feels good and responsive. The right touchpad is for the mouse movement and the left for the mousewheel in most cases. The force feedback really feels like some kind of a trackball on the right side and on the left side as some kind of mousewheel. It really gives you the feeling that you are controlling the mouse and it feels great. But on the other hand the Dpad goes only in 4 directions. In most cases this causes no issues but in some games it does. Usaly a POV-hat has 8 directions (2 horizontal, 2 vertical and 4 diagonal) and some games need the diagonal directions as well wich cannot be pressed using the Steam Controller. That means that you can only walk horizontal and vertical in those games but not diagonal. Only games wich recognize up and left as upleft are compatible but not games wich explicitly need upleft to walk upleft. Speaking about diagonals: hitting the diagonals is not hard with that controller but holding a diagonal direction is a pain in the ♥♦♣. I allways keep slipping of the diagonals when I try to hold these. So the Dpad is fine for games where diagonals are irrelevant or not so often used but not for games where diagonals play an important role. Otherwise this controller is great to play your games with especially with all the customisation you have. But it definitely needs some time to getting used to it.
Playing Non-Steam Games:
It is like playing Steam games but it needs to detect the Steam overlay in order to work (wich means you cannot disable the Steam overlay in Steam games else you cannot use the controller). If your non-Steam game supports OpenGL then you're good to go and your setup should work like expected. However when it does not detect the Steam overlay it will use the desktop configuration. Luckily you can edit the desktop controlls but weirdly not every programm does work with the Steam controller. So you need to pray that your game/programm is compatible with the controller. If not there is no way that you can use the controller for your programm. Also I've once changed the trackpad functions but it still used the defaults for no apparent reason. It only changed the stick and ABXY buttons for me. I've tried to play Phantasy Star Online with it but no matter what I tried it just didn't worked :'<
Desktop Configuration:
Like I've mentioned earlier the controller features a desktop configuration. That is pretty cool so you can use the controller as a Mouse on some programms. I use it when browsing through the internet while leaning back. I have my accuracy of the mouse and I can enjoy watching videos with the Steam controller being my remote. The default desktop configuration is also active when Steam is not running. However when you close Steam after it once started the controller will no longer work until you start Steam again. Again you can customise the controller like you want to have it. When Steam is minimized and you press the Steam button the Steam protramm will show up. When Steam is active in non-Big Picture mode and you press the Steam button it will launch Steam into Big Picture mode. You can turn of the controller at any time when holding the Steam button for about 5 seconds
Final Thoughts:
The Steam Controller is well-made and it does it's job really good. The hardware is great but it has flaws on its software side like the desktop configuration or the Dpad configuration. The missing rumble feature really hurts but I hope that they will implement this missing feature. I am going to mail them about my issues and I hope that they are going to fix them. Otherwise you can easily play allmost every game with it and also you can customise the controller like no other controller. But I still have my DS2 controller for some games that I just can't play with the Steam Controller. I can recommend this controller but for now I would rather wait until they ironed all the bugs out and leave the beta stage.
Question Time:
If you have any questions left please ask me and I might be able to answer that question.
Thank you very much for reading my review.
