Xbox 360 Chatpad Review

First, I’d like to say that my behavior on XBL can sometimes be a little weird. That’s because it isn’t me talking or playing. It’s her

So after 24 hours with the Chatpad, I freaking love this thing. Yes it does make text entry a hell of a lot easier, and when there’s tons of communication between TOID members, it helps a lot. I can confirm it works in games where the text blade comes up to enter (such as COD4’s clan tag screen or Forza 2’s picture naming mode). It doesn’t support PSU and FFXI currently according to others.

Funny enough, there’s two buttons on there that I have no idea what they do (a green button and a orange button). The keys are backlit and will stay on for about 10 seconds before going off. I’ll be recharging my controller soon and I’m interested to see what kind of battery drain it may do.

This does add a little heft to the controller, but nothing crazy. Not much worse weight wise than say, the DUKE or something. You basically line up the plug to the port and it snaps into the two holes there at the bottom of the controller. In the second pic, I haven’t completely snapped the part in yet.

Now the microphone. Yes, they include a new headset in the package for this since the original port is in use. The sound and voice quality are no different than the original wired headset. I have two problems with the headset though. One is the plug into the chatpad makes me think this wire could easily get frayed or damaged due to the wire being at a 90 degree angle and not straight out. The second is the move of the mute/volume controls to the wire itself and not down near the controller. My wife loves to come in and talk to me during gameplay and before I could shift my thumb down from the right thumbstick to the mute control. Now I actually have to take a hand off the controller to do so, and in the case of say COD4, it’s long enough to get you killed. And spawn killed. Again.

Overall I still recommend this. It makes text entry and messenging friends a hell of a lot easier. I didn’t feel more tired or sore due to the slightly added weight, but individual feelings may vary.
VERDICT = A+ BUY IT