Turtle Beach Stealth Ultra Review

“It feels a bit cheap.” Our first reaction to the Turtle Beach Stealth Ultra was not a good one. In fact, you can count our second reaction to that as well. From there, it has seriously grown on us.

Search Google and you’ll find a seemingly endless list of articles and videos declaring this controller an Xbox Elite killer. Well, my Xbox Elite killed itself. I didn’t need gimmicks, I needed a solid device for PC gaming.

So obviously I picked the controller with the screen in it.

Yes, that section at the top of the controller in the image above is an actual tiny screen that you can use to control almost everything about the controller, as well as receive social media messages. And while I found myself rolling my eyes at the concept, it has been a genuine game changer.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

First Reactions Were Less Than Ultra

The Xbox Elite controller feels premium. That’s until it falls apart in your hands. It’s heavy, it’s comfortable. It feels like you’ve bought a premium controller.

The Turtle Beach Stealth Ultra does not feel like that. It’s light. Its plastics feel cheap. But the cost of it is anything but.

Honestly, it’s not that bad. Spoiled by the Elite, the immediate comparison was very much not in the Ultra’s favour. It was an immediate disappointment.

But the proof was in the playing, and so I plugged in the included dongle and leapt into a game. It disconnected repeatedly for an hour. I nearly wrote it off as a failed experiment. I put the dongle back in its holder on the charging stand, when it leapt into life and we’ve had no problems since. Some people online have speculated the dongle has some issues with heat, but whatever the problem, the controller has connected flawlessly since then. Anybody who has tried to connect an Elite controller via bluetooth will tell you what a miracle that is. An actual wireless controller without needed to mess around with additional dongles or bluetooth drivers?

From there, I’ve only become more impressed.

The Stealth Ultra Screen

Let’s get the obvious out of the way first. Is a screen actually necessary in a controller?

The answer is probably no, but I’d struggle to go back to a premium controller without it.

The downside of the Xbox Elite, for me, was that to get into the customisability of it, you needed to us an app. On the Stealth Ultra you can do everything through the screen. This makes changing things on the fly almost frivolous.

Naturally, you can also change profiles, vibration intensity, lighting and sound options from the screen too. Removing the block of having to use an app outside of game makes the likelihood of using it increase tenfold.

Some of the sound options will only benefit those already in the Turtle Beach ecosystem, and I’m not entirely convinced by them anyway. And the social options are useful if you don’t want to have to rely on your usual screens while gaming. But those features are more bonuses than anything.

Controlling the Controller

The screen might be a gimmick, but it’s a good gimmick. And it wouldn’t matter for a moment if the rest of the controller fell apart. Thankfully, I’m impressed.

Buttons react quickly, and have a satisfying click to them. Hall effect sticks make no difference to feel, but give me hope that I won’t have stick drift in six months, like I did with my PS5 controller. It’s comfortable, not a million miles from the Xbox Series controllers themselves. And while you can’t get away from the fact that it feels lighter than I’d like, the build quality seems decent. As someone who is still feeling gun shy after his Elite broke in two months, I’ll hold off on complimenting build quality too much. But so far it feels like a winner.

My one complaint in this area could have been the d-pad. I was spoiled by the choice of the Elite, and there is no options to swap things out here. That odd grey thing is what you’re going to be using. But in use, I’ve been quite happy with it. It’s comfortable, and feels satisfying.

I’ve played a variety of games over the last few months, and while I maintain that it’s not quite as comfortable as the Elite to me, it’s certainly a close competitor.

The back buttons are much better than the paddles on the back of the Elite. Those would press in whenever you put the controller down. The buttons, like everything on the front of the controller, feel very specific. Accidentally pressing them is quite hard.

You can’t assign keyboard keys to the back buttons as of yet, and you can’t have two buttons assigned at the same time. The former is hopefully going to be changed in a firmware update, while the latter is a Microsoft issue. Either way, as of now this is my only complaint with the customisability.

I’ve had no latency issues through the wireless connection, and the battery more than lasts for a few sessions without charging. I severely doubt the claims of 30 hours (it’s less than ten under normal use), but I’m sure you could turn off everything and boost that up a bit.

Stealth Ultra Review – Conclusion

It’d be easy to write off this controller as a gimmick. It’s not. And while I have some misgivings about it, I’m really very impressed. It’s fun to use, and reliable when you need it. The screen makes customising the device a cinch, and the back buttons are much better than the ones on the Elite.

The Stealth Ultra is an excellent controller, and I’d say it’s worth the extra money for what it can do. Frankly, just being able to play it wirelessly without having to faff makes a big difference to my PC gaming.

If you’re on the look out for a premium controller, this should definitely be on you watchlist.