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Review on ๐ŸŽฎ Xbox One Controller Wireless Adapter for Windows 10/8.1/8/7 - Compatible and Optimized for Improved Connectivity by Tom Roberts

Revainrating 5 out of 5

It's a cheap fake, but it works!

TL;DR: It's definitely a cheap fake, but it works well in normal gaming scenarios if you're in the same room as the PC you're connecting it to. Make sure you have an internet connection so Windows updates can install drivers for it. 4 out of 5 stars, I will buy again. Detailed Review: I was very skeptical about this product but back then all official XBox wireless dongles were either incredibly expensive or took weeks to ship and I needed something within 2 days for a customer to use a PC, that I had just collected for games. They already had an XBox controller, but when I reminded them at the last minute that they would need a dongle to use their controller wirelessly on a PC (all their controllers didn't have Bluetooth support), they asked me to get one to get for you. Unfortunately I don't have extra stock and didn't want to give away the ones I use. So I went to Revain to buy one and found people charging outrageous prices for something that normally costs $20. Of course, the customer doesn't know that, so I'd still pay $60 for it if it meant I could get it in a day or two, but at the time there weren't any options that could get me an official one. 2 days. So I took a chance by going for this knock off key. It is unbranded and DEFINITELY NOT a legitimate Microsoft key. It's a cheap Chinese knockoff and I was able to verify this by taking my second one apart and comparing it to one I bought from Best Buy a year ago that was killed by a coolant leak I had (long story ). However, it still matters whether it works or not. And I'm happy to say that it works great. There are 2 differences (other than the missing logo and slightly different components inside) that I can find. 1) Official XBox dongle is always instantly recognized on a Windows 10 computer, no need to update drivers, you just plug it in, it will be recognized and working. With this, it is unlikely that your device will recognize it immediately. For most people this isn't a problem as most people don't know how to turn off Windows Update so Windows Update will run automatically in the background and download the right drivers and you'll be up and running in minutes without having to do anything do. so most people won't even notice the difference. However, some of us want to control the updates our computers receive and we can block WU by default, in which case it won't work. You must connect to the Internet and allow Windows Update to communicate with the Microsoft server and let the update download before it will be detected. This can also be a problem for those of you who are in areas with poor internet coverage and cannot always connect to the internet. For those of you, remember that you only need to connect your computer to the internet for a few minutes while the driver is downloaded and installed. (It's literally less than half a megabyte so it won't use up any bandwidth, and even on the slowest internet connection it will take a few seconds to a few minutes, but keep that in mind all offline gamers). 2) The second difference is - the performance of the wireless radio. I did some analysis on the wireless frequency and power compared to the official Xbox dongle and the signal strength is about 15% lower on average. He also seems to have trouble climbing obstacles, and he also has more interference issues. Again, this doesn't pose a problem for most gamers who are in the same room as your gaming PC. But if you're one of those gamers who have your computer in one room and your TV you're gaming on in one other, it does not have the same performance as an official XBox key, especially when there is more than a wall between you and you. . Key. The Xbox One is powerful enough to have my gaming PC in my upstairs game room, but to be able to play via Steamlink on my downstairs NVidia Shield with a controller paired to the upstairs dongle. This new one isn't powerful enough for that and has frequent drops that make it frustrating in this particular scenario. However, my sample size was only 2, so your mileage may vary. Overall, I still give the product 4 stars. I'm only deducting 1 star and that's mainly because they aren't very honest that it's a cheap clone. If people aren't careful, they might think they're buying an official XBox controller key and never find out that they actually just got a Chinese fake of that key. And if you buy it for use in any of the edge cases listed above, you may be disappointed, which is why I really think it's worth deducting a star. But I can't dock this product in good conscience. Nothing more as at least for most people buying this if the product isn't dead on arrival (both were ordered about 3 weeks apart and both arrived in perfect condition). works, i just noticed some comments from people saying their device was dead on arrival but take this with a grain of salt because some people may not realize that they need to plug the dongle into a powered port , and then assume that the product is dead even though it's just their own ignorance), then you will have a lot of experience with it. I've tested some of my devices quite extensively, I had to make sure I wouldn't regret reselling it to my customers and I'm happy to report that it works great for them and they haven't had any issues with it. Even with the one I bought for myself I had to destroy the outer case to open it but I was able to keep the circuit board intact and it works great for me too. Controller pair Just awesome, I have 5 controllers in my playroom and was able to connect all 5 at the same time with no problems. Unfortunately, I don't have a high-speed camera yet that I want to test for latency, so I can't tell from empirical data if there's a latency penalty for using this option. But jumping back and forth between the two with my own senses, I personally can't tell the difference. However, the product works great for normal use cases, hence 4 out of 5 stars!

Pros
  • Legacy systems
Cons
  • Only available in black