Saitek (Slightly) Upgrades Its HOTAS Lineup With The X-56 Rhino

Saitek is back with another set of hands-on-throttle-and-stick (HOTAS) flight peripheral, and it’s called the X-56 Rhino. But if the product image looks somewhat familiar, it's because not much has changed since the last iteration.

In the past, the company’s top-tier HOTAS model was the X-55 Rhino, which had a nearly identical design to the new version. However, Saitek said that the X-56 has some new features. In addition to a new paint job (the X-55 had a military-styled paint scheme), the new peripheral also includes two small analog sticks--one on the stick and the other on the right throttle. These seem to replace the buttons that were initially placed in the same location on the X-55, and they allow you to have the so-called "six degrees of freedom" movements (pitch, roll, yaw, forwards and backwards, up and down, and left and right).

The previous model also had green backlighting available, but the X-56 will have RGB backlighting, so you can have your choice of illumination from 16 million color variants.

Other than that, the X-56 Rhino seems to have the same layout as its predecessor. Even the stick includes four different springs for various resistance levels. Saitek believes that this new model would be the perfect fit for VR games, most notably Elite: Dangerous. You can pre-order it Amazon for $249.99 ($339.99 CAD), and it comes out on May 30.

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