Annual Review: Six Gamepads

Saitek P3000 Pad

Saitek's new pad lineup has broken with previous habit and improved in every way. The latest flagship is the P3000, which has all the features you could want in a pad. It has done away with the wires and communicates with its radio frequency base on a 900 MHz bandwidth. It has two 280mA Ni-Mh batteries, one powering the pad and the other charging on the base. It has six buttons with a shift key to double them, two triggers, a D-pad and two analog sticks. And then it has two buttons to switch the joysticks to digital mode. There is an LCD screen to control the battery status so you won't run out of steam during a game. This also shows whether you are in analog or digital mode, though that is a bit of a gimmick. The only criticism is that the D-pad, console and buttons are in a sort of silver plastic that looks a bit tacky.