Annual Review: Six Gamepads

Wireless With Staying Power

Saitek has the answer to the everlasting question of a system powered by batteries which have to be changed or an accumulator which needs recharging. Their two-battery system makes short work of powering. Recharging via the base and the USB port is a good solution, but the best idea is having one battery working on the pad while the other recharges. The charged battery is fairly light and last 3-4 hours (the claim is six).

The charge signal means you can see when it's time to change and that takes about two seconds. Another advantage is that the pad is not weighed down. At last an alternative to the more expensive and polluting battery system. The 900 MHz bandwidth RF transmission is another good solution. We suffered no interference and never had to reconnect manually with the little button under the pad, though of course other wireless devices like mice and keyboards work on 27 MHz so there is no risk of interference. The US version has a switch to select another channel if need be. On the European version, the pad only has one channel so you can't run two P3000s together, but in any case, the risk of interference with any other product seems unlikely.