Exceeded my expectations
Don’t get me wrong, I had high hopes for this controller, but seeing some reviews about the controller feeling “cheap” or the weird layout I was somewhat cautious with my expectations. But now that I have it in my hands those concerns disappeared completely. I have multiple controllers from all the main vendors so I have a good grasp on when a controller feels cheap. The new Steam controller doesn’t feel cheap in any way and I think is on par with what you can expect on a controller of this price. The layout is really comfortable for me, I personally don’t have any problems pressing the back buttons or the positioning of the trackpads and I can reach each button comfortably, for me it feels way better and more comfortable than the Steam deck. The trackpads are really nice, it really surprised me how responsive they are specially paired with a 240hz monitor. It really closes the gap between mouse and controller. Using the trackpads along with gyro really is amazing, and for me it’s far easier and comfortable to use both in this form factor that on the Steam deck. The sticks also surprised me, when I started seeing the images I was somewhat disappointed I didn’t see any anti-friction rings like on the Dualsense or some 8Bitdo controllers, but I’m happy to announce that the plastic around the stick cutouts is really smooth on the inside so they don’t feel grainy when grinding on the plastic like on an Xbox controller. Overall really nice and premium controller and definitely worth the price with how many things you can do with it.