The Xbox 360 Chatpad Review

I got this for Christmas seeing as I was so fed up of a) Xbox Live's unacceptably slow typing method which is much easier on the PS3 b) Using the alternative of an actual computer USB keyboard, which was an inconvenience due to size and having to pick it up every time I wanted to use it. It comes with one of the new headsets which are pretty thin and crappy, but it'll do.

The actual chatpad is a small rectangular-ish attachment that clicks onto the controller and from there you can type with your thumbs. This works pretty well seeing as it's just below the analogs, where your thumbs would be anyway so it is comfortable. It doesn't unbalance the controller either; while it is quite heavy all it does is shift the weight towards the grips so if anything it will sit more snugly into your hands. The buttons themselves are the perfect size, I don't have huge hands but I can't imagine anyone having trouble hitting a certain key and it should roughly double your typing speed.

So while this is a good tool for quickly messaging your friends 'Internet just buggered', it's still not quite as good as one would hope. The main problem I experience, mainly with the space bar, is some buttons not registering that you pressed them unless you really push them in. It's not damaged as I've taken good care of it but it seems all too often I look at the message I'm writing and realise I've missed quite a few letters. Anyone intending to use a lot of symbols or punctuation may get frustrated too as while these are accessed using space-efficient 'colour buttons' combined with the letter keys, they are pretty hard to see on the buttons themselves and you tend to have to look for about 10 seconds to find something as simple as an exclamation mark. It doesn't help that they threw in a load of useless Greek letters and strange symbols that no one will find a use for; they should have used this space to have one symbol per letter instead of two. 

That seems like a lot of negatives, but it's not a terrible piece of kit. 8/10 for considerably faster typing even if you have to keep checking you're typing what you mean to. It is, however, horribly overpriced at £20 (though I'm aware you're paying for the headset too). I would have paid no more than £10 on it.