- Developer: PDP
- Platforms: Xbox One
- Supplied by: LittleBig PR/PDP
I think I speak for most when I say controller batteries are a pain in the ass.
Every gamer has found themselves halfway through a match and their controller dies, and, oops, you forgot to get batteries. This usually leads to your controller being hardwired into your Xbox and creating a horrid buzzing noise on your mic (damn dirty energy), and unless you hate your friends, no one wants that.
Plenty of brands have taken a jab at making the best rechargeable solution for the Xbox controller, even Xbox have their own branded battery packs.
Take it from me though, none that we have tried have done it this well.
PDP have smashed it out of the ballpark with the Ultra Slim Charging System. The Ultra Slim charger is a simple enough product but it does exactly what it says on the box, and it does it exceptionally well.
In the box you will get the charging dock, two battery packs, two Xbox controller backs and a power cable.
Just to get it out of the way there is only one real issue I had with this. The power cable is pretty short: It is stretched to the limit just to go from the floor straight up to sit on my desk. If there is only a short distance from where your setup is to the outlet this won’t be an issue, but if you are any further than average desk height then you might struggle to get the charger where you want.
The dock itself is a sleek, slim, low profile strip, long enough for 2 controllers to sit snug on it with some extra length for two LED charging indicators that shine through the plastic and a PDP logo.
It’s a pretty simple design. Clean black plastic with a gloss-black bevel running around the edge, and to give it all an extra little something special, there is also a nice green under-glow when you pop your controller on the dock that gives it a little extra ambience.
Where the controllers sit on top of the unit, you will find two notches with gold contacts that connect to the contacts on the battery pack, whilst on the bottom (after a satisfying peel) there is a long rubberized foot that prevents it from moving around.
As for the battery packs themselves, they are similar to the Xbox official ones. They slot into your battery slot and then the controller’s battery cover will be replaced with the PDP one that contains the contacts to facilitate charging while docked.
As I said, it’s a simple product. It’s clean and sleek, will look perfect in any setup, and so far I have managed three days of average gaming without recharging, so I have no problem confidently going into a 12 to 24 hour stream with one of these, and I’m pretty sure it will come out at the other end with charge to spare.
Summary
What can I say? It’s a brilliant product. It looks good, feels good, has nice accent lighting and the battery life is so far brilliant. As such, I find it easy to fully recommend this charging solution.
What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments!