Review: Turtle Beach Stealth Pivot Controller (Xbox/PC/Mobile)

Turtle Beach is churning out devices at a rapid pace in 2024. In doing so, they’re introducing a lot of “firsts” for the company. Having gotten my hands on the newly-released Stealth Pivot Smart Controller a few weeks ago, I’ve found that this controller is not only a first for Turtle Beach, it’s a first for the industry.

It’s all the rage these days for premium controllers to come with swappable sticks, buttons, triggers, and levers. It’s a great way for gamers to have their options of how they’d like their controllers set up. Turtle Beach, however, has taken this idea to an entirely new level.

The Turtle Beach Stealth Pivot Smart Controller features additional sticks, swappable buttons, and triggers, however all of it is integrated into the controller. This is where the “pivot” feature comes into play. The Hall Effect-powered analog sticks, which they’re calling “Anti-Drift,” Are built into a pod that rotates to reveal a second controller setup on the opposite side. What’s more, the analog sticks are spring-loaded and can be spun to move to the shorter setup. to go back to the taller stature, simply spin the stick in the opposite direction. When both “Pivot” modules are spun to opposite the analog sticks, the device resembles a fight stick. This is a great setup that makes the device multipurpose.

Design-wise, the controller is beautiful. The mostly matte finish doesn’t scratch nearly as easily as feared, the grips are comfortable, and holding the controller feels great. It feels solid and isn’t as heavy as originally thought, even though so much tech is packed into it.

Testing out the device with Madden 25, Fortnite, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, Forza Motorsport, and Street Fighter 6, I found the device to be incredibly precise no matter the genre of title. The lockable triggers made firing weapons much quicker since the trigger then felt more like a button, and spinning the sticks to the lower position made twitch movement much cleaner. When switching to racing, I was able to spin the sticks right back up and unlock the triggers in-game to get me back to racing form.

The amount of features stuffed into the Turtle Beach Stealth Pivot Smart controller is staggering. While other controllers require the Turtle Beach Control Center 2 app for customizations, most customizations can be done directly from the controller thanks to the built-in LCD screen. Not only that, but said customizations can be made on the fly.

Want more than one profile? Turtle Beach has you covered with enough onboard memory to store up to five. This allows for multiple custom loadouts, multiple titles, or multiple player controls.

On the audio side of things, headsets are connected to the controller using the built-in 3.5mm audio jack. enhancements for audio can also be made directly from the controller using the quick slide adjustment lever to adjust EQ presets, audio mixes, chat volume, as well as Turtle Beach’s patented “Superhuman Hearing” feature. This is also a welcome feature that keeps immersion alive without having to leave the controller.

Let’s talk about battery life. The Turtle Beach Stealth Pivot Smart controller boasts a 20-hour battery life, which considering the amount of capabilities the device has, seems like sorcery. In testing with the titles I had mentioned before, I was able to squeeze around 20-hours while constantly tinkering with loadouts and other customizations, but after adjusting power levels to dim the LCD screen as well as turn off a couple of non-critical features like social media notifications, I was able to get approximately 23 hours of gameplay when testing a second time without customizing controls.

All of this is packed into a device that is priced at $129.99. While that may seem pricey for some, The device is on par with other controllers priced far above that, with revolutionary new features that other controllers can’t touch. In other words, it’s a steal.

An area of opportunity with the device, and this isn’t necessarily with the device directly, it would have to be the companion app. When the app was needed for things like firmware updates, connecting to a mobile device was tedious, and the app sometimes did not hold customizations. If the controller timed out, we had to start all over again. Luckily, as stated above, the app isn’t needed for most customizations thanks to the controller’s built-in features.

A second area that we found to be a little confusing was that the device is wireless with PC using the included 2.4GHz wireless adapter. It’s also wireless with Android devices, but with Xbox consoles, the device must be wired using the included eight-foot USB-A to USB-C cable. Let us be clear, this did not take away from the experience, it’s simply something we don’t quite understand since the device is Xbox branded, but a key feature isn’t available for Xbox.

Full disclosure, we tested this device mostly on an Xbox console, with usage with PC just to test the wireless connection, and with an Android device for the same reason. Please note that the Turtle Beach Stealth Pivot Smart Controller is not Compatible with iOS.

The Turtle Beach Stealth Pivot Smart Controller is a breath of fresh air in the controller space. Controllers have only ever been revolutionized a handful of times over the 50+ year lifespan of this industry, but Turtle Beach has come out of nowhere and done it again. With a solid build, great battery life, stand-alone customization options, and a great price tag, among other things, this is the controller of the year, and it’s not close.