Renewed Amazon Fire TV Game Controller 1st Generation

Description

Like an Xbox 360 pad—and that’s a good thing

The general shape and feel of this year’s controller is pretty similar to last year’s—meaning, it’s emulating an Xbox 360 pad pretty blatantly. In fact, this year’s does so even more, and your hands will be glad for it.

The hand grips are more tapered this time around, meaning they fit far more flush into hands both big and small than last year’s. The joysticks have received increased tension; the d-pad sits on a slightly raised ledge; and the bumper and trigger buttons have gotten larger and wider, with more satisfying action upon depression.

After switching back and forth in active gameplay between the Xbox 360 pad and this new Amazon Fire TV Gamepad, we really didn’t notice much difference in both comfort and control—with one exception. The first Amazon Fire TV Gamepad we received had serious issues with d-pad performance; taps in every direction were occasionally lost, with rightward taps suffering the most for some reason. Our replacement pad didn’t have this issue, but its downward button presses felt a little sticky. This is still a far better d-pad than can be found on most third-party controllers on the market; we’d say it’s on par with the 360’s wonky d-pad, but PlayStation controllers and the Xbox One pad have it beat.