Saitek X52 Pro Flight System Controller
by Saitek
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List Price: Our Price: $140.42 You Save: $29.53 (17%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $116.11 (click here) Category: CE See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Saitek X52 Pro Flight System Controller
Customer Review: Saitek X52 Pro
Summary: 4 Stars
The joystick has numerous adjustments that you can setup. For some reason I oftentimes have to reinstall the driver for it since FSX doesn't always recognize it since the radio information doesn't indicate in my joystick window. However, once I install the drivers again and restart FSX, everything works fine again. Just irritating that I always have to keep reinstalling it.Customer Review: More than enough!
Summary: 4 Stars
This joystick and throttle controller is more than I need! I'm a beginner in Microsoft flight simulator and this thing has alot of buttons that I still don't use! It's not easy to learn for beginners but I think of it as an investment for the future when I learn more stuff!
The product is smooth and accurate which is great but it costs more than others!
Customer Review: Very Good Flight Control System
Summary: 4 Stars
Great piece of hardware. The reason for ONLY 4 stars is that the manual and software are not up to date, and updated ones must be located and downloaded.
The hardware is really good,,and worth the trouble.
Customer Review: Great Stick, Not Yet Vista
Summary: 3 Stars
Ordering: 5 of 5
Direct from Amazon, arrived 2 business days after placing the order. The retail box is OK, with just egg shell cardboard for internal support, the oversized shipping box with airpacks was probably necessary. The Pro comes with one DVD (.html manual, drivers and Flight Simulator X demo) and a single page, multi-lanquage instruction sheet. Printed instructions stop at plug in and load the DVD to install the drivers.
Appearance: 5 of 5
Aesthetically superior to the X52 IMHO. And many other brands as well, this is a serious piece of peripheral, it just plain looks like it means business, unlike most of the splashy silver competitors.
Function: 4 of 5
Its a great stick, spring tension is consistant throughout the full motion range, although force is somewhat light. Not for lefties. Mode change knob might be easier for one-handing if it were on the left instead of the right side of the column, I find myself letting go of the joy handle to twist for a mode change. Toggle buttons at the base of the stick aren't the ancient mechanical potentiometer trimmers- up on the left toggle changes the viewpoint in the FSX demo, out of the box.
Throttle MFD display is angled, easier to see than the X52. MFD has a clock, push the wheel and it turns into a stopwatch timer. Switching force for the wheel button is light, quite easy to button when one only wants to wheel. Throttle handle has a button style mouse, works as well as the mouse button on some laptop keyboards. At about 80% throttle the force to pass the military/afterburner detent is severe, dialing down the adjustment helps some.
If you are into rudder control, the handle twists for Z rotation, or pull out the small tab at the base of the handle for twist lockdown and/or usage with separate rudder pedals. However, with a strong twist there is still about a 20% Z rotation even with the lockout set. Bump up the deadzone or ensure ZRot is disabled if not in use, perhaps a sensor lockout instead would work better here.
Software: 1 of 5
This is where we fall short, especially if your new PC came with Vista. The programming SW is on the supplied DVD, but go straight to the Saitek web site and grab the latest drivers and profile editor if/when available. Dialups beware, driver + editor downloads are up to 20+Mb depending on the OS. Latest Vista drivers recognize the device and installed, but the the lack of programming SW and profiles for Vista is a bust. The latest driver adds on/off/color control for each individual LED, very nice, but the control panel settings stay with the PC, not a game profile, best as I can determine. There is also an SDK for programming the MFD, requires MS Visual Studio CC++.
The FSX demo has a few small maps and five aircraft, including the twitchy helicopter- not the Bell. Only single engine choice is an ultralight but 65m/110k per hour airborn still beats a drive any day ;) and after about fifteen minutes or so the screen will blank and the demo exits.
A big caveat with the lack of profile editing software, files created for the X52 aren't compatible with the Pro. Nor will the Vista drivers recognize a Pro file created on XP. Until Vista-capable editor is released and/or Saitek posts more Pro-version profiles, the inability to customize is severe.
The iMFD plugin for FSX seems to have either the same X52 vs. X52Pro issue or maybe an OS .exe glitch. In XP SP2, a double click only results in an error dialog box. The demo output program in the SDK loads and runs, and has LED controls similar to the Vista control panel LED tab, except the button labels in the dialog box never change with the state.
But keep an eye on the support web site, this would item would be a 5 when the software is online, check the file dates from Saitek (DDMMYY).
Software versions tested:
XPHome 32bit driver 5.2.0.22 filedate 171006, editor 4.3.4.17, filedate 191206.
Vista 32bit driver 6.0.2.123 filedate 300107, editor NA.
Customer Review: After serious use....
Summary: 3 Stars
I am a military buff and I bought this item to get as close as possible to a real life pilots view from inside a cockpit. It appears to be amazing, but I have not been able to do anything with the "custom" programmable settings. This product sounded like the best thing out on the market today, but I would have bought a piece of wood and hooked up some electronics to it to perform the way this thing has performed for me. It definitely serves the purpose for a joystick during flight, but the extras simply stink and there is no such thing as programmable buttons and switches, this does not occur.
The other downfall is a person cannot use this joystick for any other games they would like to use a joystick for. It simply will not work. I have tried it on 6 different computers all with different setups and it just will not allow play on some combat action games for a PC which allows a joystick as an available option. If you are looking for a standard joystick, I would suggest a much lower priced joystick from the same manufacturer, but do not waste your money on a good description when the results just do not follow.