Saitek P2900 Wireless PC Game Pad

I have never purchased anything from Saitek, so I was interested on how well this game pad would perform against the competition. So, I will begin with the install:

Installation
1. Insert the driver CD that came with the device.
2. When the auto run screen opened, select 'Install drivers and SST Programming software.
3. Follow the prompts.
4. Insert the P2900 wireless transmitter into one of your computer's free USB ports.
5. Open the battery compartment on the back of the P2900 and insert one AA battery.
6. Flip the switch on the back side from 'off' --> 'on'
7. If you experience interference, press the 'scan' button to scan for the transmitter.
8. Play!


First try, the installation installed without any hickups. Alright, time to try it out! Launch EA Sports NHL '07. I navigated through the menus and started a game. The controller was recognized with no problems, automatically configured to the controls that I am used to. I was impressed.

What I did notice that I appreciated, was when you load NHL '07, if you dont have your game pad plugged in when you launch the game, your game pad is not recognized in the game. But with the Saitek P2900, the transmitter acts as if the game pad is plugged in all the time. So even if you launch the game with the game pad switched to the 'off' position, you can power it on and begin playing without having to restart the game. Nice feature.

After probably about 30 hours of game play, the controller held strong. Maybe 1 out of ten games, I experienced a 3-6 second frequency interference where the game pad had a hard time responding to my controls. The controls seem to be pretty accurate and precise.

One other note, while playing I realized that what would be the 'start' and 'select' buttons are rather close to the action buttons (X,Triangle, Square, and Circle on the PS2 Controller). I found myself hitting 'start' and 'select' to often. Start paused the game and select pulled my goalie. Rather frustrating. I think it took me about 4-5 games until I began to get used to the button layout.

Conclusion
For the price, I consider this gamepad a no brainer. Despite the learning curve provided by its button layout, this game pad performs well, and is quite convenient.