SimHQ.com - Technology Zone - Review: Saitek X52 HOTAS

I had to adjust the stick profile in IL-2, taking a bit off the back end of the Y axis of the joystick. At 100% it made every aircraft depart into a spin. I brought the right hand column number thingy in the Pitch controls of IL-2 / AEP / PF to 86 and no worries. But it was weird to have to adjust it. And it glows blue. Blue-blue-blue. In the setup you can make it really, really bright... or off. I wish they had a slider for that setting rather than just one of three presets, as I wanted a faint glow. The wife spotted it from the hallway — the other end of the hallway from the computer room — as it threw colored light from the dark (monitor and lights off)! So much for casual, unannounced upgrades!

I'm not a big profiles guy. One mode, just the primary and a few critical secondary ones configured (prop pitch, elevator trim, flaps, guns, cannons, rockets, bombs, bail out, and now ground and dive brakes, zoom view in, out, gun sight view, wide view, TrackIR enable / disable and center, padlock, "press to talk" for Teamspeak), so it was a snap to get up and running. A few of the axis and button assignments were different in the IL-2 controller setup, though, so I had to run back through them.

There's some blurb about no-touch sensors inside, so it's supposed to keep true forever. I'm not really interested in such things (I just want it to work for three or four years), but apparently it's very good it has them.

My X52 cost $136 USD at CompUSA. So far it's been worth every penny in making the sim more enjoyable. I still stink at flying, but at least it's my fault and not the controller's!

System Specs

Intel P4 2.8GHz processor
Asus P4P800 motherboard
ATI x800 XT video card
Audigy Gamer Sound Card
1GB Kingston RAM
CD-RW + DVD-RW
Maxtor 200GB drive
DirectX Version 9.0c
Windows XP Home with SP2
TrackIR 3 Pro with Vector Expansion
Saitek X52 HOTAS

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