The best 360 accessory of 2007?
Earlier this week the 360 Messenger Kit was on sale at Circuit City for $20. After Amazon matched the price I decided to order one to see what it was like. My conclusion? It’s probably one of the neatest accessories that have been released on the 360 but its actual usefulness is minimal. How often do I even send messages? Maybe I’ll sign up for MSN since that it is integrated into the 360 so I can message with people on MSN when I’m playing. But is anyone even using MSN these days?
The Messenger Kit comes with two items: the chatpad and a headset. The reason why the Messenger Kit comes with an additional headset is that the chatpad plugs into the headset port at the bottom of the 360 controller, blocking the three holes that you would usually plug your 360 headset into. This new headset is different than the usual 360 headset – it has the mute and volume buttons on the cable itself like a hands-free kit. Instead of a three pronged jack, it’s got a single jack that plugs into the single hole at the bottom of the chatpad.
The headset’s volume controls and mute are now on the cable itself.
The decision Microsoft made to move the volume control and mute onto the cable itself as opposed to the base has its good and bad. The good is that it not only works with the chatpad, it also works with any headset jack that already exists on a 360 accessory (you just plug the headset into the main hole) and the Rock Band drum kit. I remember when I first tried to plug my regular headset into the Rock Band drum kit and it would not work. I was dumbfounded for a while before a friend mentioned that there was a special adapter included with Rock Band that you had to plug into the drum kit so you could use the old headset. I guess Harmonix decided to adopt the new headset. The bad part about the new design of this headset is that with the mute and volume being on the cable itself, you can’t just slide your thumb down from the controller for a “quick mute.” I guess it just comes down to preference, but it seems like these headsets are the way of the future on the 360.
The chatpad itself is very slick. I felt like a geek because of how much I was fawning over the thing in my hands. Why is it so cool? First of all, it snaps right into the controller and fastens itself in place with the screw holes of the controller itself so it’s very tight. Secondly, the buttons themselves are backlit – whenever you hit one of the buttons the whole keypad lights up so you can see the keys if the room is dark. And finally, the buttons themselves are very well spaced out and they have a nice feel.
There’s actually two additional keysets on the buttons too. The main keysets are letters but if you look closely at any of the buttons, there’s a character in green in the top left of each button and a different character in orange on the top right of each button. Hitting either the green or orange button at the bottom of the chatpad switches it into those modes, allowing for a lot more characters to be used. Initially, I was having a hard time finding where the different symbols were, but I figure that with time I’ll get used to knowing where the period and comma is.
I tried typing out a long profile to test the chatpad, and I was definitely flying through it faster than I would be if I was just using the analog sticks. It made me feel like kids these days that do all this texting on their phones and I felt hip. However, this “thumb pad” is obviously nowhere near as fast as a fully QWERTY keyboard where you can use all your fingers, but that’s the tradeoff for having such a small and convenient keypad. I guess it’s like going from a regular cellphone to a Blackberry.
Messaging anyone on MSN will open a small chat window on your screen over whatever it is you’re doing.
What I like about the chatpad is that it can be used anywhere you need to type, whether it’s entering codes, messaging friends, renaming songs on your playlist, entering names in games, etc. I’m sure I’ll find use for it (which is why I ended up deciding to buy it) but I won’t be taking the biggest advantage of it unless I’m on MSN Messenger. I wonder if there will be some type of homebrew crack or something to allow us to use other chat programs on the 360 – then I’ll be totally set!
Even without the use of MSN Messenger, for $20 the product is cool yet inexpensive enough to buy. Now I no longer have to deal with those thumbsticks for typing anything in again and actually eagerly await the next time I have to type something. My chatpad will be ready!
