| Wireless
gadgets, they are everywhere now, and quite handy too. When I was looking for a new joystick to go with my Athlon 64 laptop
I thought I would see if there were any good wireless joysticks to go
along with my laptop, to reduce the clutter on my desktop. After perusing the web I settled on the Logitech Freedom 2.4 Cordless
Joystick. I have liked of many of Logitech's mice and keyboards over
the years and was hoping for the same quality in their joystick. Logitech's key selling points as extolled on
their website are as follows:
Experience the Freedom, Eliminate
the Clutter
- Have
complete freedom of movement during gaming with cordless technology
Logitech 2.4GHz cordless technology delivers top gaming performance
plus a 20-foot range. There is no lag (latency). You get the full
performance of corded controllers, without the hassle of a cord.
- Ten
programmable buttons, eight-way hat switch and a precision throttle
That's a pretty serious complement of controls. But not so many
that you need an advanced course in mnemonics to keep track of what
they all do. It's all about responsiveness and professional control.
- Comfortable
stick with intuitive button placement
Don't let discomfort cramp your style. Our famous joystick grips
and button orientation let you hunt down all the bad guys, dispatch
them efficiently, and still have the dexterity to quickly type taunts
explaining exactly how good you are.
- Turn
on a dime with precise twist-handle rudder control
Whether your plane is a delightful touring craft or something more
lethal, you need to be in complete control. There should be no wrong
turns with Logitech twist-handle technology.
- 50+
hours of game play with 3 AA batteries (included)
- One-year
warranty
The Package:
The joystick arrived nicely packaged, and my initial impression when
handling this joystick was that it was constructed out of quality plastic
materials with a nice rubber coating on the base legs. Due
to it being weighted in the base there may be metal under the rubber
coating. The rubber coating worked very well to keep it from slipping
on my smooth desktop while playing.
The ergonomics of the hand grip were quite nice
even with my oversize hands being larger than the grip area. A molded shelf at the base of the grip helped
center my grip and support the hand for long playing sessions. The hat switch was well located and had good
positive feel. The 4 top buttons
were reasonably well placed, but once again my big thumb had to reach
back a bit to hit the switches, but it did not require much thought
in game. The trigger button is a bit soft but has a
definite click when engaged. The
thumb button (button 2) left a bit to be desired though. It fits flush with the stick, which is nice in that it keeps it
from being inadvertently pushed, but it generally required more thought
to get a feel for where it was and to depress it properly while playing
than I would like. I would have
much preferred this thumb button to stick up somewhat, but it does have
a good solid click when engaged though.
The
throttle is located towards the rear, and seems a bit misplaced, as
the left side seems the most logical placement, but while flying it
was not out of the way being located there. Around the base of the unit on the left side
of the stick are 4 more buttons you can assign. These 4 buttons are all low and flat and it is hard to get a feeling
for which button you are touching without looking at them while depressing
them. The twist grip rudder
had good feel and excellent centering. The base of the unit is a tripod shape and is well weighted for stability
without being heavy. I was very
happy with the stability of this unit throughout the entire range of
motion when dog-fighting. Having
no cords coming out of it was also a major plus, and it was the main
reason I bought the unit. The
USB transmitter is a nice small unit about a half inch thick and shaped
like a credit card in size. Installation
was a breeze and I was ready to try it out.
Initial Testing:
During my initial testing I used the Freedom 2.4 as a basic joystick
without the Logitech software. I prefer to run my computer with as few memory
resident programs as possible. Windows
recognized this joystick with no problems and IL2 Sturmovik also recognized all the axis and buttons with
no problems when configuring the controller in game. I flew with this joystick for several months
in this configuration.
My overall impression was that
it was a pretty decent joystick (for a twist grip). It was moderately precise, but definitely did
not have the precision I could achieve when lining up shots when using
a high end HOTAS joystick. The
fact that it was a twist grip rudder controller played a large part
in this. They are nowhere near as precise as a good
set of rudder pedals, but then again this is a wireless mobile unit.
There were two problems that plagued
me with this controller. When
I went to calibrate it in Windows I was disgruntled to find that there
is no calibration utility function available for this device. Later on I found that Logitech has released a calibration clearing
tool for the registry, but I will discuss this later in the Logitech
Gaming Software section.
The second problem I had was with
the power saving routine. My
favorite form of online gaming is COOP mode. During this sort of flying there are many times when you are
inactive and watching, like when waiting to take-off or during times
when you are bombing and using auto-pilot, that you are not moving the
stick for several minutes. The
power saving routine of the stick then automatically shuts it down to
save the batteries. When you go to grab the stick it does nothing
until you press the fire button. If
you go back to the stick in an emergency, this can be confusing, until
you figure out why it's not moving. Sometimes you also get inadvertent firing when you hold the fire
button too long to wake the stick back up. More than once this has resulted in friendly fire damage. Battery life is very good though.
Logitech Profiler:
Logitech Profiler (LP) is Logitech's multi-use controller program. It is advertised to have the following capabilities:
- Customize
button functionality
Every game is different, and so is every gamer. We know that. So
we provide this versatile software that allows you to have things
your way.
- "Double"
the number of buttons with the shift-button
Are you a control freak? We are too. Enable the shift button functionality
to turn all those buttons into twice as many.
- Quickly
switch between game controllers
Fly your plane, drive your car, and then kick the ball around without
being frustrated by controller configuration. Our software lets
you easily manage and switch between your Logitech game controllers.
- Includes
profiles for hundreds of popular games
We're quite sure that you know exactly how you want to set up your
controller for your favorite games. But just in case, we've thrown
in a few hundred of our favorite configurations.
- Easily
download new game profiles
As if the profiles we ship with the controller weren't enough.
- Print
out profiles for quick reference
We hate losing buttons. So we like to print out our game configurations
for quick reference.
So after many months of straight DirectX usage I finally loaded up the
latest Logitech Profiler (LP) utility from their website. Installation was straight forward and quick. The LP software did not load itself into startup or the registry
run command. This is a good thing in my opinion, although
this may cause problems for some inexperienced users when they try to
run advanced button commands after rebooting because the joystick will
only function as a basic DirectX joystick unless the LP software is
running.
When
started the LP program it brings up a small interface that is moderately
intuitive. I was easily able to determine how to make
new profiles for games quickly without using the tutorial in the help
menu. Like many programs of
this sort you can make a profile for whatever game you want and re-designate
a button to emulate any number of keyboard commands. I am not sure if there is a limit to the key commands one button
can do, but it easily handled me pressing "SHIFT" and then
"G" 50 times to make the alternate gear in IL2 go up with
one button stroke. Very nice! The software recognized a couple of games on my computer during
install and also loaded several pre-made profiles with special commands
for that game for me to choose from. On their website they have profiles for literally hundreds of
games. This also is a very nice feature. There is no support for advanced scripting features found on high
end HOTAS controllers, but for a basic joystick it is very functional.
Even the hat switch and the axis can be remapped
to do custom commands. For instance
if you already had rudder pedals you could increase the twist stick
dead zone and then remap left and right twist to zoom in and zoom out
views. As I said earlier, I
generally dislike joystick software that runs resident, but the features
of this one make it worthwhile. The
only things it lacks is a function to load your favorite profile on
boot-up if desired, and more buttons on the joystick to set commands
to! Alas this is not a HOTAS
controller though, so that is wishful thinking on my part, although
you can double your effective button settings by using the shift button
feature.
The ability to print your profile is excellent. When selected, for whichever profile you want, it prints out a
sheet with a 3d perspective of the stick as in the picture above with
arrows pointing to each button. Printed next to each arrow is the name of the
command you have assigned to that button. Even in the heat of battle it would only take a quick glance to
remind yourself what each button does (until you memorize it, there are
only 10 buttons). The only thing
I can think of to add to this function is under the name of the command
is the key combo it performs.
Finally if you have any problems with the stick
losing calibration Logitech now has a utility to clear all calibration
data from the registry available on their website. This works pretty well, but I would still prefer
the old "calibrate" choice on the Game Devices window in Control
Panel.
Final Pro's
and Con's:
Logitech has made a good effort with this stick. Although I am upset still that the calibration has been removed
from the gaming devices in Control Panel/Gaming Devices tab (this may
be Microsoft's doing). The overall
feel of this stick is good, the buttons and rotary knobs have held up
well under 6 months of constant use. The radio range is very good and there is no noticeable lag. Button layout/size/contour could be better
on the base unit to help in identifying by touch. The portability, ease of use, and lack of desktop clutter are all
big plusses. The power saving
feature really got on my nerves in game, and ought to have an adjustment
for idle time before sleep mode. The
LP software is simple yet powerful. Overall,
for it's price vs. performance I give it high marks, especially when
quality and ergonomics are factored in.
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