TheMacJedi

I purchased my Xbox Live Starter Pack on 9/20/2002 for $49.95. I remember receiving it not to long after. It came with some cool stuff, at least I thought it was at the time. It came with a t-shirt that read “I’ve got great hands”, headset and adapter, orange memory card, carrying case and beta games. I continued to receive a few Beta Disks over the next few weeks.

I signed up with the gamertag “thexboxjedi”. I found that referring to myself as an Xbox Jedi gave people the impression I was good. It made me a target which didn’t help because I wasn’t that good, but I love to play. So I changed it to “themacjedi” shortly after the Xbox 360 came out.

My 5 year experience with Xbox Live has been awesome. I have a few friends on Live that joined because of me. I played games online with my Mac before I had Live but it wasn’t no where near as cool. Being able to talk to all of the players is a fantastic thing. There are always going to be people who you don’t want to hear and Live handles that.

The new Live with the 360 is a significant improvement. I enjoy it every day.

The Xbox 360 Chatpad comes in the Xbox 360 Messenger Kit with a headset. The headset is better than the previous headsets because the controller is inline. As an owner of the wireless headset and 3 of the previous headsets, the new headset is inconsequential.

Let’s start with the Chatpad Positives:
To go from having to use the virtual keyboard to an actual keyboard is fantastic. When pressing keys you get audible feedback from the TV. All of the keys that would need are there, including a few you may never use. It fix snugly onto your controller and feels very solid. It has a headset jack on the front to plug your new headset into. The keys light up for dark room use.

Now the Chatpad Negatives:
The Chatpad is designed with the white controller in mind. Therefore when attaching it to the new Black, Blue, Pink or Halo controller it looks very poorly thought out. For example, with such a small keyboard footprint they should have designed the casing with the grey color most of the controllers have and made the keyboard white or shiny (like the Guide button) with black letters. This would have increased the contrast significantly. I find I have to focus on the keyboard more than normal because of the current contract. It’s difficult to read and I have 20/15 vision.

Chatpad Wrapup:
It’s great to have a keyboard. I’m looking forward to the next version that might be a neutral color with a high contrast keyboard.

Additional Thoughts:
I believe the Chatpad was designed for an upcoming Xbox 360 Web Browser. They are marketing it as a Messenger solution but I can’t find people who use Messenger.