And I should think so, too, for that price!
You can’t really speak about competitive gaming these days without at least mentioning Hall effect (HE) tech. Scuf knows this, too, of course, and it’s finally announced it’s adding the technology to its two main PC controllers.
Corsair (which owns Scuf) tells us that both the Scuf Envision and Envision Pro with Hall effect will be available in just over a week’s time on May 29, 2025. That’s if you get one direct from Scuf, but if you get it elsewhere, other sellers will have to clear through non-HE inventory first before rolling out HE versions in August.
In our Envision Pro review last year, we noted that although we liked the controller a lot, one of the main things we didn’t like was its lack of HE sticks. That’s primarily because it’s not a cheap controller, with a launch MSRP of $180, currently going for about $150. For that price, we’d kind of want the latest and greatest tech.
The main benefit to HE, for those who don’t know, is that it eliminates stick drift. That’s because it uses magnets, which don’t require physical contact for the measurements in themselves, compared to more traditional mechanical means, ie, a potentiometer, which do. HE sticks can also be more accurate than traditional mechanical analog ones, which is another reason why competitive players like them.
Though Corsair is quick to remind us that there is still some mechanical stuff going on with Hall effect, saying there are “mechanical centering issues on all of [the stick technologies].” And that’s apparently why it took a while to get HE on the Valor Pro.
Despite acknowledging that some might think the company has been “taking our sweet time with it,” Corsair defends taking that time: “Effectively, we spent the last two years really digging into this technology” and now it’s at a “maturity level where we feel like it’s in a stable place.” Corsair first told us this was coming at Computex last year, so it’s definitely been meticulous at the least.
It’ll be great to see Scuf’s main PC-oriented controller featuring the tech and going some way to better justifying that high price tag. In addition to great build quality and feel, you’re also getting a ton of buttons, including some macro keys on the front, these being part of what distinguishes the company’s PC-oriented controller from its other ones.
Catch up with Computex 2025: We’re on the ground at Taiwan’s biggest tech show to see what Nvidia, AMD, Intel, Asus, Gigabyte, MSI and more have to show.
I spent some time with a different Scuf controller earlier this year: the Valor Pro. This already has HE sticks and comes in at a much cheaper price than the Valor Pro, as it’s the company’s attempt at entering into a more affordable performance/competitive gaming segment. My main issue with it was its lack of wireless connectivity, and Scuf has good news on that front, too, this being that a wireless version will be with us later this year.
One final thing to note is that if you already have an Envision or Envision Pro controller, you’re not left entirely out of the performance party. Scuf’s clearly been spending some time working on its calibration and so on, and it tells us that some of these calibration benefits should be coming to the non-HE controllers that are already out there:
“We’ve spent a lot of the investigation and all the stuff that we’ve learned doing the calibration for the Hall effect, we’ve applied now to the standard analog states. So we can extend the life of your current controller with all the new calibration functions and the dead zone controls in the controller. So that should help a lot—at least extend the life of those who have the current version.”
It’s not quite the same as having Hall effect tech under thumbs, of course, but it’s certainly better than nothing.
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