Xbox LIVE 12 Month Gold Starter Kit

When I realized there was an empty spot in my life left by the death of my husband and kids in a boating accident, I contemplated what could fill it. Drugs? Alcohol? A pet?Oddly enough, hours of pointless game play with strangers was just what I needed. Hearing some moronic 14 year old yelling obscenities at how poorly I play MW3 so reminded me of my son that I can’t get enough. I’ve found myself making dumb mistakes just so I get yelled at. Do I have a problem? Maybe I need some professional help.The starter kit does exactly what it says. It gets you online so you can be friended by obnoxious children with nothing better to do but build up experience on video games. Like that will be a good bullet point on a future resume!The headphones are very basic. I’d suggest getting some nice Turtle Beach ones. The little keypad makes trying to guess some old password you once picked for some WindowsLive account years ago easier but no less frustrating. In the end, using a new email address is much quicker.But all in all, this is a good purchase. It won’t bring back your dead family, but it does give you something to do with all the free time their deaths has given you.

I purchased this for a multitude of reasons, mostly for the keypad. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it is very solid, just like the xbox360 controllers. When it’s plugged into the controller, it’s still easy to hold, doesn’t interfere with playing games and doesn’t wiggle around like cheaper off-brand accessories. It feels rock solid and like part of the original controller.It’s actually VERY convenient any time you have to type things in on the screen using the little on-screen keyboard which takes forever. This is less of a factor when playing actual video games, but with the improvements already made to Xbox live and with more surely on the way, this was an easy decision for me. The online services available incorporate so many additional services, I’d rather type in a search term when looking for a video, movie, music, etc. than use the cumbersome on-screen keyboard. For the little keyboard alone, this kit was worth buying.The 12 month membership was also a great deal when purchased in this fashion. Cheaper than month-to-month and Amazon even beat the year-subscription price offered by Microsoft.As for the headphones, I can’t really say they are anything special, nor are they terrible. Build quality is good, and the thing will last you forever. The cord tends to get in the way so I actually use a wireless set at home. Again, the headphones being included is just a bonus, even if they weren’t included this was a good purchase.

The Xbox LIVE 12 Month Gold Starter Kit is a really great value, for $69 bucks you get a the XBox ChatPad, a headset microphone, a 12 month XBox Gold Live account, and 400 Microsoft Points; purchased alone, a 12 month gold account subscription and 400 MS points will set you back $65.The Chat Pad makes sending messages and entering info into the XBox a whole lot easier than the plinka, plinka, plinka, click method of the controller alone. However, the ChatPad does add weight, and changes the feel of the controller, making the Controller pad a little more awkward to use, and increasing fatigue during long gaming sessions.The headset is a flimsy wired unpowered monaural (one ear) headset mic, which plugs into the hand Controller. The headset is fine for in-game chat, but not sound output; you will want a serious headset if you want sound and chat in the same product. One thing I noticed, is when you connect the ChatPad to the controller and then plug in the headset the connection is sometimes unreliable. Also the cord often gets in the way and I am always yanking the headset pin out of the jack, or off of my head.Overall I would highly recommend this product.Pros:Great ValueUseful if heavy ChatPadMicrophone headset12 Month XBox Gold Live Account400 Microsoft PointsCons:Cheap Monaural headset, with annoyingly short cable, not always reliable connecting through the ChatPad.ChatPad ads extra weight to the controller making it awkward and increasing fatigue over prolonged use.

This bundle is a great value if you just got your Xbox and want to play games online, watch netflix, hulu+, etc. They really shouldn’t charge for this, especially for Netflix, Hulu, etc. since you pay extra for those and they have their own servers so it costs Microsoft nothing to provide these services. However, it’s only about $5 a month when you buy it annually, so it’s not the end of the world. It’s twice as much if you pay by the month.I have the chatpad on my controller and find myself using it often enough that I never take it off – it’s not overly heavy so I hardly notice it’s there. It great for search for movies in Netflix, typing in usernames/passwords in games (EA Sports makes you sign in separately from Xbox Live), and sending messages to friends when your headset breaks and they wonder why you’re not talking… See below…The headset broke after a few weeks of use. Its the same cheap headset that came with the console, and that one broke as well. The mic stopped working on both, in case you were wondering. I’ve learned that if you play games with friends online, then you should invest is a Turtle Beach headset, or something like that. I just got one in the mail yesterday, but haven’t been able to try it out yet. Also, I let Amazon know that my headset broke, and the issued a $20 credit to my account so I could buy a new one.. I applied those funds to a the TB DLX1’s for $75.Four stars for the bundle, one less because of the headsetFive stars for Amazon giving me a refund on the headset

Great value, as it’s quite a bit less money than buying all the items separately. The headset is a standard entry-level type headset. I’m not a serious gamer so I dont really see myself spending upwards of $80 for a fancy-pants one (or even $30 for a mid-range one). As long as I can hear people and they can hear me I’m happy (so far so good!).The chatpad is next to useless. I figured I would get a lot of use out of this little doodad but it makes it near impossible to use the controller other than for typing since it blocks where part of your palms go on the controller (at least the way I hold it). Hooking it up is simple enough, but rather than just plugging into the headset jack it also has posts that snap into the screw holes on the bottom of the controller. It’s not hard to remove/install but I can see this constant pushing down and pulling back motion will almost certainly break the headset jack sooner or later. I’d rather not have to buy another $50 controller if I can avoid it. That being said, since I dont have it plugged in I rarely find myself digging the chatpad out and installing it to type something I want to find on Netflix or wherever. It’s a great idea (I wish Wii would take a hint and have one for the original Wiimotes) but just doesnt work terribly well in practice. The backlight is a nice touch though, and it does help using it if you’re playing in the dark.The Gold membership….there’s not much to say there. I honestly only got an XBox to play games with a friend of mine online while I was away for work for a few months. If I had known that you have to pay for nearly EVERYTHING that XBox uses I probably would have passed. The equipment and games are expensive enough, and then to charge for online content is just a bit over the top. So far I’ve been able to get away with just the Gold membership but Microsoft really makes you feel like you’re missing out if you dont buy expansions for your games or cool promo clothes for your profile avatar (seriously, you want me to PAY to have my avatar wear a hat with YOUR logo on it???).Great value overall, but unless you’re doing some serious texting or in-game chatting I’d probably skip the chatpad and just buy the two other times separately