Ok on the Cobra M5...
So I'm no joystick expert but it's Russian style stick apparently, so a bit different from the normal stick you'll get in the UK. Perfect if you like to fly for the Empire!
All I have it to compare to is an old Saitek Cyborg Gold, obviously they're world's apart.
So in light of me knowing nothing about these things!..
It feels incredibly light and precise, and I love that. With a caveat that the light feel of it means that when centered you can get a slight movement in it, not that it drifts at all but I play ED on the couch so any movement on my part transfers to the stick when I'm not "grasping" it. You can easily sort this by adjusting the deadzone but I don't find it an issue and adding a deadzone could impede how precise it is on small movements, so I've not bothered.
Modes - There's a switch with 3 positions so buttons are switched, I currently have a main mode, landing and cruise. This mode change does not switch all buttons just most. Button 1 +2 (main trigger) stays consistent as does the RH POV hat. However limits in ED limit this feature somewhat, in that ED only allows two keybinds for any action, so for example if you wanted to assign one of the mode switching buttons to an action you want to be consistent over the three modes, well it's not possible due to ED only allowing two keybinds per action. Not a huge issue you can easily work around it but worth knowing.
The main trigger - A few things with this. First off it's a 2 stage trigger, so you pull the trigger in partially and button1 triggers, then pull in more and button2, but given you've past button1 too it's essentially button1+button2. This sounds a great feature but in practice the use-cases for it are actually pretty slim, exacerbated somewhat by the fact that ED only allows for two fire buttons so if you're using a kill scanner too you can end up having to compromise or keep switching between fire groups. In all honesty I've not yet found a great use for it in ED.
Also on the trigger there's quite a bit of movement before it engages, my previous Saitek Cyborg was almost a hair trigger which when I switched was a bit of a "hmm I'm not sure if I like this" moment. You can of course discipline yourself to partially depress the trigger in combat so it's sitting just before the engagement point if you want. Or alternatively you could flip the main trigger forward (it clicks out of the way into a non-combat position) and use the more hair-trigger smaller secondary trigger button underneath (which is essentially button2) if you wanted..
ENABLE 3 OR 4 FIRE BUTTONS PLEASE FRONTIER!!
Little finger trigger - It has a small trigger sitting under your little finger, so imagine a press performed with a slight squeeze. It's not massively precise but has it's uses, I have it currently as the kill scanner in combat, so hold down, or all stop in landing, so squeeze to stop.
Two hats - Great, not got two hats on your T16000 have you! A main POV hat and a secondary one. I was intending to use the secondary for lateral thrust but in all honesty I'm finding left hand on a keyboard works great for that so in combat it's currently used for ship/subcomponent targetting and fire group switching.
Throttle - Basic, it's precise enough but the bit sticking out, the lever bit is small, and on full or no throttle it touches against the case meaning it can be a touch difficult to get your finger under to move it, so you end up using the grooves instead. Not a big issue but in the heat of combat it's not ideal. This is currently a non-issue for me as I prefer throttling via keyboard on the left hand.
Other bits....
Two thumb buttons - Fine they're buttons!
The software is essentially just calibration, there's no macro support in there or anything. There might be third party tools for joystick macros I haven't looked.
While mostly plastic it has a heavy metal baseplate.
It's right hand only.
It cost me £42 all in.
In summary, might sound like I'm being a bit critical but I absolutely love it, feels great, really precise, it has a bunch of buttons with mode switching and the price is right. =D
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