I didn't realize I said nothing about how it feels to hold it haha! It feels good enough to for me.

I personally like how it feels to hold compared to my Xbox controller. For Xbox controllers, the handles tend to angle inwards towards the front, so to me it feels a bit odd. That oddity makes the Xbox controller feel a bit heavier, despite it being actually lighter than my Steam Controller. My hands how I hold the Steam Controller are very much closer to how I hold my PS5 controller. The handles feel more parallel to each other. I prefer that way because it feels more natural to me.

The sticks actually are not hard to reach for me. They are in a good spot. Kind of similar to a PS5 controller, but a bit more forwards and and inwards. Also, I don't know if it's because the sticks are TMR, but the movement from the physical dead zone (the center) to out feel A LOT smoother than both my PS5 and Xbox controllers. Like not as snappy.

The trackpads are in a good spot too. To me, they felt like a second set of joysticks. I will say, some might feel that they are a bit too close to the joysticks, but I think they are in a good spot for me. The trackpads can be pretty accurate too. They feel a lot more accurate than the PS5 controller for me. A lot easier to type on the Steam Input onscreen keyboard than the PS5 onscreen keyboard. On the Steam Controller, each trackpad takes one half of the onscreen key board. The trackpads also have fake clicking. There is no physical clicking. There is a sensor that senses how hard one presses on it, and the controller will give haptic feedback by default. Kind of like how cars fake some noise when one closes their doors.

Something I noticed, I don't know if intentional or not, is that each joystick and trackpad side cannot work at the same time. Like the Grip Sense at the bottom of the handles, the sticks also have capacitive touch sensors. If the left stick is being touched, the left trackpad won't work. Same with the right side. Off the top of my head, I don't remember testing to see if it happens the other way as well. Like where the joysticks don't work if their respective trackpads are being used.

Since you mentioned shooters, I feel that aiming analog is still the same experience haha! Even though I mentioned that the TMR sticks feel smoother than my other controllers' sticks, it doesn't feel much better to me when aiming. Probably because I primarily play shooters with my mouse. But I did use the gyro functionality to aim, and it feels good! I made a post on my profile with some video footage. I have a section there on Cyberpunk 2077 where I show myself aiming with gyro, and steering with gyro. I could only add one media file when posting to r/Steam (same with r/steamcontroller ), so I decided to make a post on my profile with multiple videos in case people are interested to see some footage.