More Design

Angles

The Wingman gamepad does have a couple of serious advantages over the Freestyle in terms of design - one is the angle of the handles. When you hold a Freestyle in your hand, the handles are angled downward making it feel like you're holding two guns. The problem with that is that your hands have a tendency to drop the controller and let it droop forward. The motion sensing hardware interprets this as a "lean forward" which can totally screw you up in games like Motocross Madness (eating it on a stunt) or Rogue Squadron (flying into the ground). By contrast, the Logitech handles are connected by a lower angle, and I had an easier time keeping the controller in a neutral position.

Freestyle is really angled; Wingman is more flat

Buttons

The buttons along the top of each pad gave good tactile response. While the Freestyle's were a bit larger, I didn't feel that it made that big of a difference either way. I have big hands and fingers but I never found myself accidentally pressing the wrong buttons on the Wingman. Where the pads really differ is the feel of the top two trigger buttons. For some reason, the Freestyle has top buttons that look and click just like a mouse button. I didn't find these to give as good tactile feedback as the Wingman's trigger buttons which feel more solid and more like triggers.

A real trigger button

Mouse button?

Design : Advantage Wingman

While the squishy D-pad is a fairly serious problem, the design of the handles, the button feel, and the looks of the Wingman overcome this. Presumably if you're buying a pad like this it's mainly for the motion sensing quality anyway. Besides, the Freestyle's D-pad is not all that much better.