Reviews when it came out said 100+ feet. This is believable, of course. I have an upstairs room where I keep my GameCube, and I went downstairs, through a large living room, and far into our kitchen on the complete opposite side of our house, and it worked fine, according to reports from those who were there. That was quite a distance. There is literally no drawback to the controller, unless you don't like the GCN controller, are in mad love with the rumble feature, or hate the very idea of batteries. Okay, maybe there are drawbacks for some people, but there are none for me.