They're probably talking about the FCS HOTAS, which includes a T1600M:
For one, the throttle sports an actual mini stick instead of that brain dead mouse nub, which round house kicks the X52 out of the running. Bonus points for being cheaper than a new X52. Another advantage: throttle and stick are independend and can be mixed and matched with other devices, unlike the X52 that doesn't let you use both parts independently.
This, my bad, didn't specify. I have both the full on throttle and stick.
There's obviously the analog stick for lateral and vertical thrust that's quite nice. The throttle is better IMO, it's not on a curve but just moves straight forward and backword, very smooth too. There's no detents in it, but also no resistance knob either (for any fans of that). The stick is more stiff, but in a good way. It snaps back to center if you just let go and doesn't bounce like the X52's does (probably because the X52 one is kind of topheavy). There's also some "pedals" on the throttle that can be used as rudder pedals if you prefer that to the twist. By default in Elite they're used to go through menus left and right in the UI, and the twist is still used for yaw. These "pedals" are analog too.
For comparison's sake on the buttons:
Stick itself - Has a POV hat, left, right, and middle button, and of course the trigger.
Base of stick - There are six buttons on either side of the stick, totaling for 12. There's also a slider in front of the stick (I use it for adjusting sensor scale).
Right side of throttle - three POV hats, all with different feels, and one button.
Back of throttle - Two buttons, a "switch" (lever that moves up and down and effectively acts as two buttons). Analog stick (which also "clicks"), and "pedals"
Left side of throttle - dial
On the X52:
Stick itself - Four buttons, two being normal, one being the "safety" button (usually deploying and retracting hardpoints), another button being flat. A dual-stage trigger, a pinkie trigger (often used as a switch for an alternate control more than anything). Three-state dial for mode shifting, two POV hats.
Base of stick - six switches that move up and down (effectively 12 buttons)
Throttle - Little stick and button for moving mouse cursor and clicking, it's really pretty shit and not worth touching. Button next to it (where your thumb goes) surrounded by dial, button on top of throttle in the middle of another dial. Slider (typically adjusting sensor scale), another small button between other two buttons.
Back of throttle - a little scroll wheel and a POV hat.
Bottom line, I think the Thrustmaster is an improvement in pretty much every way. The only real issues I have are placement of some of the buttons. I still miss the "safety switch" for the hardpoints, but I am getting used to using one of the base buttons on the stick. The Thrustmaster has more buttons though, and because of that it's quite nice that I don't have to use combinations for things like Chaff and Shield Cell banks (those couldn't even be bound on the X52 by default, and they can on the Thrustmaster). You can also rebind some of the default bindings with no issue. Some of them are silly things like ship lights (I usually just do those from the right panel since I almost never need it quickly). I think Heat Sink was the only thing not bound by default, so I replaced something else that was fairly useless with it.