Typical of SteelSeries is the excellent build quality, and the Arctis 1 and Arctis 1 Wireless are no exceptions. The satin finish on the plastic feels excellent, with no rough edges or soft plastics used. The hinges above each ear cup are solid and the headband’s adjustment mechanism locks into each step properly. Being able to lie the headset flat on your desk is advantageous from a storage point of view, if you wish to tuck it away on top of your games console for example.
In terms of style, SteelSeries have steered clear of the gaudy, in-your-face styling used by some headphone manufacturers and presented something that won’t look out of place while playing video games, but you could also feasibly wear these in the street without raising an eyebrow, especially thanks to the removable microphone that you can leave at home. That’s not to say they don’t look good, they just don’t smack you in the face.
Comfort is right up there, with plenty of space inside each ear cup so your ears don’t press against anything, helped along by ample cushioning along the inside of the headband. The clamping force exerted by the band wasn’t excessive either, allowing you to wear the headset without any kind of discomfort for relatively long periods. However, the closed back nature and thick cushioning did seem to trap some heat after time so it’s good to remove them for a few minutes every now and then, having said that, most headsets are the same so it’s difficult to avoid that.
Audio quality, particularly on the £49.99 Arctis 1 is excellent and well above what you’d expect for a headset in this price range; typically corners are cut and quality takes a hit but thanks to SteelSeries’ success in the higher-end market, technologies and expertise trickle down to the budget end of the market after time, resulting in affordable headsets that don’t sound awful. The two headsets, as far as we can tell, sound exactly the same, which is testament to the work they’ve done on their 2.4GHz network.
Speaking of the 2.4GHz, the wireless range far exceeded what we expected, easily spanning the entire room and even allowing you to walk into adjacent rooms with no distortion or interference at all.
Using the headset for around a fortnight, we found the battery tended to last between 15 and 20 hours, which is plenty long enough and matches with their claims, but when it comes to charging the headset, a USB Type-C connection would definitely have been preferred over the Micro-USB; not only is it more robust, easier to insert and being rapidly adopted, it’s used to charge the devices that this headset is designed to be used with.
The Arctis 1, with its 3.5mm connection, doesn’t use any kind of software, but the Arctis 1 Wireless does. Below, we’ve included a microphone and software demo. The microphone on both headsets are identical and sound as such, so also use this as a demo for the Arctis 1 microphone.
In terms of style, SteelSeries have steered clear of the gaudy, in-your-face styling used by some headphone manufacturers and presented something that won’t look out of place while playing video games, but you could also feasibly wear these in the street without raising an eyebrow, especially thanks to the removable microphone that you can leave at home. That’s not to say they don’t look good, they just don’t smack you in the face.
Comfort is right up there, with plenty of space inside each ear cup so your ears don’t press against anything, helped along by ample cushioning along the inside of the headband. The clamping force exerted by the band wasn’t excessive either, allowing you to wear the headset without any kind of discomfort for relatively long periods. However, the closed back nature and thick cushioning did seem to trap some heat after time so it’s good to remove them for a few minutes every now and then, having said that, most headsets are the same so it’s difficult to avoid that.
Audio quality, particularly on the £49.99 Arctis 1 is excellent and well above what you’d expect for a headset in this price range; typically corners are cut and quality takes a hit but thanks to SteelSeries’ success in the higher-end market, technologies and expertise trickle down to the budget end of the market after time, resulting in affordable headsets that don’t sound awful. The two headsets, as far as we can tell, sound exactly the same, which is testament to the work they’ve done on their 2.4GHz network.
Speaking of the 2.4GHz, the wireless range far exceeded what we expected, easily spanning the entire room and even allowing you to walk into adjacent rooms with no distortion or interference at all.
Using the headset for around a fortnight, we found the battery tended to last between 15 and 20 hours, which is plenty long enough and matches with their claims, but when it comes to charging the headset, a USB Type-C connection would definitely have been preferred over the Micro-USB; not only is it more robust, easier to insert and being rapidly adopted, it’s used to charge the devices that this headset is designed to be used with.
The Arctis 1, with its 3.5mm connection, doesn’t use any kind of software, but the Arctis 1 Wireless does. Below, we’ve included a microphone and software demo. The microphone on both headsets are identical and sound as such, so also use this as a demo for the Arctis 1 microphone.
