Xbox 360 Wireless Headset: Review
The Xbox 360 Wireless Headset is a whole lot of goodness packed into a sexy, little package. I would recommend it to anyone who plans on using a headset on their Xbox 360, again, ever. Without a doubt, this headset should replace the current standard Xbox 360 Headset. Do yourself a favor and pick one up.
The Good: This thing is small, sexy, extremely convenient and it the sound quality is fantastic!
The Bad: The $60 price tag might be a deterrent.
I don’t play a lot of games online and half the reason for that is the fact that I can’t be bothered to dig out and untangle my headset. I had two already – the standard Microsoft headset and the GameCom X30, but that didn’t stop me from rushing out to my local game shop the day the Wireless Headset hit the shelves. The $60 price tag didn’t deter me in the least, but I figure it probably will for some. I wanted needed a better experience for online gaming. With the controller already being wireless, it was horrible to be tethered to it by the headset. This is where the new Wireless Headset steps in and makes it all better.
When I first saw pictures of the Wireless Headset from E3 ’06, I didn’t really get how it would fit and didn’t think it could possibly pick up your voice enough with the mic being so far from your mouth. Putting it on is a one-handed job. The rubber tube thinger is very flexible and you simply bend it back over your ear. There are 3 buttons on the face of the headset which control the volume, mute and power. You simply hold the button down for a second and it will assign itself to the active controller. If you have more than one controller and headset, you’re supposed to activate each controller and corresponding headset one after the other in sequence. There’s a series of lights on the underside which indicates the player it’s assigned to. As you can imagine, it’s only a matter of seconds from the time you think about putting the headset on until you’re shit talking some asshat who just rear-ended you and fucked up your drift. A’hem. There can be up to 4 wireless controllers and 4 wireless headset active at the same time.
A friend of mine pointed out that you don’t need to have an active controller to use the headset. He was navigating the Dashboard with the Xbox 360 Universal Remote and threw the headset on to send a voice message and it worked like a charm. I’m sure those who prefer to use the Remote as apposed to the controller for some of the simpler Xbox Live Arcade titles (UNO, for instance) will be happy with that little feature.
Best of all, the sound quality is incredible! I know they stepped up the quality overall with the latest Dashboard update, but it really does sound great with this new headset. I did a couple races in Need for Speed Carbon over the weekend and there was easily 5 or 6 people actively talking through the entire races and I didn’t miss a word. Which was actually unfortunate, as they were total dip-shits spewing absolute nonsense. But that’s beside the point.
One of the other questions that was left unanswered until I purchased the headset was how it’s charged. It comes with an AC adapter, which is actually much bigger than the headset itself, that you plug it into when you’re running low on juice (photo courtesy of Major Nelson).
So there you have it. The Xbox 360 Wireless Headset is a whole lot of goodness packed into a sexy, little package. I would recommend it to anyone who plans on using a headset on their Xbox 360, again, ever. Without a doubt, this headset should replace the current standard Xbox 360 Headset. Do yourself a favor and pick one up.