SteelSeries Arctis Nova Elite Review: Gaming Overkill?

The base station has one other neat trick; it may cost and home a second battery. I acquired virtually 30 hours of use on a single cost, simply in need of SteelSeries’ quoted life, however so long as you’re close to the bottom station, you primarily have infinite battery life. When the battery will get low, simply swap the spare and the useless battery, and your headset will routinely flip again on and reconnect inside a number of seconds. The spare battery prices in lower than two hours, and there’s a sneaky USB-C port on the left ear cup simply in case you’re away from house for too lengthy.

Finely Finished

Photograph: Brad Bourque

Fit and end could be my different huge motive to decide on these over the Arctis Pro or BlackShark V3 Pro. The Arctis Elite are tremendous sturdy, with an upgraded metallic headband that feels actually severe. While you can get them in black, you must as an alternative go for the sage and gold shade. It’s immediately eye-catching and stylish, significantly amongst gaming headsets, which are usually both darkish and drab or excessively gamer-coded. Unfortunately, this feature-packed headset can also be the heaviest I’ve examined but at 380 grams, nearly 10 grams heavier than the Razer. SteelSeries headbands are probably the most snug round, due to the “goggle band” suspension strap that helps unfold the burden throughout the highest of your head, however it may solely accomplish that a lot.

Meanwhile, the ear cups are created from fake leather-based that will get slightly sweaty, particularly over lengthy gaming periods. Razer has managed to crack the code on breathable ear cups and ANC, however the noise discount within the SteelSeries is healthier in consequence. The distinction in consolation between these two will probably be a matter of choice, however I would not advocate both if you do not have sturdy neck muscular tissues.

If the value tag right here provides you any pause in any respect, I feel you must have a look at different choices, together with the superb Nova Pro, which has an analogous base station and app help. The $250-$350 hole between the Nova Elite and every other gaming headset is sufficient for a bounce to a extra highly effective GPU, or to make quite a lot of smaller efficiency enhancements throughout your system.

Ultimately, past the power to attach extra consoles, the upgrades are principally significant for listening to music, and fewer impactful for gaming. For multi-console house owners with deep pockets and an expansive music library, it is a feature-packed headset with no actual opponents, however I do know I’d have bother discovering room for them in my new PC finances.