Razer Man' O War Wireless vs Aftershock M7 Gaming Headset Review
I've been using the Aftershock M7 Gaming Headset for about a year or so, after my previous headset (Logitech G430) died on me :<
Lo and behold, it's a really simple headset which does its job pretty well. Of course, it's free of charge with any Aftershock PC/Desktop that you purchase, but that doesn't mean that the quality is low!
The underside of the top band is actually really spongey and allows the headset to sit on your head comfortably.
As for the cups, the only problem I had was that as a person who defaults to wearing spectacles quite often, the cups would often squeeze too tightly around my ears and hence spectacles, and cause a little discomfort/pain at my ears.
Mind you, my head is quite small already.
The headset is also adjustable for those who have bigger heads, who require the cups to go lower.
The mic quality is average, and of course transmits your voice perfectly clearly, albeit sometimes with abit of fuzz and is sometimes slightly softer than expected. The mic arm cannot be kept or hidden anywhere, is non-extendable, and is bendable to a certain extent.
The headset is wired, and has two jacks. One for the microphone and one for the audio. And as you can see from the photo, has a sleek colour scheme for up-and-coming gamers: Red and Black.
After a year of use, the leather on the cups and the top band has started flaking off :(
If you're not looking to go pro, this headset definitely works out for someone who is just starting to game and doesn't want to invest loads of money (or in this case, no money at all) in any mid-range gaming headsets.
It definitely works well enough, but if you're playing FPS games that require 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound, you might be disappointed as you might not be able to accurately pinpoint where the footsteps or the enemy is coming from with this headset. But of course, what else can you expect from a headset that comes as a freebie right?
This headset is definitely on par with some other low-end gaming headsets currently on the market now. Kudos to Aftershock for engineering such a value-for-money headset :)
And now, on to the main dish: the Razer Man' O War Wireless Headset. I was researching which headset I should get, and saw that the Razer Man' O War Wireless popped up in a couple of "Top 10 Gaming Headsets" lists.
I did more research and was trying to find if there was any difference between headset's wired vs wireless version (apart from the obvious difference in connectivity), and could find no significant review for that.
I've also always wanted a wireless headset, mainly so that my deskop area would have less clutter with less wires, and in the event that I needed to go to the toilet or take something from my drawers/wardrobes that a wired headset would not allow me to reach, I wouldn't even need to take the headset off and could just go off like that.
The only thing I was afraid of was that the sound quality would not be as good as it's wired version.
I ordered the headset through Amazon, and received it really quickly! (I ordered this together with my Razer Blackwidow Chroma V2 Green Switch). I had a total overhaul of my peripherals - I'll do another blogpost on my new gaming rig and peripherals :)
The first thing I did when I received it, was to try it out by wearing it. I immediately thought to myself, "this is REALLY comfortable", and even after long hours of usage ~8 hours or so, there was no biting feeling from my spectacles, neither did the headset feel too heavy.
Plus, as mentioned, my head is small. The headset fit on me pretty comfortably and I definitely could never go back to using my old Aftershock M7 Gaming Headset again... (no bad feelings there Aftershock!!)
The headset blocks out your surroundings' noise really well, so if you're looking for something that you can hear your surroundings properly with, don't get this one.
A couple of times I've almost jumped out of my chair by my boyfriend tapping my shoulder while I was gaming, and being unable to hear him opening my room's door! Of course, the headset does leak out a little of whatever you're listening to, so do take note.
I've tested this headset with Dota 2 and PUBG, and when playing Dota 2, it really amplified the bass of the background sounds a lot. As for PUBG, I really could tell exactly which angle (+/- 10 degrees) that the enemy was firing from, or where I heard footsteps from!!
I was kind of surprised by just how good the headset was. When listening to music, I could really feel the strong bass (good for EDM songs :D) and could really get engrossed in appreciating the music's composition - perhaps due to the way the circular cups really covered my ears, I felt like the entire room was filled with music (although it was just me and my headset).
Also, the cups are rotatable, i.e. you can rotate the cups outwards at the back of your head and allow surrounding noise to come in - useful for when you need to speak to somebody beside you urgently but don't wish to take off the entire headset. This allows you to not miss anything in game and in real life too!
The mic quality is also really clear and crisp (when I listen to myself), and there is no problems at all being wireless, as it doesn't affect it's quality at all!!
There are also scroll wheels conveniently located behind the cups on both your left and right, to adjust/mute your mic volume and headset volume respectively - something I thought was really thoughtful of Razer, because sometimes you just don't have the time in game to alt-tab out and adjust your sound settings on your desktop.
If you haven't noticed, your USB transceiver is actually tucked neatly in its house on the right cup above the scroll wheel to adjust your headset volume. All you have to do is push it and you will hear a "click" sound, and the USB transceiver will eject itself, and all you have to do is to plug it into your USB connector on your laptop/desktop, and you're ready to use your brand new headset!!
And last but not least, the headset is CHROMA ENABLED!! You can sync it with your Razer Synapse app on desktop and adjust the way the colours cycles through, or even set it to a static colour!!
It also comes with a extension USB hub - of which the photo I'll upload soon!! Which is useful if you need to charge your headset abit further away from your computer, or just need to extend the range of the wireless headset slightly.
All in all, i'd give the Razer Man' O War Wireless headset 9/10. 1 point deducted just for the price point, it actually costs $299.99 SGD on the Razer Store website in Singapore!!!!
And I'd say that I'm very blessed to get it at a bargain price of $150 SGD including shipping on Amazon during the Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales!! So if you're planning to buy any tech stuff, please do proper research and either wait for IT fairs in Singapore, or wait for overseas sales!!