Logitech has sold gaming headsets for as long as they’ve been around. However, as plentiful as Logitech’s lineup is, most of the headsets have been rather average. The Logitech G Pro X reflects a change in pace as the company looks to up its game.
This new headset draws on the preferences of pro gamers to provide a top-notch experience for an affordable price. Does it come out on top?
Who is the Logitech G Pro X for?
- Gamers looking for something they can wear for long sessions, be it a competition or all-nighter with friends.
- At-home workers who need something comfortable with a mic that won’t struggle with conference calls.
What is the Logitech G Pro X like to use?
This headset feels so sturdy, it’s initially a little difficult to adjust the headband from the resistance.
The Logitech G Pro X is a sturdy gaming headset, with a metal frame and thick cushions on the headband and headphones. The headset felt secure throughout my time with it, clamping down on my noggin just enough to stay in place without causing any pain. Most of the time when a tight headset is uncomfortable it’s because the headphones can’t move enough to accommodate different head shapes. The wide range of movement afforded by the Logitech G Pro X hinges are a big part of what makes it so comfortable. This flexibility, paired with the thick leatherette earpads, makes it easy to achieve a decent seal. Logitech even included extrapads made of velour fabric, which is great for gamers with glasses.
Pairing Blue Vo!ce and Discord’s audio improvements yields pretty great results.
Using the headset is pretty straightforward, which is a little surprising. The Logitech G Pro X comes with a considerable spread of attachments and cords, so I was expecting something more complicated. It all boils down to this: there are in-line controls, which vary slightly depending on which you use, and everything else is handled in software. There’s a braided cord for PC connections with a volume dial and mic mute switch, and there’s a plastic cord for smartphones with a single clickable button for pausing and playing music.
Everything else about using the headset, like surround sound, mic settings, and a host of other options, is handled in Logitech’s G Hub app.
With some minor variations, gaming headset apps provide a poor user experience across the board. It doesn’t really matter if you’ve got something from HyperX, Razer, Corsair, or another company — at best, the experience is tedious. These apps are slow to load, often don’t recognize your headset, and only offer one or two useful features. I loathe to install software just to get my gaming headset to a fully functional state, but the G Hub from Logitech adds a lot of value to the G Pro X.
Logitech G Hub does the normal gaming headset app stuff, like enable surround sound and let you change the headphone EQ, but it goes further still. The Logitech G Pro X support Blue Vo!ce, a suite of mic controls usually reserved for Logitech-subsidiary Blue’s standalone microphones. You may cycle between a number of mic balance presets, or make your own using options like noise reduction, an expander, limiter, compressor, de-esser, and high pass filter. In no uncertain terms, it represents the single biggest improvement to call quality on a gaming headset I’ve seen.
It’s not like I could record a podcast with this, but almost everyone I spoke to over Discord said some version of “Oh, wow, what did you change?” when I ticked the “Enable Blue Vo!ce” box mid conversation. It’s really that noticeable.
Gaming with the Logitech G Pro X
The G Pro X works almost everywhere.
Using the Logitech G Pro X for gaming was a pretty solid experience. Given its wired connection options, the headset works just about everywhere. The G Hub app is only available on PC, which unfortunately means surround sound isn’t available on console. Otherwise, though, the G Pro X has no trouble with gaming on PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox One using a 3.5mm connection.
Using the surround sound function while playing games like Overwatch and Fortnite worked well on PC. The G Hub app lets you adjust the volume of different directions using surround sound, so if you want the sounds of footsteps behind you in Fortnite to be especially noticeable, you may. Surround sound won’t automatically make you better at the game. If you’re good enough to use the added information it can make at least some difference — even more so if you can effectively prioritize specific information using the app.
More broadly, this is a solid headset to play games for hours on end. I had no issue playing Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order and Dauntless on console for extended stretches, and the headset handled their very different sound profiles well.
How does the Logitech G Pro X sound?
The Logitech G Pro X gaming headset shows a pronounced de-emphasis in treble range to reduce inner-ear harmonic distortion.
The Logitech G Pro X offers fairly accurate audio output, though it struggles with a few of the same things as most gaming headsets. It slightly boosts bass, but it’s largely accurate up to around 3kHz. There’s a significant dip in the highs after that point, but that is to avoid natural resonances in the ear, where sounds bouncing off the shape of your ear make it harder to hear otherwise hearable noises. In music this means the sounds of some strings and cymbals might come through a little less prominently in a song than they otherwise should, but bass tones and most vocals should sound great.
In game, a frequency response like this should make for a pretty solid experience. The Logitech G Pro X doesn’t fall into the typical gaming headset trap of rocketing bass into low orbit, though it definitely boosts things a bit. Explosions and the like will still be the loudest things in most games, but they shouldn’t obscure any sounds game developers really want you to hear.
The Logitech G Pro X offers fairly good isolation for a gaming headset. There’s no active noise cancelling here, so don’t expect the headset to block out anything louder than the hum of the fridge nearby or a TV in another room. It won’t fare well outside, but it’s a gaming headset, so it’s not really supposed to.
Microphone
From a hardware perspective, the Logitech G Pro X microphone actually offers slightly below average output for a gaming microphone. It de-emphasizes both bass and mid range sound, and significantly boosts high end audio. This means people with particularly deep voices might sound a little tinny and a little quiet. The over-emphasis in the high range is actually a good thing, as it boosts sibilant sounds (F, SH, and S sounds), which often get lost and are important for speech to sound natural.
A lot of these issues are mitigated with the Blue Vo!ce app, which doesn’t help console gamers much, I know. Nonetheless, it can be pretty striking how much the software can help. Have a listen:
Should you buy the Logitech G Pro X?
You won’t be recording any podcasts with the G Pro X, but if you’re one of the many people who play Dungeons and Dragons on the internet it could be perfect.
If you’re a PC gamer looking for something relatively affordable: probably! The experience on consoles is average, but ultimately the Logitech G Pro X is a comfortable gaming headset with good sound and maybe the first truly useful software experience in the market. With extra goodies in the box like extra connection cords and velour ear pads, it’s hard to go wrong with this headset.
With that said, there are alternatives. If you’re set on a wireless headset, something like the SteelSeries Arctis 1 Wireless brings over 25 hours of battery life on a single charge and a USB-C wireless dongle (and an adapter), along with rock solid audio, for around $100. If what you really want more than anything is accurate audio output, HyperX’s perennial workhorse, the Cloud Alpha, goes for around $100 and sounds better than headsets three times that price.
However, if you’re looking for a wired headset with good audio, great software, and connection options to spare this is a great one. That it won’t break the bank is just gravy.
from Android Authority https://ift.tt/3fUYDyW
