Corsair HS70 Bluetooth Review – Wired + Wireless Headset
|Want a headset to listen to music from your phone while gaming on your PC? Want to play on your Switch then plug in to play on your XBOX? With the HS70 Bluetooth, you can! It’s hardly perfect though, so lets talk about it. But first, if you haven’t already, consider subscribing for more videos every Monday, Wednesday and Friday!
Corsair’s party trick with this one is letting you play audio from both Bluetooth and a wired audio source. That means that yes, you can plug in via USB or 3.5mm jack AND connect it to your phone via Bluetooth and play music wirelessly while gaming on your PC or console. While especially on PC this isn’t going to be a game changing feature since you can just play Spotify or whatever in the background while gaming and control it with media keys on your keyboard, for consoles this could be great. It’s a nice-to-have feature that I’d honestly like to see on more devices, so thumbs up there.
Especially for devices like the Switch, it could be a really nice option for an “all rounder” type headset. Corsair claims around 30 hours of wireless battery life, although if you connect it via the USB C port on the bottom to your PC or console it should keep it charged even when also connected wirelessly so you don’t often run out of charge unless you don’t plug it in much.
Having lots of ways to play audio is great, but it’s kind of worthless if the audio that’s played is terrible. Now, the HS70 isn’t awful. It’s not brilliant, the sound feels pretty compressed and lacking much depth at all, and you won’t be blown away by the clarity, or any range in particular. But, it’s not dreadful. It’s a passable listening experience for the untrained ear, so if it isn’t obvious the audiophiles watching should avoid this one, but everyone else, it’s not exactly the worst.
The mic isn’t terrible, it’s a little compressed and noisy, but it’s clear enough for Discord or TeamSpeak so that’s fine.
Comfort wise, these just aren’t for me. Faux leather ear cups are not my preference as the skin under them just gets hot and sweaty, and uncomfortable, plus there isn’t all that much padding, it’s pretty firm too, and since it’s so thin my ears rub on the inside of the ear cup which isn’t great either. Clamping pressure was fine, it’s got a fancy looking adjustment for the headband and incredibly stiff swivel adjustment for the ear cups. Like I said, not for me, but I know people who wouldn’t mind this, so that’s mostly personal preference.
What about gaming on it? Well, that felt fine. In game footsteps were clear enough, gun fire was a little harsher than I’d like, and the volume wheel seems to adjust all audio sources meaning you need to balance your individual devices on the devices, rather than being able to adjust each one separately on the headset. I had to adjust the position of the headset a fair few times to get it even remotely comfortable and even then I personally wouldn’t wear these for a long session.
As with everything in the audio space, a lot comes down to personal preference. If you don’t mind the faux leather, the fit, and the average audio quality, and do like the added feature, plus don’t mind shelling out £100 for this, then sure go ahead and pick this up. Personally, I’d give it a pass, but it’s certainly not one to immediately avoid of course depending on your preferences.