Steelseries Arctis Gamebuds Review – FRUSTRATING Gaming In Ear Headphones

These are the Steelseries Arctis Gamebuds, a seemingly rather unique set of in ear headphones, specifically because of this, a little USB C dongle. This thing is the magic sauce that lets this connect not just to your phone, but to, in my case, an XBOX or PC (although they do come in PC/PlayStation varieties if you’d prefer), over a 2.4GHz connection, just like a regular wireless headset! This extra feature will set you back a pretty penny, but it might just be worth it – let’s take a look around, have a listen, and we’ll see if they are worth your hard-earned cash!

First up, what’s in the box? Well actually first the box itself, as that gives you the cheat-sheet for all the built in controls (namely the single button on each earpiece). Single tap and hold for volume, double taps and triple taps, the works. Then inside you have the case, wrapped in a QR code telling you to download their app, and under that is a little box with two USB cables inside – one A to C, and one A to female C for the dongle – plus two sets of different sized ear tips. Inside the fairly large for in-ears case are of course both buds, but also this USB C dongle. This is the magic sauce, this is what lets these things connect to anything – PC, Xbox, Switch or PlayStation (depending on the model) – and this has a very important little switch on it. When it’s green, it’s in xbox/console mode, and when it’s white it’s in PC mode. That switch is rather important, because that’s what lets you connect this to the Steelseries Engine and do firmware updates – something the mobile app bugs you about to no end.

Speaking of the mobile app, that’s where you’ll do most of your customisations. While the controls from the buttons on the buds do let you do things like enable or disable ANC – yes these have ANC – the app lets you tune it, and possibly more importantly, lets you access the currently 266 different EQ modes. Yes, you heard that right, 266. Most of these – in fact almost all of them, save for “Flat” and like three “Music” ones – are all for different games. Everything from BeamNG to Brawlhalla, Cat Quest III to COD Black Ops 6 and everything in between is represented here. It doesn’t look like you can customise these in the app, or even really see what they’re doing, although if you plug these into a PC – WITH THE DONGLE SET TO PC – you can customise them to no end. It’s a graph EQ which has a bunch of draggable points that aren’t bound to any specific frequency – if you really want 508Hz pumped, but 509Hz dropped, you can do that here. You can change the bezier curve points too, making this the most customisable EQ I’ve seen. 

I should probably actually show you around the buds – they are of course pretty small, although have opted for an ear-molding shape, rather than a stem design like most TWS buds. The built in buttons are actually physically, clicky buttons, not capacitive like most TWS buds, which was a little confusing at first for me, but actually feels pretty nice and means that when you are just adjusting them or something you don’t accidentally press them. The clicks also don’t translate to loud clicks in your ears either, but they are nice and easy to hit as it’s basically the whole outer surface. Something that surprised me with these was the comfort, I expected with these being in-ears, they’d get uncomfortable pretty quickly, but I wore them for hours gaming with a friend and had absolutely no problems – in fact it was one of the hottest days of the year and I was genuinely glad I had these in-ears instead of heavy and hot over-ears. They also don’t move around much or fall out, they are remarkably secure in your ears. Oh, and battery life is listed as 10 hours for the buds, and a further 30 hours in the case. That’s really not bad!

Mic test is in the video!

As for audio quality, I was a little underwhelmed. To be clear, these do sound perfectly decent, and actually for gaming I’d say they are the perfect balance for chat and in-game audio, and when you add in the hundreds of EQ modes for games they are perfect for that. For music and content though, I feel like they’re just missing a bit of the top and bottom tones that would help round out the sound a little more. Playing with the EQ does give a bit more clarity – I find the highs are already a little overemphasised in some spots making it a tiny bit harsh on my ears, and to have all the EQ modes boost the highs even more? Damn that’s uncomfortable for me. Still, with a touch more bass and a bit more mids these can sound pretty good. Not audiophile grade or anything, but more than good enough.

That isn’t what’s frustrating about these though – no – that is the connectivity. See, on the face of it, these seem great! They have Bluetooth and 2.4GHz, so much like basically all mutli-connection headsets – even from Steelseries – these must let you listen to music or chat on Discord from your phone over Bluetooth while still hearing game audio from the 2.4GHz connection, right? WRONG! These do not support simultaneous audio. You have to triple tap on the bud to switch between Bluetooth and 2.4GHz modes. Seriously. So, what’s the point? Why spend £150 on a set of in-ears that can’t do what £50 headphones can? I must admit, I can’t figure that one out. The lack of simultaneous audio is a bit of a dealbreaker for me, especially at this sort of price tag. Sure, these are unique, offering TWS buds for PC and console – including with a properly supported XBOX or PlayStation dongle – but without simultaneous audio I feel like you’re missing out on the main benefit of multiple connection modes. Still, thanks to that dongle, if you’d prefer in ears for especially console gaming, these seem like a reasonable, if expensive choice. I have enjoyed gaming with them, and the convenience of having in-ears especially in these painfully hot days is great, but I don’t think I could justify the £150 price tag. Perhaps for consoles specifically the higher price makes a bit more sense.