Headsets are indeed an important peripheral for gamers and with a wide array of headsets available in the market, it becomes a pretty tough task for buyers to choose the right one. Razer, the brand known for its premium gaming peripherals, has launched a new headset, the Electra V2 USB for the budget shoppers out there. How does it perform in the budget market dominated by HyperX and SteelSeries? Let’s find out.
Detailed Review
Razer Electra V2 USB
Inside The Box
Like all other headsets, the Razer Electra V2 USB package comes with a manual, the detachable mic and the headset itself. The packing is indeed pretty good and users might want to preserve the box, for traveling purpose.
Design & Comfort
The Razer Electra V2 sports a unibody metal frame along with a set of floating ear cups and an automatically adjusting headband. The auto-adjusting headbands are seldom present in budget headphones, and with Razer incorporating the same in Electra V2, it gives the headset an edge in both design and comfortability aspects. The auto-adjusting headbands are indeed very comfortable as compared to some of the manual adjusting headbands provided by other brands within the same price range. While the auto-adjusting headbands prove to be very convenient for the users, as they can just wear it without any hassles as such, the inability to adjust the proper height of the headbands, is indeed a drawback since some users might not get the proper fit due to the lack of the same, but, the floating ear-cups compensate for the same to some extent.
The ear cups are made of high-quality leatherette material and it doesn’t seem that they would wear off pretty soon- a drawback from which budget headphones suffer from. The ear-cups are medium-sized, and people with big ears might get uncomfortable with the same. The headset is on the heavier side as compared to similarly priced counterparts from Steelseries and HyperX. While I faced no issues after using the headset for a couple of hours, after prolonged use, the headset’s weight and the leatherette earcups caused a lot of strain on the neck and on the ears respectively. Moreover, the leatherette earcups turned a bit warm after prolonged use, causing significant irritation. The headset wire comes in a fluorescent green colour and it just contributes the materialistic attributes of the headset. The wire too, is of pretty good quality and looks pretty resistant to the stress and strain of daily use. The presence of volume controls and a mic-mute button would have been appreciated, but, it’s not a pretty big issue to worry about since most of the games support push to talk and, users can also alter the sensitivity of the mic to cater to their needs.
The headset features a green, illuminated Razer logo at the back of the earcups. Design-wise, the headset looks pretty good and it seems like it can withstand rough use with ease. Comfort-wise, the headset somewhat falters, as it is a bit too bulky for prolonged use, but for people who are looking to use this headset for some hours of mild-gaming, they won’t find any issues as such.
Performance & Features
The Razer Electra V2 features 7.1 surround sound, a feature rarely seen in budget headsets. Apart from the virtual surround sound, the audio quality is pretty good, if not exceptional, but, considering the price range of the headset, the headset’s performance exceeded my expectations. The headset is designed for gaming, and the sound quality pretty much hits the sweet spot in gaming. The bass is pretty much on the lower side and turning on bass boost doesn’t make much of a difference, but, this is not an exception for gaming headset in the market and hence this can very much be ignored.
We tested quite a lot of games with the headset. First, we played Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice with the headset, to test the headset’s virtual surround sound capabilities. Hellblade, features bin-aural audio, a recording technique that uses two microphones to create three dimensional sound, and the presence of this feature pretty much makes it the best choice for testing surround sound. And, we were not disappointed. The surround sound is indeed excellent, but, before using it, users must ensure that it’s properly calibrated via Razer Surround.
Apart from Hellblade, we tested quite a few other games which are predominated by exceptional soundtracks, like Nier:Automata and Ori and the Blind Forest, to name a few, and the headset indeed surpassed our expectations in terms of sheer audio quality. We also tried CS:GO, and the exceptional audio clarity ensured that all the subtle sounds, like footsteps (and the sweet ambient sounds in Inferno) and all are audible properly. We also tested the headset on a PS4, and it paired up without any compatibility issues. We tried God Of War with the headset, and although that game isn’t much audio-driven, like other games, we were impressed with the audio quality.
The headset features a detachable boom mic and like the headset, we were impressed by it’s performance too. The detachable mic is pretty flexible, and it’s flexibility is a necessary addition since the mic is very sensitive and needs a bit of adjustment to properly catch voice. Their is ample background noise cancellation while recording voice out of the box, and users can still alter the sensitivity of the mic using using the Razer Surround Software. We tried some multiplayer games, and got positive feedback from other players about the voice quality.
A good software to back gaming peripherals is pretty much necessary, and Razer seems to have hit the target with this one as well. The Razer Surround software is pretty simplistic, easy to use and offers an array of features for users to get the most out of their headset. To begin with, the Razer Surround has the surround sound calibration to provide users the best 7.1 surround sound experience. The surround sound improved significantly after calibration, which further consolidates the fact that the software is indeed well designed. Speaking of other features, the software offers some customizability and enhancements as users can alter the sensitivity of their mics, improve bass output and reduce the variation of sounds. Finally, there is the Equalizer which offers a wide array of presets, as well as the option to use a custom one. Users can fiddle around with these settings, to tweak the sound as per their needs.
Pricing & Availability
The Razer Electra V2 USB is now available in India at a MRP 6499. It is available for a lot cheaper at various online outlets, with LxG store selling the same at a discounted price of 4,444 INR.
Verdict
The Razer Electra V2 Usb is a pretty formidable product by Razer in the budget market, which was till now dominated by the HyperX Cloud Core and Stinger. The presence of 7.1 virtual surround sound gives it an edge over both of the products, and, it pretty much exceeds both of them in performance too. Overall, the Razer Electra V2 is a pretty solid product, considering the price point and the features it comes packed with.