Most people know the name Kingston if they use anything with electronic memory, mostly for their product’s reliance and quality. Now that Kingston has thrown its hat into the gaming/mobile headset arena customers are going to expect that same level of excellence. So the question is: does the Kingston HyperX Cloud Headset live up to the name?
Hands On:
First off kudos for understanding that some gamers like nice packaging, it’s an extra detail that draws gamers to metal boxes and swag, so putting the headset in a beautiful case that easily rivals Turtle Beach in presentation is a great start. The second is design colors, a few popular brands of general use headsets have gone with flashy colors but professional and aspiring professional gamers tend to go for a much more understated look so the black with accenting red threads and a simple but stylish red emblem on the ear cups is something that will look professional while gaming and while listening to tunes when hitting the streets.
Nice looking design and packaging won’t get you far if the headset isn’t comfortable for full gaming sessions or long flights. Not only is there an ample amount of stitched-in fabric in the bridge of the headset the full cup ear pieces have interchangeable cup pads so you can use leather of foam depending on which you feel more comfortable with or if you are in a particularly long and tense gaming session you might switch out cups to give the others time to dry out. They have are nice and light weight with a removable boom mic and they all fit in a nice little included nylon bag.
This brings us to the sound and mic quality which is of course the ultimate deciding factor (though the previous points could easily be deal breakers when buying a headset). The HyperX Cloud uses separate mic and sound plugs which when going mobile can be adapted to a single plug for a mobile device. Most PCs however still use separate plugs for these functions, so it takes just a matter of minutes to get all set up and ready to talk and listen. Because it isn’t a USB system it didn’t require special drivers I literally plugged the headset in and started using them. The 53mm drivers and pure Hi-Fi sound where obvious in the crystal clear delivery of lasers, cannon shots, explosion, warning alarms, beeps as well as music from classical to house. Any sound I through at the headsets came through perfectly and the quality of the boom mic made recording videos or talking in team chats all completely clean. One of my favorite tests for a mic is talking quickly to Siri texting and see how many words she translates properly and the mistake rate between the phone mic and the boom mic was amazing, with the headset there were usually only grammatical mistakes if that whereas since I am cursed with dry mouth using the phone speaker had me correcting every third word.
Last Thoughts:
Kingston’s HyperX Cloud headset is a welcome edition to the gaming headset market and maintains the high quality expected from the Kingston name. These will be one of my go-to headphones, especially when I want to look professional while listening to professional grade audio. I look forward to them becoming a household name in headsets like they already are in the RAM markets.
[easyreview title=”Kingston HyperX Cloud Headphones Review Score” cat1title=”Overall Score (out of 5)” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”4″ ]
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