QPAD QH25 7.1 USB Gaming Headset Review

Conclusion

The QPAD QH25 7.1 USB Gaming Headset is a frustrating thing to review. So many aspects of it make us shake our heads in disbelief, and yet.. and yet.

Let’s start off with the weirdness. The RGB lighting isn’t really RGB in so much as you can’t control it, or change it, and the display system used isn’t powerful enough to give a beautiful smooth rainbow effect but instead looks like three clear colours with some slight smudging between them. Fortunately in the flesh it’s less “pink, yellow, turquoise” than it appears here, but it’s still pretty rough and ready. It’s one of those aspects that it’s better not to have at all than have like this, particularly as even this bare bones take on the formula must have some cost implications. Secondly the lighting needs mean that there is a USB port permanently affixed to the cable, even if you only plan to plug it into your Switch or phone. This we could forgive if there wasn’t also a USB adaptor for the virtual 7.1 sound instead of building that into the already extant USB cable. It’s all a little odd. 

Away from the strange elements other parts of the QH25 fair much better and are more in keeping with a headset at this price point. It feels very plastic-y, but it is. You wont pay under £40 for a headset and get luxuriant soft-touch plastics. Instead they are thick and sturdy – fortunate as said plastics are the sole structural integrity on the hinges – and once it’s on your head you’ll forget all about how it feels and instead enjoy the ultra-lightweight nature. Utilising 40mm drivers helps keep the grams low and with no steel headband it’s sub 300g all in which works well coupled to the squidgy ear pads and deep headband padding. The microphone is very much the ‘here it is’ type of mic, but it’s good enough to project your voice across the information superhighway and is all the mic you actually need, just not necessarily the mic you’d choose.

However, the waters get muddied by the actual sound itself. Ignore the virtual 7.1 surround entirely and the 20Hz-20kHz 40mm drivers do a very good job of giving you a surprisingly neutral soundscape. Yes it’s a little tuned towards the bass side of things as all affordable headsets are, but the leather ear pads do a decent job of keeping the sound in your ears rather than leaking to the outside world. As a gaming headset it’s everything you could reasonably expect for under forty quid. You’re not going to find new subtleties in the latest London Symphony recording, but if you want gunfire in your head and a microphone that can shout orders to your team mates it fits the bill. All in all it’s a decent enough headset let down a little by some odd choices but saved by its comfort and sound. Those being the main things we want from our headsets it wins the OC3D Value For Money Award.

  

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