The PS3 is quickly becoming a veritable Swiss Army knife with all the peripheral add-ons. The one thing that the PlayStation 3 has been lacking all this time is a standard headset for online gaming. Unlike the Xbox 360 that more or less held a gun to your head to buy their official (but standard) wares, the PS3 didn’t. It was consumer friendly enough to allow anyone with a Bluetooth or USB headset pair it with the PS3. While that is all fine and dandy, it opened up a gap in quality, because everyone showed up online with a different headset. Not only that but in rare cases, some headsets just plain wouldn’t work. Warhawk tried to standardize the Bluetooth Wild West with a Jabbra headset pack-in but it didn’t catch on. Eventually, enough was enough and a sleek and sexy headset was designed that would work flawlessly with the PS3 and sound good to boot.
The first thing to notice about the official headset is that it looks attractive. It is substantial enough to make its presence known while being lightweight enough to fit comfortably over your ear. After wearing it for a good long gaming session, I forgot it was on. It comes with a charging stand that makes the headset easy to store and accessible when you need it.
One feature you’ll only find on the official headset are the on-screen battery and status button to know if you have muted yourself or not. These two features alone just about justify the price because you won’t find it on other headsets. It pops up in the top right corner and in plain view to see. This is the single best feature of the headset for how easy to use it is.
How does it sound? Crystal clear. When playing a number of games (SOCOM, LittleBigPlanet, Street Fighter IV, Resistance 2, Warhawk), I had an easy time understanding what others said. It won’t make other people’s crappy microphones sound magically better but you’ll have an easier time understanding because your earpiece is higher quality. I never had to repeat myself when chatting with others, which signals that the output of the sound is just as good as the listening.
If you are looking for the best PS3 headset on the market, the official wireless headset is your best bet. Every feature is done to the nines and the quality is unlike anything I have seen in a wireless headset unit so far. If you are in the market for something to communicate on the PSN, there isn’t a better option.
