SteelSeries Arctis GameBuds

SteelSeries, like many others, has realised that there is good money in in-ears, and preferably ones that you can use in all situations.

Their bid is therefore GameBuds - and although it's not SteelSeries' fault, you have to keep in mind whether you're buying the PlayStation or Xbox version. As always, PC users don't care, and the same goes for mobile users. On the other hand, you can only get the white version for PlayStation, while other platform versions come in black as well. The case for them is nice and discreet, but also a bit big. Whether this is due to the battery or the included USB-C dongle, I'm not sure, but I have jackets with large pockets, so it ended up being a limited problem. On the other hand, I might have expected a slightly more luxurious case for a price of £160, but on the other hand, it also means that it can withstand a lot of rough handling without breaking.

The big selling point isn't really that it runs on both radio waves and Bluetooth 5.3, although that's pretty cool, but rather that there are customised sound profiles for more than 100 tracks. It's something SteelSeries has done a lot of over the years, and while I'd like to write that it makes no difference, that wouldn't be true, because it does, especially in shooters. There's also support for Tempest 3D and Sonar 3D audio.

The fit is fantastic. They've really nailed it, and I'm actually willing to believe that the design of the body itself was based on 62,000 scans of people's ears. That's 31,000 people's scan data, and it comes with small silicone plugs in different sizes. There's active noise cancellation and an IP55 rating for those who want to use them when working out at the local gym. However, I struggled to find out anything more specific about the noise cancellation, because while it's fine for normal use, it needs to be even more powerful for my local gym and the howler monkeys that seem to be permanent residents.

There's 40 hours of battery life in total, 10 hours and then a rest in the case for the further 30 to be unlocked, and this supports Qi wireless charging. The wearing comfort is also quite nice as they fit really well and are very lightweight, and the relatively low profile means they sit snugly inside the ear and far more naturally than many others. They appear to be neodymium devices, but unfortunately they have chosen not to go into detail about that or what chipset powers them.

The SteelSeries app may seem a little overwhelming at first, but it's actually well and logically organised and contains quite a lot of raw functionality. The auto-pause feature is quite aggressive and I quickly turned it off, but that's the point: you get to tinker with almost all the functionality, if you want to in the SteelSeries app.

On the slightly less positive side, there's only SBC support. I don't expect ultra-super Hi-Res DXD audio, they're made for gaming after all, but AptX HD would have been a minimum. Other than that, I think the microphone quality is okay, but that's about it. After all, it's an area that has otherwise been very much in focus.

The sound quality is quite reasonable for not only gaming, but also music in everyday life. Personally, I would prefer to have separate devices for commuting, sport, and gaming, but that quickly becomes expensive. Other gaming in-ears are not massively superior to GameBuds in both functionality and sound quality, but when it comes to a pair of everyday in-ears, the competition is fierce, especially when it comes to dynamic bass reproduction, such as with bass drum. It's hard to match the expensive competitors that are only made for music.

So are GameBuds worth the money? Yes, sort of. I still think that £160 for a pair of gaming in-ears is quite a lot of money, but the customisation for individual games adds something extra. However, it requires you to recognise that EQ is a necessity to optimise for your games. If your primary use is classical music on the commute to work, you might want to consider something else. For the purpose they were made for, cross-platform gaming, they're great.