Reviews of peripherals, Best IMO (Cheap and expensive)

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HakureiReimu_Husky
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Reviews of peripherals, Best IMO (Cheap and expensive)

Post by HakureiReimu_Husky »

Alright, as the name explains, I will list and give short reviews of peripherals.

I HATE Razer, their products are built cheap and are sold expensive. Their only good peripheral is no longer in production, which was the Black Widow, before they started making their terrible own switches to stop sourcing Cherry switches.

Mice

This is my favorite category. Mice can either make or break your PC gaming experience.

Cheap:
E-3lue Cobra Jr, and full size
By far the BEST cheap gaming mouse, with a nice aesthetic appearance, a great beginner gaming mouse. The Cobra has Omron's lower tier switches, so each click is nice and crisp, and has a great life. The Jr and Full Size mouse are comfortable for both claw and palm grippers, and has 5 operational click-based buttons (great for TF2) Which are Mouse1-5. I had this mouse for 3 years before its tragic failure, where the diode cracked causing erratic tracking. The mouse when I got it was $13.00 on Amazon. It comes in red or blue accent lighting. Comparing against the G502, it doesn't have as smooth of tracking, or a sniper button, but is equally comfortable and has a durable non-braided cord, however the ribs going down the cord are notorious for catching desk-dust.
Medium Price:
Logitec G300S
Alright. This mouse is a bit weird, however has 2 more buttons as compared to the E-3lue. The forward and back buttons (mouse 4 and 5) are not on the side on the mouse, but are on the top, next to mouse 1. After you get used to that, the mouse is very nice to use. You no longer need to use your thumb to click buttons, so your grip is sustained, and overall your mousing will be a bit more accurate when using m4 and 5. The Teflon feet make the mouse very nice to use on wood and mouse pad (nylon) surfaces. The tracking is much nicer as compared to the E-3lue, and is on par with the G502. The scroll wheel is very tacky, and will not get stuck between spots as opposed to the E-3lue.
Headphones (have yet to find a good cheap headset that lasts, and sounds decent)
SkullyCandy HESH: Overall a TERRIBLE headset. The bluetooth is very inconsistent, and when the audio when directly connected to a 3.5mm dual channel jack, the right side will cut out due to extremely poor build quality. I sent the headset back after 2 days of trying to get them to work, because I tried to give that company a chance. Overall, the the bass is okay, tenor is meh, and treble is extremely tinny for 35mm drivers. The 5.1 channel surround is a hoax. This unit is highly overpriced, and should be returned for those who are still within the return period. These headsets have major wiring and shorting issues, and is built on a budget of $15 dollars, with a huge markup, leading this headset to cost $60.00 when they came out. You could have gotten SoundBlaster Evo USB's for that price. Do not purchase these.
expensive-ish
Creative SoundBlaster EVO ZXR(50mm drivers) or ZX(45mm drivers):
Alright. YOU NEED TO BUY THESE IF YOU HAVE THE MONEY. These headphones have been by far the GREATEST all-purpose use headphones I have ever bought. There is only one thing with the ZXR's, my friend has very acidic skin, and that weakened the plastic adjustment spring-rails, causing them to be weak, and crack, so the headphones adjustment would not stay, so if you have a very acidic diet, add some tape to the parts, and you'll be fine. (My friend's hand actually left burn marks on his blackberry plastic rear cover, you could feel the indents in the case). These are the best sounding headphones that you can get for under $200. (ZXR's are currently $149.99, ZX's are currently $89.99) I have both. They have the same magnetic core as the Aruvana series, so their pitch is always on point (2 cent accuracy at 32 ohms impedance), on both headsets. The first time I listened to what I refer to the "international anthem of Drum and Bass music (neutralize, shining through the light), there were a few tears, because just how epic the sound was. These headsets can be paired with a phone or tablet so you can adjust so many things on the headset (full equalizer), bass, tenor, and treble bias, fidelty, surround bias. And are stored onboard, with 5 megabytes of internal flash memory, so if you hook it up via USB to a computer, or via BlueTooth to another phone, you get the same settings. The ZXR's have a bad stress point design, so you need to be light on them, travel is not recommended, so get the ZX's if they are leaving home. They have 8 hours of battery life, and the configuration can be disabled by tapping the power button. Not to mention they look really cool.
Not reviewing the aruvanas since they are no longer are being produced.
Keyboards:
Mechanical: TT-ESports Poseidon Z
This keyboard is okay, after 2 years, the anti-ghosting has taken a dump, and is glitching out causing repeated keys to pop up. But the repeated keys aren't just caused by a faulty system. They use Kailh switches. You see where this is going. They are kind of mushy, and unreliable. The LED's are nice, very resistant to ESD (electrostatic discharge), and are a nice color of blue. This keyboard is a good intermittent mechanical keyboard. This is my first mech, and I soon plan on replacing the faulty keyboard with either a CM-Storm, or corsair Blue Cherry switch keyboard.
BONUS! Microphones
Alright, so this is a controversial topic, and kind of unclear, since there are many different types. I will be reviewing USB microphones from Blue.
Blue Snowball:
This is not a good mic. It sounds rather "tinny" due to the fact that the metal case is ROUND. BAD!!!! If you have a multi directional cardioid condenser receiver, you WILL hear the audio run off into infinite. The same thing will happen if you use wooden sub-boxes that are rounded on the interior, and have no flutes to prevent it from running infinite, causing terrible sound.
Blue Snowflake: Overall a great portable mic. It shares a basic version of the receiver found in the normal Yeti, just not omnidirectional, so it sounds good. This mic can go up to 44.1 KHz sample rate.
Blue Yeti and Yeti PRO: Great mics on both parts. The difference between the Yeti and Yeti PRO is that the pro can supply raw audio through MIDI. They both sound very crisp, and are both omnidirectional. I cannot confirm the price range for mics, since they fluctuate heavily.
This is goodbye.
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