Element Gaming Xenon 700 Review

The Element Gaming Xenon 700 is the top of the line from the Element Gaming range coming in as their most expensive headset. Styled in the fashion of a military aviation headset, it comes with an adjustable microphone strapped to the left-hand side of the device.

The packaging boasts all the things you’d want from a top-of-the-line headset such as 7.1 “suond [sic] effect”, deep bass, and soft leather ear pads. It also outlines the technical specifications on the rear of the packaging, but here’s what you really need to know as a consumer: It connects via USB, it has a volume controller part-way down the cord, it has colour-changing plates on the sides, and it can be adjusted to fit any user.

After installing the software accompanying the headset (which is on a disc and can’t be found anywhere online), I was ready to experience everything that the Xenon 700 has to offer. I booted up my favourite game, donned the headset, and I was off!

Several hours later, I’d gotten my fill of the headset and come to a handful of conclusions about it. For starters, you can quite easily wear the Xenon 700 for a decent gaming session without it causing any sort of pain to your ears. The leather earpads go a long way to assisting with this, but it’s mainly due to the large hole within the earpads that fit around the ear. Secondly, you may have to tighten the microphone periodically. Even after a good, hard twist of the thumb screw, I found it slipping down after extended periods of time. This rang true for the thumb screws used to adjust the headset itself as well. Manageable, but not ideal.

The actual sound quality from the headset seemed to be perfect, and I could definitely see why they boasted the bass on the packaging. I have no qualms at all with how the actual headset sounded.

The volume controller, whilst fairly lightweight, is a bit too far up the USB cord for my liking, and I found it suspended in mid-air most of the time. I say it’s a volume controller, but it’s more of a general controller and allows you to adjust the volume, mute both the microphone and the headset, and turn the colour-changing on the side of the device off and on. All of these worked as intended, but I was slightly let down by the colour-changing as it did so of it’s own accord. There was no way for me to select one colour, so instead it just idly cycled through a selection of colours on its own. Again, not a huge problem by any stretch of the imagination, but not what I’d hoped for.

This brings me to the final point of the Xenon 700, the microphone. Now, whilst the audio from the device is absolutely fine, the microphone sounds incredibly “tinny” and distant. To actually be audible at all, it must be within an inch from your mouth, which may have been intended, but became frustrating after extended periods of time. Along with this, it makes you sound like you’re talking through a door at the best of times. Definitely lacking, and would benefit from some upgrades to improve the device overall.

Is it worth purchasing though? I think the best summary of the Element Gaming Xenon 700 would be “it’s not broken, but it’s not perfect”. Everything about it just feels a bit “it’ll do”, and for the cost of the device, I would expect a little bit more quality. If you’re an enthusiast of military-styled equipment, it’s a headset to consider, but as a general day-to-day device, it falls short on the mark.