When it comes to peripheral products such as gaming headsets, our initial impression is a variety of "silly big black thick" design styles that pursue maximum practicality. However, with the improvement of players' demand for e-sports game atmosphere and experience, various trends and combat designs have begun to spread to popular consumer products along with the application of RGB lights.
Logitech G can be said to be the head brand in the field of e-sports game peripherals, Logitech G series of mice, headphones and other peripheral products are also deeply rooted in the hearts of the people with black and "Logitech Blue" color matching, but one after another "Logitech Blue" and RGB style peripherals always make people have some aesthetic fatigue. In 2017, Logitech acquired astro Gaming, a North American esports brand, introducing a unique product line and design style of gaming headsets to the G series.
We recently received this new generation of ASTRO A10 gaming headset launched by Logitech G on March 22, which has been upgraded in terms of appearance, wearing comfort, and sound quality compared to the previous generation. In the face of an increasingly diverse esports scene, can the new generation of ASTRO A10 gaming headsets meet the fashion trends of young people while bringing an immersive sound experience to gamers? Let's see how it performs with a review.
Exterior design
Logitech G ASTRO A10 gaming headset outer packaging adopts a relatively simple fully enclosed design, the front of the ASTRO A10 game headset appearance diagram and model name as the main element, and with logitech G and ASTRO logo, the lower right corner is written with the main equipment supported by this headset and the connection method used: can support different operating systems of personal computers, PS5, XBOX SERIES X/S, SWITCH and other game consoles, as well as a variety of smart phones, The premise is that it needs to have a 3.5mm audio interface or connect through an adapter.
The appearance of logitech G ASTRO A10 gaming headset is different from the main black color commonly used in other gaming headset products, but adopts a new industrial style design, and provides 5 colors of wrought iron black, mecha white, emerald green, mechanical gray and energy purple, providing players with more personalized choices, this time we received is the mecha white and mechanical gray versions.
The headband and ear cups of the headphone body are made of unique plastic materials, which are unique in that it not only brings a good lightweight experience, but also has the characteristics of ruggedness, and at least 35% of the part is made of recyclable raw materials, making the ASTRO A10 gaming headset a low-carbon trend of headphone products.
In terms of the size adjustment ability of different groups of people's head circumference, ASTRO A10 gaming headset adopts a moderate damping feeling, two side slide rails that can be infinitely adjusted, and a head beam that can be greatly bent to achieve easy adaptation to the size of the head circumference and even fit the ear. Both the head pads and ear pads feature an upgraded cloth surface + memory foam for a more breathable, gentle fit and can be removed and replaced. The ergonomically optimised design from multiple angles provides the wearer with a lighter burden and a more comfortable experience when wearing it for a long time.
The ASTRO A10 gaming headset has an integrated microphone on the outside of the left earcup and an audio cable connector on the bottom. The microphone adopts the fast function design of folding and muting, rotating 90° forward to open the call function, and muting when it overlaps with the head beam, ensuring the user's personal privacy while bringing a convenient experience. The built-in 6.0mm unidirectional microphone outputs clear and transparent voice, making team communication smoother.
Finally, in terms of cables, the ASTRO A10 gaming headset is equipped with a 3.5mm audio cable with volume adjustment roller and a one-point two-turn cable adapted to the PC, and the surface rubber material is softer and more plastic than the common braided wire.
Wear and sound experience
The excellent ergonomic design and innovative materials make this ASTRO A10 gaming headset weigh as little as 246 grams, which is about 30% lighter than the previous generation, and the extreme weight and flexible head pads and ear cushion materials make the author feel very comfortable when wearing. In the test session of wearing and sound quality experience, the author compared an entry-level 7.1-channel gaming headset in my home, logitech G430, which has now been upgraded to G431, has a variety of new features, and is in a similar price segment with the ASTRO A10 gaming headset.
In terms of wearing, the ASTRO A10 gaming headset has better wearing comfort than the G430 due to its lighter weight, more malleable headband and the application of a large number of flexible materials. G430 uses more rigid plastic and internal metal beams to strengthen the robustness, while the head beam pads and ear cushions are slightly inferior to ASTRO A10, so it may give users a stronger sense of pressure when using it for the first time, requiring users to gradually adapt in multiple uses.
In terms of sound quality, their performance is different. In the test, the author selected three scenes of the game machine, Logitech G HUB and Dolby Atmos resources to experience their low, medium and high three-frequency sound effects and surround sound positioning effects.
In terms of game reality, ASTRO A10 game headset gives full play to the performance of the 32 mm dynamic driver with ASTRO AUDIO V2 custom tuning, which makes the sound effects generated by the BGM and character actions in the game clear, rich and layered, presents the BGM and vocal and sound effects dominated by medium and high frequencies with a fuller effect, and easily responds to the daily audio and video entertainment needs with a low impedance of 24Ω.
The G430's sound performance is more balanced, taking into account both mid- and high-frequency and low-frequency performance. It has a larger 40 mm drive unit than the ASTRO A10, as well as a higher impedance.
It's worth mentioning that the Logitech G430 is a gaming headset that supports 7.1 channels, so it needs to be connected to a PC via a USB digital audio adapter cable and the Logitech G HUB software to get the full performance. Since the ASTRO A10 gaming headset cannot be recognized directly in the Logitech G HUB, we connected both gaming headsets to the G430's USB digital audio adapter for a surround sound experience in the same environment.
The experience results show that the ASTRO A10 gaming headset still has a clearer and fuller mid-range sound performance, but it is slightly lacking in low frequency. In terms of stereo sound, the G430 can create a wider soundstage and more accurate positioning, and the ASTRO A10 gaming headset can basically identify the sound orientation, but is inferior to the former in terms of soundstage performance.
We also experienced the Dolby Atmos test content directly under the conventional connection method of the two gaming headsets, and obtained similar results to the Logitech G HUB software test material. This proves that the Logitech G ASTRO A10 gaming headset and the past price point similar to the Logitech G430 gaming headset in the past have their own characteristics in sound quality performance, ASTRO A10 has a clear, rich, multi-layered sound quality experience, more adapted to the needs of fast-paced esports, G430 and subsequent G431 can take into account the low-frequency sound effect, as well as with 7.1 channels to create a broad soundstage.
Review summary
Compared with other game headset products of the same brand or different brands at similar prices on the market, Logitech G's new generation of ASTRO A10 game headsets have unique advantages, that is, under the premise of ensuring the essential attributes of game headsets and sound quality and call performance, through the optimization of appearance design and ergonomics, it brings an unprecedented fashion look and feel and lightweight and comfortable wearing experience. It also breaks our impression of gaming headsets as "silly big black and thick", and finds another trendy route without RGB lights.
Moreover, Logitech G's new generation ASTRO A10 gaming headset is also an "eco-friendly product", its plastic part is at least 35% of the use of recyclable raw materials, paper packaging of wood from FSC forest certification, that is, in line with "sustainable" forest wood resources. At the same time, Logitech has also funded a high-quality and standard carbon offset, that is, the carbon emissions generated during the production of each product are absorbed in equal amounts through afforestation and other means, so as to achieve the neutralization of carbon emissions. Choosing this headset is also a small contribution to the goal of carbon neutrality to some extent, and it is also a very new and unique concept in esports peripheral products.