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SteelSeries Arctis 7P Wireless Gaming Headset Review
When SteelSeries surprise-launched the Arctis headset family way back in 2016, it was a huge moment for me. I thought “Wow, finally someone is breaking away from just cloning HyperX and is trying to shake up the headset game.”
It was also fitting that it came from SteelSeries. They often like to trumpet themselves as the creators of the gaming headset (through slick marketing videos) and their Siberia series was one of the most positively-reviewed on the market. It was a bold step to throw those time-tested designs out and go in a new direction.
I was happy that they did. I have a larger than average head, and the Siberia series always worked better for smaller ones. I was never able to experience their earlier products. The new ski band suspension system on the Arctis let it fit my head, and I loved it.
In the five long years since that momentous day, SteelSeries hasn’t ever recreated that magic. They quickly binned all of their other headsets and tripled down on Arctis designs, but they’ve only had two truly new products come out — and I’m using “truly new” generously. The Arctis 1 mixed up the headband design and introduced a sleek low latency USB-C transmitter that Razer would later copy, but the core microphone and speaker technologies were unchanged. And the Arctis Pro used the same shell but added new drivers tuned in conjunction with Indy Acoustic Research to give them a more neutral response.
Every other Arctis product is more or less a rebadge or new paint scheme of that 2016 edition. The Arctis 2019 series was identical to the original series with different cosmetics and new ear pads. The recent Arctis Prime is just an Arctis Pro with the lights taken out, though at least it has a market-disrupting price to go with it.
And the Arctis 7P, launched late last year with the PlayStation 5, is an Arctis 7 2019 with a white paint scheme paired with the wireless USB-C transmitter from the Arctis 1 Wireless.
