I never used to give much thought to the peripherals I spent my money on. That led to some impulse buys, which, unsurprisingly, ended in disaster.
Once I did sit down and do some research, though, I found three unexpected gems that quickly became my all-time favorites—but before I got there, I spent lots of money on subpar headsets and mice.
I hate gaming headsets, so naturally, I tried nearly a dozen
I won’t even try to make it make sense.
To say that I’m not a fan of gaming headsets would be a major understatement. I’ve tested many, and time and time again found them to be an inferior solution when compared to buying a decent pair of actual headphones and a standalone microphone. My daily driver is a pair of Audio-Technica headphones combined with an Antlion ModMic. (If you’re not familiar, this essentially turns your headphones into a headset, but the microphone is miles better.)
I still kept trying to find a headset that I liked, though, and a lot of them turned out to be complete flops.
Things turned around for me when I was gifted the SteelSeries Arctis Nova 7. This was the first headset that I honestly found to be remotely worth the price. It was comfortable even when used for hours on end; the microphone was solid; the sound quality was acceptable in both games and movies. I ended up using it for over two years with little to complain about.
More recently, though, I tried the $250 Razer BlackShark V3 Pro. It wasn’t smooth sailing from the start for me, but once Razer rolled out some firmware updates, I fully appreciated this model. It has the best microphone I’ve ever heard in a gaming headset, and chatting on Discord has never felt better.
The BlackShark V3 Pro dethroned the Arctis Nova 7 for me, but there’s a huge price difference between the two, so if you’re after something more budget-friendly, I can still fully recommend the SteelSeries option.
- Battery Life
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Up to 70 hours
- Noise Cancellation
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ANC
The Razer BlackShark V3 Pro is a premium headset, but I find it worth its price. You can most likely get a better deal just by buying a separate pair of headphones and a standalone mic, but if you want a headset, this one is fantastic.
This mouse was an expensive gamble, but it paid off
You may or may not need it.
I play all sorts of games, but MMOs are something I always keep coming back to, so I’ve had my eye on the Razer Naga for years before I finally caved and tried one. It’s an MMO mouse, meaning that it comes with a lot of extra programmable buttons (up to 20), and this particular model also has swappable side plates.
It was a big decision, as it’s an expensive mouse. I typically buy more affordable mice as I don’t play a lot of games where the mouse matters a lot. (Read: I’m bad at competitive games.) But my love for World of Warcraft and trying to become a better player got the best of me, and I got the Razer Naga V2 Pro.
The Naga V2 Pro is a powerful mouse, with a 30,000 DPI and a polling rate of up to 1,000Hz. It’s also heavy (134g) and unwieldy; not exactly ideal for a small hand using a palm grip.
At first, I absolutely hated it. Setting it up is a massive, massive chore. You don’t just have to bind all those different buttons to abilities, you also have to re-learn how to play the game with all these new keybinds.
But once you get used to it, there’s no going back. Not a single day goes by that I don’t make good use of the extra buttons on that Naga mouse, and I was so close to returning it. I’m glad I gave it a chance.
With that said, it’s definitely not for everyone. Most people don’t need an expensive gaming mouse, and this model is only useful for MMO players.
Wrist pain pushed me to get creative
This is what I get for spending half my life at the PC
Now there’s another thing I was never a fan of: vertical mice.
I knew they had their uses, and I understood that for some people, they were comfortable and the essence of “ergonomic.” For me, they looked odd, and felt even more so when held in hand. I accepted that they were not for me and moved on, but long hours at the PC finally started catching up to me in the form of occasional wrist pain, which eventually led me to the Logitech Lift vertical wireless mouse.
I won’t lie: there was definitely a bit of an adjustment period. Using this mouse felt awkward, and the different wrist position actually made my shoulder hurt instead (go figure).
But, as it turns out, using a vertical mouse is something you need to train yourself to do. I paced myself, using it for a couple of hours at a time until the discomfort slowly got better.
I firmly believe that this mouse played a big part in my wrist pain going away, and I now use it during the workday, then swap to my gaming mouse when I’m actually playing.
How to experiment without wasting money
Avoid everything I did, basically.
I spent a lot of money on pointless attempts before finally finding peripherals that I liked. Testing tech is what I do for a living, so that’s fine, but I see now that I could’ve landed on the right headset and mouse without spending well over $1,000.
The key was figuring out what it was that I wanted from my hardware, and then reading reputable reviews. It’s easy to be pulled in by an exciting sale, but these days, I never shop without extensive research—it leads to disappointment much too often.
