SteelSeries Delivers Affordable Excellence with its New Arctis Nova 5 Gaming Headset
Fresh off the back of launching a white version of its award-winning Arctis Nova Pro, SteelSeries has announced the all new Arctis Nova 5 — an accessibly priced but feature-packed gaming headset that’s part of a new category the brand is calling “affordable luxury”.
The new Arctis Nova 5 builds off the design and engineering prowess SteelSeries’ Arctis Nova line has come to be known for. The headphones feature 40mm Neodymium Magnetic Drivers with a 20-22,000 Hz frequency response range, supporting 360° spatial audio where available. SteelSeries’ ClearCast 2 microphone — found on its flagship Arctis Nova Pro headset — makes its way onto the new Arctis Nova 5, albeit in an updated (and seemingly better) version the brand is calling ClearCast 2.X. The updated mic features a new chipset it claims will deliver both twice the bandwidth and twice the clarity, as well as supporting 32KHz/16Bit audio to help to deliver clean and clear sound in-game and during conversations.
Along with the new headset, SteelSeries is launching the Nova 5 Companion App — an app that the brand created with the help of game developers, esports pros, and its own audio engineers. It features over 100 game-specific audio presets that users can flip between at any time — including whilst playing — with profiles included for many of the most popular titles like Fortnite and Minecraft. With the Modern Warfare III preset, for example, users can expect to hear “enhanced footsteps”, providing them with an advantage in close quarter combat scenes.
Connectivity wise, the Arctis Nova headset has it all: users can choose to use Bluetooth or a high-speed 2.4GHz connection with the included dongle, with supported systems including PC, PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, Meta Quest and more. Session gamers can expect to get up to 60 hours of wireless play on a single charge, and with its fast charging capability via USB-C it takes just 15 minutes to get from empty to six hours worth of juice. There are on-ear controls for volume, a mute function, and users can toggle between Bluetooth and 2.4GHz with a single click of a button.
Available now for $129.99, it’s pretty hard to argue with SteelSeries’ description of these being “affordable luxury”. For the features included and for the attention to detail given throughout the headset, they may be the best gaming headphones you’ll find at this price range. You can grab them now via the SteelSeries website. They're available in black, as well as PlayStation and Xbox versions that have blue and green features respectively.
