So much of what the SteelSeries Arctis Nova 7X Wireless Gen 2 does, it does right. Its build quality is outstanding, having a thickness and solidity that most wireless headsets lack. Its stretchy headband, as on pretty much all SteelSeries headsets, successfully tricked my entire skull into thinking it was lighter than it is. It’s flexible, working over Bluetooth or a 2.4GHz dongle, the latter’s USB-C connection also making it a plusher Steam Deck alternative to the Arctis GameBuds. And it sounds, both in games and music, fabulous: audio is powerful but detailed, like you could peel apart the stacked-up layers of a song mix or shooter soundscape into its individual tracks.

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My initial interest in the SteelSeries Arctis Nova 3X Wireless was sparked by it being, essentially, an over-ear version of the Arctis GameBuds, with a near-identical USB-C 2.4GHz receiver that lets it pull double duty with both a main PC and Steam Deck (slash, handheld PC of your choice). Happily, it’s turned out to be a very fine headset in general, performing a convincing impression of a higher-end model despite its current tag falling towards the lower-middle of wirelessdom.

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I’m planning to better balance the recent glut of high-end hardware reviews with some genuinely affordable stuff, but in the meantime, here’s something that’s a little of both. The Epomaker G84 HE is another Hall effect keyboard, meaning its magnetically operated switches can be adjusted for actuation height, and/or set up for strafey-strafey, shooty-shooty rapid trigger/Snap Tap shenanigans in compatible games. Both are features you’d normally expect to run pricing up into the triple figures, and yet at £80/$85, the G84 HE costs more like a lower-mid-range, traditionally mechanical 'board.

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I don’t want to alarm anyone, but a gaming mouse has just tried something new. New and, it turns out, brilliant.

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