Sandberg ViperSet headset review

Does this budget headset lack bite?

2 October 2008 9:00 GMT / By Chris Hall

With banks collapsing and fiscal strife abound, you’ll perhaps be looking to save a few pennies on your computer peripherals in the future. Luckily Sandberg makes a range of accessories that fit right into that criteria.

The ViperSet is a lightweight headset aimed at generalist use, be it for gaming or for VOIP usage. The headset takes the neckband form, providing two earpieces and a plastic band that provides rigidity around the back of your head. There is little in the way of adjustment in the headset and we found that it wasn’t the most comfortable option around, with the plastic digging into the side of our head.

The earpieces are covered in a thin foam which gives you little in the way of luxury, but then at this price you don’t expect much. The neckband is hinged, however, so you can sort of fold them up to be more compact – it doesn’t work terribly well, but would save a little space in your bag. At first glace the styling looks pretty good, but once you get up close, the low price point becomes apparent in basic and unrefined construction.

A single cable runs out to two plugs for the audio and microphone and are gold-plated standard 3.5mm jacks. The cable, rather than being plastic covered, is corded, rather like a shoelace, which if nothing else saves it from getting too tangled up. This is a blessing in disguise as you get 2.5m of cable, useful if you are connecting to a soundcard in the back of a PC or like to change positions at your desk. There is also an inline microphone with a volume dial for the headset.

In our tests we found that the sound quality was reasonable but nothing to get excited about. Volume levels had to be turned up fairly loud to bring out the bass and the fit is fairly poor so there is a great deal of sound leakage – others in the room will hear nearly as much as you do. However, at this price, perhaps that doesn’t matter – you could be paying ten times as much. They are certainly better than the speakers in most notebooks.

Unfortunately we found that the microphone performed worse than the built-in mic in our notebook giving a muffled sound, only rectified by speaking directly into it, making it less than handsfree.

Verdict

If you are after a cheap pair of headphones the you’ll find that the sound quality offered here is superior to the microphone performance. If your intention is to use it regularly for online conversations then unfortunately the ViperSet doesn’t really deliver a reasonable performance, especially considering that you can pick up simple microphones very cheaply, and there are even boom mic headsets that can be had for less.

If you are mostly interested in music or gaming and the microphone would be an occasional bonus, then perhaps they then have a little more appeal.

Score

Review Recap

Made by: Sandberg
Price as reviewed: £14.99
The good: Lightweight, affordable, sound not so bad
The bad: Neckband a little flimsy, can be uncomfortable, folding a little rudimentary
Quick verdict: Poor microphone performance drags down what is otherwise a reasonable budget offering
Score