Turtle Beach Elite 800 Wireless Headset Review

Peter Donnell / 10 years ago

Final Thoughts

Price

As I said before, this is a premium grade, flagship headset from Turtle Beach. It has a steep price tag of £249.99 and while that is very expensive, that’s the price you’re going to have to pay for such a wide range of features and its price is comparative to rival offerings from SteelSeries, Razer and Astro to name a few.

Overview

This is a high-end headset with a high-end price tag, if it was anything less than perfect, I may as well just end the review right now, throw the headset in the bin and call it a day. Fortunately, the headset is absolutely stunning and it goes a very long way to justifying its price tag. While I admit that you can get many of these features on lower cost headsets, you’re not going to get the same kind of overall quality. Again, you can get the same fantastic sound quality at half the price, but you’ll lose many of the convenient extras that the Elite 800 comes equipped with.

Spending a little extra for a few bonus features is always a nice treat. The Elite 800 is further up the scale, requiring a big increase in spending vs most headsets, but you get a lot of features that make it a fantastic headset to live with day-to-day. The magnetic docking system on the transmitter unit is great, as you don’t have to fiddle around finding the right cable to charge the headset between uses and it means it’s always ready to go, whenever you’re ready to play. As practical as the charging feature is, it also acts as a lovely place to store and display your headset; much better than throwing your £250 investment onto a shelf or into a drawer.

Virtual surround isn’t something I’m a big fan of, but the new generation featuring DTS Headphone X is a big leap for the technology. It definitely provides you with a greater soundscape and gamers and movie fans are going to love it. Personally I still prefer the stereo mode as the overall sound has more punch to it, but that’s just my preference and I’m certainly not going to complain about having more features to enjoy.

Build quality, overall comfort and of course the aesthetics are all subjective, but I’m very happy with the Elite 800 in every respect. At this price, so much as a squeaky fitting wouldn’t be acceptable, so I’m glad to see Turtle Beach have really delivered a premium-quality design.

Pros

Exceptional sound quality
Impressive range of features
Comfortable to wear
Wireless and rechargeable
Magnetic charging dock
All extra cables included
Excellent build quality
Virtual surround that really works

Cons

None

Neutral

High price may put some people off, but those able to make the investment will certainly get what they pay for.

“A premium price tag puts the Elite 800 out of the reach of many consumers, but making the extra investment certainly brings a lot of bonus features that you’ll come to appreciate. Great sound quality, practical and functional features that actually improve the experience of using the headset and flawless build quality; simply one of the best headsets money can buy.”