Our Genesis review adventure continues with a look at the Radon 720 headset, my personal first experience with the company’s range of peripherals. Josh has previously reviewed their PC case and the Xenon 770 mouse which both did fairly well considering his combination of exacting standards and lack of PC building experience.
While I’ve certainly played with my fair share of headsets across my twenties, I’ve stuck to big brands like Turtle Beach, Kingston and Razer, comfortably within the low to mid range in each. I think there’s a hell of a lot of promise in Genesis, so I was keen to get my hands on one of their peripherals. How does it stack up?
BUILD QUALITY & DESIGN: 4.5/5
The Radon 720 has an almost industrial look to it, with the black faux leather strap and sturdy metal banding fixed to the cups with exposed screws. That vibe is only continued when you plug it in and it emanates an ominous crimson glow. Despite the size of the earpieces themselves it’s actually very light and comfortable, thanks to the stripped back nature of the headband and the inline mic. The light but solid build is complimented by a braided cable, which anything gets an instant point for in my book.
This is so close to a perfect five it’s frustrating, and that .5 decimal comes from a somewhat obnoxious branding choice that I probably moan about every time I get a headset like this. It looks like a high quality, slick product – which it is, in all fairness – and the red LEDs circling the cups are a cool, if vaguely menacing touch. But the inclusion of the backlit Genesis logo on both sides just cheapens its appearance – if they had restricted it to one side or simply embossed their branding it wouldn’t detract as much from what is otherwise a very well designed piece of kit.
EASE OF SETUP: 5/5
The headset connects via single USB and is good to go straight away. You can control volume with a dial on the headset itself – which is surprisingly loud – and the inbuilt mic results in absolutely no fiddling around. I imagine this would be a fairly good headset to take to an event – it’s robust, works straight out of the box, and does a decent job of cancelling out background noise.
FUNCTIONALITY: 3.5/5
Unfortunately the Radon 720‘s mic doesn’t deliver the same standard as its build. It sounds distant and muffled, likely the price to pay for having it tucked away on the side of the headset. It’ll certainly do the job, but not necessarily with the fidelity you might need. As a result this particular set might find itself more suited to solo players who can’t blast out their media through traditional means.
The incoming audio quality is great, and the bass is potent enough to deliver an excellent experience whether you’re playing games or watching movies. Music does pretty well on it too, but that slightly larger bass sound might hamper genres that don’t utilise it as heavily. Then again, I doubt anyone’s going to be listening to The Beatles or Mozart on these, so it might not be a big issue.
VALUE FOR MONEY: 4/5
Going by Amazon’s lowest price (£39.73 at time of writing) this is a fairly decent buy. It’s slightly more expensive than HyperX‘s cheapest option (The Cloud Stinger at £36.99) but is much more solidly made and genuinely very comfortable for hours at a time. If you’re always dropping or bashing your headsets on stuff the Radon 720 feels like it was built to survive a war, so you might get a bit more longevity out of it than usual. Though the inline mic does sacrifice a bit of clarity, you do get a more streamlined product with less breakable parts, so it might be better depending on your needs.
I won’t be parting with my current headset anytime soon but I would heartily recommend this one to anyone looking for something that won’t break (the bank or otherwise). It’s a well-made peripheral, extraordinarily comfortable, and just above entry-level price. I can’t wait to see what Genesis does next.
RADON 720 OVERALL SCORE: 4/5
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