HARDWARE REVIEW

Razer Man O’ War Review

by Kieron Davies, July 20th, 2016

Headphones are usually something that gets overlooked when it comes to a PC gamer’s set up. Mice and keyboards are discussed and debated to no end, but the headset, not so much. Razer a company whose tagline reads “By gamers, for gamers”, means they should know exactly what a gamer really needs. In this review we test out their wireless gaming headset, the Razer Man O’ War.

At first glance, the headset looks amazing. Razer generally have a great aesthetic design to all of their gear, usually sleek and black. Now with the new Chroma line they’re pushing to give each piece of hardware a bit of colour and make their headsets look fashionable. The Chroma brings lighting to just the external of the ear cups, the LED Razer logos can be in any of the 16 million different colours or cycle through various. This is enough illumination for the Man O’ War, it doesn’t need to be completely light-up but a little bit of luminescence breaks up the compete blackness of the headset.

Razer’s Man O’ War sits comfortably on your head, with adjustable sides to make sure it can fit any head size big or small. With two main designs for headset fittings in most gaming headsets; elasticated head bands that adjust themselves or the adjustable, retractable ear cups. The Man O’ war uses the latter, and I think the mechanical style adjustment suits the headset much more than an elasticated head band, as the mechanical nature of the headband gives a more robust and robotic look to the headset, where as an elastic would look unstable compared to the other components. The headset is also very light weight, which is surprising as the wireless headset obviously needs a battery to operate, but the Man O’ War is even lighter than some wired headsets I’ve used in the past.

The ear cups are on a pivot on the headset meaning that the headset will sit and adjust to any head; big, small or even people whose ears are on sideways. The cups are foam covered in a faux-leather finish and are comfortable to wear, even for long periods of time. Although the average use is based on 2 hours a day, you can easily wear the headset for its entire fourteen-hour battery life. The ear cups are completely encompass your ears meaning they can get a little hot as there isn’t much room to breathe, but they are comfortable when they are on. Most gamers, even the most hard-core, know to take a break every few hours anyway so this shouldn’t be too much of an issue for any gamer.

The ear cups on the Man O' War are comfortable for long gaming sessions.

The microphone in the Man O’ War is literally “in” the Man O’ War. Retractable microphones are becoming more of a standard in gaming headsets, and on this headset it certainly helps maintain the sleek look. The microphone doesn’t get in the way when extended, like some others that can creep into your peripheral vision. The microphone on the Man O’ War sits perfectly to the side of your mouth to pick up enough sound without taking in background noise. The retractable mic is also coated in a smooth plastic, unlike other retractable mic headsets such as the SteelSeries Siberia which leaves the metal coating exposed. This should give the mic a longer lifetime of pulling in and our without wearing down. Taking the mic in and out of the headset feels smooth and doesn’t give much resistance meaning that the mic can be retracted without any worry of damaging the headset or the mic.

Sound quality in the Man O’ war is a mixed bag. When sound is playing, like music, videos or in-game, the sound quality is great and crisp. The 7.1 virtual surround sound really helps in games like CS:GO and Battlefield with map awareness and the frequency response is 20-20 kHz, the entire range of human hearing, meaning there isn’t a sound you shouldn’t hear. Knowing where an enemy is or what is going on behind you without having to look is essential for competitive FPS games, so having a headset that tells you everything via sound is a huge plus to the Man O’ War. However, when there is no sound playing, there is an unmistakable background hiss, which is audible if you’re listening to something quieter like chilled out music.

As far as frequency range is concerned, the Man O’ War is also makes it great for watching movies, online videos and listening to music. The 7.1 virtual surround sound is the closest you’re going to get to a cinema experience without dishing out thousands of pounds for a full speaker set. Music always sounds well mixed and there are certain pre-sets for different kinds of listening to get the most out of your experience.

The retractable mic is convenient and well built.

A feature on the ear cups is the ability to independently control the volume for the headset and the microphone. These controls are great as they mean you don’t need to alt-tab out of game to adjust any volumes, for example if any teammates can’t hear you or you can’t hear the footsteps of your enemies in game.

Now, as we’ve said before, the Man O’ War is a wireless headset, meaning it obviously runs on a rechargeable battery. Razer advertise the headset to have a “weeks’ worth” of battery life, the average battery life I found over the course of using the headset was around 14 hours, which to be fair, is what Razer says. However, 14 hours over a week obviously makes for 2 hours a day of gaming.

I don’t know about you; but I spend much longer than 2 hours a day gaming. I think the Man O’ War could definitely benefit from having a higher capacity battery but this could mean an increase weight. It does have an auto-off function when it doesn’t detect any sound, which helps with getting the most out of the battery. For the hard-core gamer though, you will find yourself charging it every couple days, or resorting to using the headset while plugged in, which is good alternaive. The best part of the wireless function compared to other headsets is the range of the signal. You can get up to about 12 meters of wireless connectivity before the signal starts to drop. This means you can go to the toilet in the middle of a CS:GO game and still hear how long you have left of your pause time. Not that I did this…

All in all, the Man O’ War is a great gaming headset for gamers to use however, with a price of over £150, only the truly dedicated Razer user or someone who loves wireless peripherals would purchase. The lower battery life may put some more hard-core gamers off, but leaving it charging overnight shouldn’t be a chore for most people as we all do it with our smartphones. It is comfortable and has a great sound quality to it. The background hiss may be annoying to the more discernable gamers who pick up sounds better or like to listen to some more low-level music or even ASMR videos.