SteelSeries Arctis GameBuds Review | Trusted Reviews

Design and Features

• Clean, sleek design
• Comfortable fit with good ANC
• Physical touch controls are handy

The GameBuds come in either a black or white colourway, depending on the supported platform, with mine shipping in the PS5-oriented white colour. It matches well with the console and any other white accessories you may have, while looking especially clean.

With this in mind, the PS5 buds are also available in black and white, while the Xbox model is strictly black only.

The case and buds’ general construction are first-rate, with a solid plastic feel and a pleasant heft. The mostly matted finish won’t attract too much grubbiness against the glossy finish of Sony’s option, for instance.

In addition, the charging case has a useful round shape that isn’t too thick or protruding, so it is easily pocketable in a pair of jeans with your phone while you’re wearing the buds if you’re on the move. The case has a SteelSeries logo on top, a small status LED for charge level, and a Qi logo on the bottom to denote it supports the standard.

The buds themselves have a comfortable fit. The default tip fits my ears well, and they come with a good seal and a shape that reminds me more of in-ear monitors than a set of gaming earbuds. That shape has the advantage of conforming to your ears well and ensuring a comfortable fit. If your earholes are a different size, though, SteelSeries provides a range of other sizes with the GameBuds in the box.

The GameBuds’ noise cancellation is strong, although not quite as effective as Sony’s Inzone Buds. It does a reasonable job of blocking out noise, and it worked well in a couple of commutes I took on the London Underground. Their transparency mode also sounded natural, and let through noise in a way that wasn’t synthetic.

I’m also pleased to report that the GameBuds have physical buttons on each earbud for controlling various settings. The left earbud controls connectivity and cancellation, while the right one handles media playback. They provide a pleasant and reassuring tactility, where other earbuds I’ve used have offered imprecise and often frustrating touch controls. You do have to push down quite hard for them to actuate, which can be a little odd when the buds are in your ears.

Connectivity with these is handled by either Bluetooth 5.3 or the bundled 2.4GHz USB-C receiver that comes in the charging case. Pairing over Bluetooth to everything from my Samsung S21 Ultra to my MacBook Pro was no issue, while the USB-C receiver worked a treat with my main Windows gaming PC.

You can also switch between the two modes at will by triple-tapping the right earbud, if you want to go from listening to music on your phone to getting back into a game on your PS5.

The GameBuds, in their PS5 form, are compatible with Nintendo Switch, mobile devices and even the Meta Quest 2 and Quest 3 VR headsets. Meanwhile the Xbox version naturally adds support for Xbox Series and One consoles, but also work with PS5, too, which is intriguing.

The GameBuds mobile app offers extensive granular control, including for controlling the level of active noise cancellation and the microphone volume. You can also check battery life and choose from over 100 presets for all sorts of games to get the most effective audio.

As for battery life, SteelSeries rates the GameBuds to last up to 10 hours on a single charge, which nearly matches my experience with them; I got around eight and a half hours. The charging case adds another 30 hours of charge to provide a total of 40 hours of endurance. That’s pretty good.

In addition, the case supports Qi wireless charging, while a 15-minute quick charge over USB-C gives three hours of endurance. Going from zero to full takes 90 minutes.

Audio and Microphone

• Decent all-round audio
• Wide soundstage
• Microphone is just okay

In a general sense, the GameBuds offer solid results for their audio across games and music alike. It’s perhaps best described as mild and inoffensive, with decent bass and highs, and a reasonable mid-range.

In trying out Arctic Monkeys’ I Ain’t Quite Where I Think I Am, the track’s bassline in the verse section is there, but less prominent and rich than on the Cambridge Audio Melomania M100s. Similarly, the breakdown in Rush’s Working Man with Geddy Lee’s stronger bass runs lacked a certain thump, although it was still present in a refined manner.

The soundstage was pleasantly wide, as demonstrated with the bongos in Earth, Wind & Fire’s September sitting way off to the right where they should be. They were clear, as was the rest of the track, and the GameBuds picked out some excellent detail.

James Taylor’s Millworker and Mac McAnally’s That’s Why They Call It Falling demonstrated a clear mid-range, although with a slightly brighter presentation than with the Melomania M100s, which felt a bit more natural.

With this in mind, the top-end presented is reasonably accurate and quite prominent in some tracks, such as in the introduction to On The Other Side by The Strokes. The song’s incessant cymbal work could be picked out above Julian Casablancas’ vocal and the relentless guitar drives. With the percussion in Steely Dan’s Do It Again, the GameBuds offered solid separation and decent accuracy.

The addition of spatial audio support helps immersion in games, and the wider soundstage that the GameBuds offer allowed for solid positional audio when I played Counter Strike 2. Some explosions and gunfire lacked a bit of impact with the less prominent low end, although they still carried some power. They aren’t super precise, but I still made out footsteps and such rather well.

The only component of the GameBuds that isn’t too strong is their microphone, although this is more of a fault of earbuds in general against normal over-ear gaming headsets.

For general comms, they proved fun when tested in Audacity and with friends over Discord, and they did a good job of cancelling out noise such as my deliberately loud keyboard. My voice had decent body and clarity, although it lacked the richness from a dedicated boom option.

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