Xbox 360 Wireless Headset

Electronics Boutique got these in a few days early, so I picked one up last night. I must admit that I'm impressed. It's a little bit pricey at $60, but that price was worthwhile to get rid of one more wire. That, and the audio quality seems to be much more consistent than that of my previous Plantronics X30.

On the front side, you have three buttons: the silver power/mute button in the center, and the volume control buttons on either side. On the reverse, you have the speaker (covered in a soft felt), the connect button, and four green LEDs. The headset is charged using a supplied power cable plugged into the power jack on the rear of the unit (seen in the third image above). A full charge immediately after opening the blister pack (curse you, blister packs!) takes about four hours, and supposedly is good for eight hours of use. You cannot use the headset while it is charging; plugging it in will disconnect it from the 360.

The one thing that most people I've spoken with seem to be worried about (aside from audio quality) is comfort. Let me assure you that the wireless headset is comfortable in the extreme, and it's entirely possible to forget that you've got it on. The one component that I was most concerned with — the grey ring that clips over your ear — is made of a very soft silicone rubber and exerts almost no pressure on your ear. The package includes two clip sizes, just in case you have freakishly huge monkey ears.

The process for connecting the headset to the 360 is identical to that for connecting a wireless controller. Once connected, the headset will associate itself with the first available quadrant of the ring of light. You can then press the connect button on the headset to iterate through the rest of the quadrants as necessary. The battery level is displayed in the 360 guide next to the wireless controller's battery indicator.

Overally, I'm very pleased. It's pretty much as I expected, and a welcome addition to my accessory collection.

Major Nelson on Sirius

Looks like Major Nelson is going to be a regular guest on Maxim's new video game-themed show, "Level Up". This caught my interest as my brother just got me a Starmate 4 for my birthday, so I'm still new to the whole Sirius experience. Of course, my luck being as it is, I noticed this the day after the show. Oh well. From what I'm hearing, Nelson was about the only worthwhile part of the broadcast. The show is apparently not aimed at people who actually play games.

He apparently did an audio review of Splinter Cell: Double Agent, which I caved in and bought sometime last week. I've only been playing the single-player campaign to this point, and I must say that I'm really enjoying it. I haven't really played a Splinter Cell game since the original, and now I'm kind of wishing that I did. I'm going to be way, way behind when it comes to multiplayer. Then again, I have a feeling that world + dog will be playing something else next week.

Logitech MX Revolution Impressions

I confess: I'm a bit of a mouse freak. I took a look around the office and my desk at home and realized that I have a lot of fancy schmancy mice. Sitting at my desk at the office are a Microsoft Wireless Laser Mouse 6000 (my current favorite), an MS Wireless Notebook Mouse 4000, a Logitech MX1000, and a Logitech MX700. At home, I've got a Logitech G7 Laser. So, of course, when I saw Logitech's new MX Revolution, I simply had to have one.

The big deal with the Revolution is its funky new wheel. In order to appreciate what's going on here, you really need to check out the details. The main scroll wheel is a mechanical job. It's actually a free-spinning aluminum-alloy flywheel. By "free spinning", I mean that you can flick the wheel in either direction and it will keep spinning until it slows to a halt. Naturally, the faster you spin it, the faster it scrolls. As an experiment, I gave the wheel a good flick in Excel and it scrolled 27,000 rows before it finally stopped (about seven seconds).

The wheel also has a "clicky" ratcheting mode, providing the familiar, tactile line-by-line scrolling that Logitech's other mouse wheels offer. The mouse can switch between these on the fly by clicking the wheel. Further, the SetPoint software is smart enough to temporarily switch out of clicky mode if you start scrolling fast enough. If you switch modes, it is intelligent enough to remember which mode you are in for each application window that is currently open. All of this stuff is highly configurable, even on a per-application basis.

Other new features include the "document flip" wheel (the second wheel you see on the side), which provides a task switcher, and a dedicated search button on the top. The search button is not limited to your web browser: it can search text that is highlighted in any application.

So how does all of this work in practice? Personally, I think the wheel is phenomenal. Throwing the wheel up or down to scroll huge distances in an instant feels very natural. The software reacts very well to changes in the wheel's mode, either due to task switching or scrolling speed changes.

The other gimmicks I could honestly do without. I don't use the document flipper very often, and there are no useful options for configuring it. The search button is not really necessary, either, but at least you can assign any function to it and make it more useful.

As for your usual mousey stuff, the body itself is quite comfortable, with a huge thumb groove/rest that makes a big difference. The mouse isn't as large or as heavy as it appears in pictures, either. Battery life seems extremely respectable, and the mouse comes with a charging base for easy charging. The base seems to be much better designed than those for the MX700/MX1000.

So after one night of use, I'm really digging it overall. It's a little bit on the pricey side ($99 USD), but I've never really felt bad about spending money on the computer components I interact with the most.