Inzone H5

When Sony released their Inzone series last year, which included a range of headphones, reviewers were generally positive about the design and functionality, but here at Gamereactor we were a little less impressed with the price and quality of the microphone. With the H5, it seems that the criticism has been listened to, for the most part.

The H5 is a classic wireless headphone, but where the microphone boom is normally white, this one is black. Even on the black version - we tested a white one which is very nice. It's also said to have been developed together with Fnatic, but since it looks and sounds pretty much like the other models in the Inzone series, I have a hard time figuring out what exactly Fnatic has contributed, other than that they, like other esports teams, like to put their name to everything there is money in.

It's a little hard to get a clear idea of how and what the H5 is made of, it's 40mm units of unknown origin, and the headset weighs 260 grams. It's very comfortable to wear for long periods of time even though the fabric is nylon-based, and the pressure on the collar is not particularly intense, for some this will be a problem, for others an advantage - try them first.

The battery lasts around 25 hours and the wireless connection is through radio waves. You can also connect with a jack and charge with USB-C. There is "360 Spatial Sound", and like most other systems that aren't integrated into every game, it disappoints. And no, photographing the ear canal has no real effect, it requires measurements and calibration via test lights and the like.

But the sound is surprisingly airy, it's not frequency linear, but it's clear, bass-heavy and actually quite well resolved. One thing I'm actually a little impressed with is the AI noise cancellation in the microphone - it actually works. On the other hand, the S-P and T sounds are quite accentuated, and the microphone is better than the H7, but it's still not particularly impressive by any means.

The Inzone software has become quite nice and quite user-friendly, and with only 125MB it is also one of the smallest. I think the price of £130 is really nice, because these are a very reasonable pair of headphones.

But I'm still left with two major criticisms. Firstly, it's amazing how little real concrete information there is about the product. It is one of the least informative product pages I have seen in a long time, they haven't even written what type of plastic is used, perhaps because it is a very light but also quite cheap type, and there is no metal reinforcement in the headband. I can't even find out what latency I'm being offered, but since they don't advertise sub 1ms, it's safe to assume that it's significantly slower than what's actually the market standard, and has been for years.

Units, one of the most important features, are not mentioned at all, other than that they "reproduce authentically", on the microphone's own underside it doesn't even say what type it is or what the recording pattern is. The vast majority of the material looks like it was written by an AI, because the sentences don't quite make sense and are extremely vague and generalised - you can do better when you're Sony, have over 100,000 employees and rake in billions of dollars a year.

Secondly, it must be possible to make a microphone that is at least somewhat acceptable - with AI and modern manufacturing methods, I cannot accept that S,P, T sounds are over-accented and sound like something from my childhood - Sony has proven this many times with their consumer products for hifi, so it must also be possible with gaming.

The pricing is now quite reasonable, the sound as well, and all that remains is to work on a significantly better microphone and a product website that says something other than "this is a good buy".