Buy Atlas One Gaming Headset

The Atlas One is a less-expensive, budget alternative for all your gaming headset needs, and man, you never feel more aware of it than when you're unboxing it alongside a pricier option. The Elite Atlas comes in a shaped foam box, two cardboard sleeves, and a shaped foam cushion, with everything short of a tasteful classical aria playing as you pull it open.

The Atlas One, by comparison, comes out of its box in a chipboard tray, with its two cords tied up next to it. It's got no frills to offer you. What you see is what you get.

In general, headphones are one of those items I generally prefer to get spendy with. A cheap pair costs more in the long run, particularly with as often as I tend to use mine. The Atlas One is no particular exception to that rule, especially when contrasted with the Elite Atlas; it shares the same balancing drawbacks, where it makes anything except video games sound somewhat flatter than it should, in an overall package that feels as much cheaper as it is.

With that being said, I've definitely owned worse headsets. The Atlas One's pads are comfortable memory foam, and it feels decent to wear for long periods of time. The base cord is short, but it has a long splitter cord for the PC, letting me fit it into the back ports on my home PC without a problem.

In-game, sounds are crisp and clear. Everything feels just as it should, which makes the relative imbalance of non-game audio somewhat jarring by comparison. Switch from a game like Stardew Valley, with its peppy 16-bit soundtrack, to the same music played on YouTube, and you immediately hear a distinct and jarring difference. It's a great headset for gaming, and it's OK for anything else.

I do like the feature where the mute switch on the headset is triggered by putting the microphone up. It's not a button on the side of the left headphone where you'll hit it accidentally, or a switch on the cord without anything on it that tells you what it does or whether or not it's been flipped. If the mike's up, it's muted. Frankly, this should be the industry standard. I have utterly wrecked a dozen pairs of expensive PC-gaming headsets in my life because none of them were actually designed to be worn for entire weeks at a time (to say nothing of whatever occasional other misfortune might occur), and with all of them, the microphone had a different arcane method by which it would be muted. I applaud the Atlas One's basic simplicity.

Most of the problems I have with the Atlas One are mostly down to testing it alongside the Elite Atlas. The Elite has a lot of bells, whistles, and quality-of-life improvements that justify the extra $50, as well as a set of packaging that makes it feel like you're unboxing nuclear launch codes. As far as actual performance goes, however, the Atlas One does the job at the cost of aesthetics, a bit of comfort, and a little bit of durability. You could feel pretty comfortable rolling that extra $50 into another game and going with the Atlas One.

Score: 7.5/10