Razer is back with another pair of wireless gaming earbuds that bring some welcome improvements over the last generation.
According to Razer, the newly released Razer Hammerhead V3 HyperSpeed improve active noise cancellation (ANC) by a wide margin, with the company touting 50% more noise reduction over the previous generation. While ANC is one of those things you have to test for yourself to really get a grasp on, that figure is still enticing on paper.
Another category that Razer seems to be making strides in is battery life. While the previous generation got a pretty mediocre 6.5 hours in the earbuds when RGB lighting and ANC are turned off, the new generation get 10 hours under the same settings. I’ve reached out to Razer to see if there are figures available for how much battery life is expected with ANC and RGB on.
Another notable upgrade over the last generation is the inclusion of THX spatial audio when using the buds with a PC. Razer says they’re capable of replicating a 7.1 soundstage, which I’m curious to try for myself. I’m not a huge spatial audio fan when listening to music, but in gaming it makes a whole lot of sense.
As is the case with previous generations, the Hammerhead V3 HyperSpeed come with a 2.4GHz dongle, but this time Bluetooth gets an upgrade to Bluetooth 6.0. The previous generation used 5.2, so this should make Bluetooth streaming more reliable when you’re not using the included USB-C dongle. Speaking of using Bluetooth, Razer is also selling a cheaper dongle-less option if you’re not worried about having the lowest possible latency and want to save a little money.
Also, like previous generations, the Hammerhead V3 HyperSpeed aren’t compatible with Xbox due to Microsoft’s use of specific codecs (though Razer did make an Xbox-specific version to account for this). You can still use the Hammerhead V3 HyperSpeed with basically everything else, though, including PC, PlayStation, gaming handhelds, iOS, Android, and the Nintendo Switch—anything with a USB-C port that isn’t an Xbox. They, of course, still have RGB. Wouldn’t be Razer without it.
The Razer Hammerhead V3 HyperSpeed are available now for $129.99, and the dongle-less Razer Hammerhead V3 X HyperSpeed cost $99.
