E3 is known for being the home of all the newest and hottest games, but there are countless hardware and peripheral makers on hand, showing off their latest and greatest as well. One of the companies in question was Astro, and they had the new Legend of Zelda-themed A10 headsets on show.
The A10 series of headsets from Astro are nothing new, they’ve been around for what seems like ages, and for good reason — the sound quality they create in the form they use and at the price, well, it’s hard to beat. What makes the Zelda A10’s so impressive is that it takes all of that, but adds a Zelda spin to the look, something that no other A10 has; they are all stock standard black with maybe a colour on the inside of the ear cup.
Nintendo and Astro announced their partnership earlier in the year, and the first thing to come from it were the tags for the A40’s and while these tags are cool, they only allow you to change one aspect of your headset. Plus the A40’s are not designed with the Switch in mind, something that the A10 Zelda headset does consider. It is important to note that the internals of the A10’s are no different in this unit than they are to any other A10 headset; this does not come packed with more powerful speakers or such, the only thing different between this headset and other A10’s is the Zelda theming, but let’s talk about that.
The entire theme is pulled from Breath of the Wild, so all of the touches are pulled from that game — if you were hoping from another game, you might be disappointed. The right ear contains the Zelda ‘Z’, along with the Master Sword that sits behind it. On the left ear, which is where the microphone lives, you will find the Sheikah symbol, but behind both icons you will notice the swirling patterns from around everything Sheikah from the game. Both ear cups contain the foam padding that the A series has become known for, but the inner space is completely black, unlike other A10’s which contain a colour indicating their platform alignment.
Where the headband meets the cups, on both sides, you will find the Wingcrest, which contains the Tri-Force. It would have been cool if they were different on each side, but it’s a nice touch anyway. When you adjust the headband (if you have a fat head like me, it is a requirement), pulling the headband up, you will notice more swirly Sheikah symbols, but also some gold marks, indicating how far you have taken it up. It is a nice touch, that some people won’t ever see, but I give the designer credit for thinking of it. The microphone itself contains nothing at all, it’s just pure black and when I asked why, the designer pointed out that by leaving it black, it won’t catch your eye while you are gaming, it will just blend away.
In terms of what makes it work for Switch, well, included with each headset is a Switch adaptor, which lets you connect it to the console and your mobile phone. That adaptor can also control the overall volume of the two sources, but there is no way to increase one over the other, you would need to do that on your device. If you don’t use the adaptor, you can plug it directly into your phone or Switch, or really any other device as it uses the standard 3.5mm jack that almost everything uses still.
The headset does not have a confirmed release date, I know JB Hi-Fi have them listed for October 31st, but that is not 100%. You will also notice that the price is higher than the Call of Duty A10’s from last year, I asked why and it was because of the adaptor and extra cable.
If you are keen for a new headset, this is one that you should look at. It contains no other features than any other A10, but it looks great and that is enough for most people and it’s enough for me.
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