Sony INZONE H5 review, very comfortable gaming headphones

It’s hard not to start a review of the Sony INZONE H5 headphones with the conclusion because it includes an aspect that I think is very important to remember. Therefore, these are wireless gaming headphones that offer very good sound and excellent comfort, even remarkable in this regard.

At the same time, however, note that they do not have Bluetooth connectivity. The wireless connection we were talking about is ensured with a USB dongle easily connected to the PC and the PlayStation 5, which also ensures a low latency of the transmitted sound. However, not having Bluetooth, the INZONE H5 are only gaming headphones and that’s it, not a model that can be used, for example, to listen to music from a phone or for simple connection to a laptop or other device, unless you want to to use the audio cable for this.

In other words, this model is, from the start, intended only for gamers and that’s it. It costs 639 lei at eMAG, offers 28 hours of wireless autonomy and fast charging, spatial sound, built-in microphone. They are compatible with Windows and with PlayStation 5, and I would even say that, being also produced by Sony, they are a perfect model for gaming on the console.

I said remarkable comfort. These INZONE H5 headphones are more comfortable than the new ULT Wear, the 1000XM5, and any other over-ear headphones I’ve worn. The cups, which hide 40mm drivers, are made of a soft material with an elasticity that makes me think of some kind of memory foam. My ear goes all the way inside the cup, and the contact of that soft material with my head is very nice and comfortable.

In addition, they are adjusted from the factory so that they did not press too hard on my head, having an opening that seemed to be specially designed for the size of my head, but still providing a good over-ear socket to ensure good passive noise isolation and wearing comfort. duration.

Their very low weight also contributes to the feeling of comfort, they have a total of 260 grams. That means a thin-looking plastic for the outside of the cups, plastic and for the structural bar that connects the cups together, but it’s preferable that way. They are gaming headphones, you wear them for many hours in a row when you play and you do it at home, so the most important thing is that it is light weight.

I said plastic, but the construction is as neat as can be. The joints seem premium, the way you widen or narrow the headphones suggests a well-made mechanism, no squeaks, no cuts.

The microphone is non-detachable and tied on the middle of the left cup. However, you can rotate it from the mouth to the vertical position, and its stem is slightly deformable to bring it closer or closer to the mouth. Also on the left is a volume wheel, in steps, and the audio and USB-C jacks.

On the right is the on/off button and a button labeled Game/Chat, which actually allows you to adjust the weight of chat or game sounds in what you hear in the headphones. Depending on what you’re playing, sometimes it’s more important to hear your teammates louder than the game sounds.

I tested the black version. There are also white ones, which also look interesting, with a more futuristic look. They are actually black and white, with some design elements on them also being black. Those seem to fit even better next to a Playstation 5.

The connection dongle is a USB-A one, about the size of a normal USB stick. It ensures a direct 2.4 GHz connection between the headset and the PC or console, thus providing the lowest possible audio latency, which matters a lot in certain types of games.

It is of course included in the package, along with a USB charging cable for the headphones and a 1.5 meter long audio jack cable. Unfortunately, the headset also does not include a carrying case, which I say would have been necessary for semi-pro gamers and the idea of ​​LAN Parties and competitions.

I also said that the sound is very good. It’s a gaming headset, so you expect to hear smooth sounds with increased sensitivity, and the INZONE H5 delivers. Not much to say here, really. They are good, of course considering the price range in which they are placed. The bass is too loud. Voices are heard clearly. The microphone is acceptable, and in this price range it is difficult to find a good one.

If you want active noise cancellation or much better sound quality, there are headphones like that on the market. The INZONE H5 seem to me to be semi-pro and casual level. They are especially suitable for those who want a solution that is easy to connect to the PlayStation 5 and that remains “tied” to the console, in the sense that you will not use them for work calls or for music on the street, but after the gaming session you put them next to the controller and console until the next one.

On PC there is software called Inzone Hub, but it really only brings a sound equalizer with a few presets. You can also disable the auto gain for the microphone and adjust the balance between chat and game from here, but that’s what the button on the headphones is for.

It should also be noted that these headphones are actually PC-first, if I may say so. Inzone Hub offers them 360 Spatial Audio, in other words, a setting that in games you might want to activate, while on “music” headphones I never felt the point. You still have that equalizer, plus other settings. If you take the dongle and plug it into a PS5, it works straight plug-and-play, but the PC settings don’t transfer to the PS5, and you don’t have any configuration options for that matter.

In other words, you can use them through the TRRS audio cable for connectivity to a laptop or phone, if you have one with a jack. They then become useful for video calls, gaming or music without having that dongle around. But if you want wired connectivity, there are cheaper models on the market. Also, in theory you could connect the INZONE H5 to a mobile phone using a USB-C to USB-A adapter and headphone dongle, but I see no reason why you’d want to complicate things like that.

I told you the conclusion from the beginning. INZONE 5 offers good sound and excellent comfort for long gaming, plus long battery life. They are “headphones and that’s all” for gamers, and Sony has models with more functions in the INZONE range for those who want that.

I’m not blaming them for the lack of Bluetooth, that you can see the lack of this connection in their specifications, but I’m just pointing out that it’s missing in case you assume that all modern headphones offer something like that. INZONE H5 addresses a niche of customers who don’t want good headphones for everything, but only some for gaming. The only negative element seems to me to be the lack of a carrying case in the package, for the moments when you throw them in a backpack crowded together with a gaming laptop or when you travel to a LAN Party.