The SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless has a stunning, elegant design, a luxurious fit and comfort, and all-around connectivity. And, despite its fiddly controls and possibly breathable ear foams, this is one of the best-designed headphones we’ve tested. It weighs 337g and has plush ear cushions draped in soft-to-touch leatherette, a floating ski headband that’s thinly padded, and earcups that swivel a lot to fit different head shapes. Overall, you get an extremely comfortable gaming headset with a good enough hold and size to fit most heads. We only wish the leatherette was a little more breathable. That design is a classier, more approachable, and toned-down version of a gamer’s aesthetic, with the goal of achieving a more all-purpose look so you won’t be embarrassed to wear them as Bluetooth headphones in public. The mic boom, which tucks away inside the left earcup while still providing mic functionality, is a good example of this. It’s not the first gaming headset to use this hybrid design approach – Razer has done something similar – but SteelSeries has done an excellent job with it. It looks as good as a pair of headphones as it does as a gaming headset, and we can’t wait to take it on our next trip. Fortunately, it comes with two interchangeable Fuji lithium-ion batteries that provide 22 hours of battery life each. You put one in the right earcup behind a removable (and customizable) magnetic plate, then swap it out when it runs out of power. Do both batteries require charging? Put one in the base station’s built-in battery charging slot, and keep the other in the headphones to charge via the USB-C port behind the left earcup magnetic plate. Simple as that. SteelSeries has also included fast charging for good measure, so you can play for three hours after only 15 minutes of charging.
