FiiO’s KB3 adds DAC and headphone amplifier to RGB 75% Keyboard

Whether you’re a gamer struggling with desktop space or work from home and need better audio, FiiO’s KB3 mechanical keyboard may be what you are looking for.

Sporting a gamer-friendly 75% layout, this tenkeyless (TKL) mechanical keyboard, the FiiO KB3 adds a shock-absorbent gasket mount design on an aluminium-magnesium alloy base and Gateron G Pro 3.0 yellow switches with semi-transparent swappable keycaps that expose the RGB lighting beneath into the mix. The keys and switches are also hot-swappable, enabling you to find the perfect set-up. So far, this sounds like the basics of any gaming board.

Even the 3.5mm headphone port in the keyboard isn’t new territory; I remember Razer at least doing so. However, where the KB3 comes into its own is that headphone output is not just at the end of an analogue passthrough; audio, in fact, is treated to a DAC and headphone amplifier built into the FiiO keyboard.

Crunching the numbers are dual Cirrus Logic CS43131 DACs supporting up to 32-bit / 384kHz and DSD256 audio, helped along by a pair of low-noise SGM8262 op-amps producing a claimed 550mW. Alongside the standard 3.5mm headphone jack, you also get a 4.4mm balanced output. Not too shabby, then.

Finally, two USB A and a USB C port around the rear of the board round things off.

Available in Midnight Black / Morning Silver, the FiiO KB3 Hi-Fi Keyboard with built-in DAC/Amp is available now, priced at £139 / $149 / €169.

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BenQ has today announced the launch of the first fully immersive 4LED projector for console gaming – the X1300i.

The BenQ X1300i is all about large scale, fast-paced gameplay, according to the brand. Additionally, we’re told to expect professional audio, high brightness, high contrast and long-lasting colour.

The new X1300i projector throws a 100-inch diagonal image at just 2.87 metres. Moreover, BenQ’s new 4LED light source is said to achieve higher optical efficiency. Incorporating an additional blue LED, the RGBB light source enhances the 1.4X optical efficiency for longer-lasting colour reproduction with increased vibrancy and 3000 lumen brightness output.

Finally, the X1300i is powered by LED Dynamic Black Technology. Apparently, this intelligently detects the fluctuating light and black levels of the game and accurately matches the dynamic scene.

Oh, and then there’s the 8ms@120Hz low latency, ensuring that gameplay is uninterrupted.

The neat cuboid design of the X1300i sports a pair of 5 Watt treVolo chamber speakers for in-game audio. You also get a trio of pre-set game modes designed for the most popular console genres: FPS (First Shooting Game), SPG (Sports Game) and RPG (Role-Playing Game).

Also, thanks to BenQ’s CinematicColor expertise, you get customisable in-game colours.

The X1300i is also supported by Android TV for live streaming, voice assistance and mirror casting.

The X1300i is available from December and RRP’s at £1249.

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EPOS has unveiled its latest premium gaming headsets, the GSP 601 and GSP 602. 

EPOS?SENNHEISER’s GSP 601 and 602 offer high-quality, crisp audio fidelity, clarity and exceptional realism for gaming sessions, says the company. Not only have these headsets been designed for quality-loving and aesthetic-minded gamers, but the headsets also boast the GSP 600’s much-lauded ergonomic design. Moreover, these headsets eschew the standard gaming palettes for something much more classy.

Sporting a sleek white frame with black accents and interchangable copper-coloured side panels, the GSP 601 looks understatedly stylish.

Meanwhile, the GSP 602 adds unique flair with gloss navy exteriors set against bold brandy-coloured around-ear coupling pads.

The new EPOS?SENNHEISER offerings retain the 600’s ergonomic leatherette earpads with adjustable pressure for the required passive noise-isolation. Additionally, you get broadcast-quality audio from the flexible boom arm microphone featuring lift-to-mute for crystal-clear team communication. Also, on-the-fly volume adjustments are easily made via the wheel on the outer edge of the right ear cup.

The GSP 601 and GSP 602 plays nice with PC, Mac, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and all other consoles and mobile devices with a 3.5 mm jack input.

Price and availability

The EPOS I SENNHEISER GSP 601 and GSP 602 are available now on eposaudio.com/gaming at a suggested retail price of £199.

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JBL’s first-ever range created for gamers includes headsets and PC speakers – please welcome JBL Quantum to the arena.

Gamers know how important accurate and immersive sound is, it is literally a matter of (in-game) life or death. JBL knows a thing or two about acoustics and its new Quantum range, we’re told, is engineered for the most realistic sound experience ever in a gaming headset. 

JBL Quantum Gaming Headsets

Loaded with JBL’s QuantumSOUND Signature, the company states that it will amplify every audible detail with pinpoint accuracy and immersive sound for a true competitive advantage.

The flagship Quantum ONE takes sound to the next level, built exclusively with JBL’s own QuantumSPHERE 360 sound tech. The head tracker sensors and spatial audio will precisely locate and pair visual objects with their sound, says the manufacturer.

Additionally, QuantumSURROUND will envelop you along with the brand’s QuantumENGINE PC software that apparently will create a wider, more realistic spatial soundstage. These technologies feature in the Quantum 300, 400, 600 and 800 headsets.

Of course, you also need to be heard. Thankfully, we are promised crystal-clear comms thanks to the flip-up or detachable boom microphones with echo cancelling with the JBL Quantum 800 and Quantum ONE also packing active noise cancellation.

JBL Quantum Speakers

Finally, there is the Quantum DUO PC speaker that pairs JBL’s dynamic surround sound with Dolby Digital. JBL says that the Quantum DUO’s exposed drivers and tweeters deliver incredible sound clarity. You also get nifty lighting effects as prescribed by most gamers.

The entire Quantum Series is available for purchase now on Amazon as well as uk.jbl.com. 

The JBL Quantum headsets are priced from £29.99 to £229.99, and the Quantum DUO speakers cost £149.99.

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Professional seating specialists, AndaSeat, has announced its Fnatic edition gaming chair.

AndaSeat has manufactured race car seats for BMW & Mercedes Benz, as well as partnered prestigious brands in the sports and Esports field. Today it has revealed the Fnatic edition ergonomic gaming chair. 

Fnatic is the most successful Esport club of the last decade winning more than 200 championships across 30 different games, and their gamers will now all be using the AndaSeat chairs – and you can too!

Padded with 65Kg/M3 cold-cured and super high-density foam, the AndaSeat Fnatic Edition offers the all-important support for the spine during long gaming sessions. The dual cushions can be adjusted to support both the lumbar and cervical spine areas simultaneously, enabling you to settle back into the chair with ease. Additionally, the chair boasts a lockable synchronic-tilt mechanism and special Z-shape design, allowing you to recline up to an angle of 160 degrees and then locked when not in rocking mode.

The backrest is entirely independent and adjustable, which also lessens the strain on the neck and back whilst the 4D PU covered customisable armrest allows for a wide variety in terms of width and height adjustment. 

AndaSeat and Fnatic handily share the same brand colours of yellow and orange. The AndaSeat Fnatic Edition gaming chair displays the brand colour at the sides and the chair arms. However, the chair’s body is in professional and timelessly elegant black. The chair is made of luxury PVC leather with the soft touch of a top grain leather, designed and made with total comfort in mind. With the same materials as used in the racing car chairs previously built by AndaSeat, they offer smooth bonded, scratch and stain-resistant technology. Not only it is easy to clean, but also much more durable.

Zhou Lin, CEO & Founder of AndaSeat, told GadgetyNews: 

AndaSeat is proud to bring our ergonomic technology to support Fnatic’s success in world championships and their vision through which young people communicate with the world’s leading and forward-thinking brands. The usage of the AndaSeat chairs by the Fnatic teams is an important step for our long-term partnership and our commitment to designing and producing top quality professional gaming chairs.

The AndaSeat Fnatic Edition ergonomic gaming chair is available from the AndaSeat website for £399.99.

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SteelSeries has revealed the Sensei Ten gaming mouse, featuring a TrueMove Pro sensor.

The original Sensei was one of the most iconic and widely used mice in esports. The Sensei Ten continues that legacy while retaining the iconic shape, but with all-new upgrades under the hood.

The SteelSeries Sensei defined the world of competitive mice with its iconic ambidextrous shape and performance. Now, the Sensei is rocking the brand new esports-ready sensor, the TrueMove Pro.

TrueMove Pro Sensor

The TrueMove Pro is the latest custom-designed optical sensor from SteelSeries and PixArt. The TrueMove Pro outperforms the competition on any surface with True 1-to-1 tracking, 18,000 CPI and a 450 inches-per-second (IPS) tracking speed.

Thanks to advanced tracking, the sensor also stabilises tilted mouse manoeuvres, eliminating false tracking.

Brian Luu, Product Manager of Mice at SteelSeries, told GadgetyNews:

The original Sensei is the most beloved mouse in the history of PC gaming, and we’ve devoted our engineering expertise to bringing that original shape and feel back to gamers. Our team has done a fantastic job staying true to the Sensei design while upgrading its performance for the demands of modern esports.

Sensei Ten Features

The new Sensei’s ergonomic, ambidextrous design provides a comfortable, natural feel for both right and left-handed users with any grip style. Its eight-button universal shape allows gamers to quickly change grip styles as needed.

The new gaming mouse also features room to save five settings across devices; 60 million click mechanical switches, and two-zone RGB lighting.

Price and availability

The Sensei Ten is available now globally for £69.99

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Logitech G has unveiled the Logitech G PRO X Mechanical Gaming Keyboard. The new keyboard features multiple switch types including Clicky, Linear and Tactile, all wrapped in a tenkeyless design to fit the needs of current and aspiring esports pros.

Designed to meet the exacting standards of the world’s top esports professionals, the PRO X Gaming Keyboard provides competition-grade reliability and features.

Logitech G PRO X Tenkeyless Board

The new keyboard builds upon the pro-approved Logitech G PRO Gaming Keyboard’s space-saving tenkeyless design. Furthermore, this design makes it easy to pack for tournament travel as well as freeing up table space.

Additionally, the detachable Micro-USB connector ensures that the cable won’t break at the connection point when being transported. The three-pronged design features support arms for a reliable connection. 

Also, the keyboard features customisable RGB lighting which can be stored to an onboard memory profile.

Ujesh Desai, vice president and general manager, Logitech gaming, told GadgetyNews: 

Gamers, especially pros, have different preferences when it comes to keyboard switches. That’s why we wanted to design and build a new pro keyboard that featured swappable switches. By giving gamers the ability to choose the right switch to match their style of play, we’ve delivered a new level of performance that is optimised for each individual’s unique needs.

Pricing and Availability

The PRO Gaming Keyboard comes in two variants which are available from October of 2019:

The Logitech G PRO X Mechanical Gaming Keyboard retails for £129.00 with user-swappable GX Clicky, Linear or Tactile switches.

The Logitech G PRO Mechanical Gaming Keyboard with non-swappable clicky switches retails for £109.00. 

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Creative Technology has announced the release of Sound Blaster X3, its latest addition to the legendary Sound Blaster line-up of sound cards which kicked-off the PC audio revolution 30 years ago. 

Announced at IFA recently, we now have more information about the Sound Blaster X3.

Naturally, the latest iteration takes things further. Firstly, the X3 sports a high-resolution USB DAC with multi-channel audio playback.

Additionally, you get the famed Sound Blaster digital processing tech as well as Super X-Fi headphone holography.

Sound Blaster – Super X-Fi 

With 400 million Sound Blaster cards sold over the last 30 years, the latest Sound Blaster X3 has quite some shoes to fill, However, thanks to it rocking Super X-Fi technology (a first for Sound Blasters), it shouldn’t worry.

Super X-Fi recreates the soundstage of a surround speaker system in headphones and personalises it for a natural listening experience. Basically, you should get real cinema audio in your headphones.

High-spec DAC

The X3 is a high-resolution, 7.1 multi-channel USB DAC, offering up to 32-bit / 192 kHz playback. Also, the headphone amplifier is capable of driving studio-grade headphones.

As well as offering 7.1 discrete channel output, this external sound card also offers 7.1 virtualisation on just 2 speakers. It also features Dolby Digital Live encoding for connecting optically to external receivers for multi-channel speakers.

Furthermore, you can customise Sound Blaster’s surround virtualisation tech through the personalised EQ presets to enhance your audio experience. 

Sound Blaster XS hits the sweetspot

With the new Audio Balance feature on Sound Blaster X3, the volume feed can be toggled between two audio sources. This nifty function is handy if you like to chat while watching movies or playing games or prefer listening to some tunes while gaming. 

Sound Blaster X3 shows its versatility further in terms of its connectivity, offering cross-platform compatibility for PC, Mac, PS4 and Nintendo Switch. Also, it is supported by the new Sound Blaster Command software for desktops, and a corresponding mobile app to save console users the hassle of switching to desktops for control and customisation.  

Sound Blaster upgrade deal

As a gesture of appreciation for their support over the last 30 years, Creative is offering an exclusive promotion to its fans – the opportunity to upgrade from your old sound cards with an attractive 15% discount off the latest Sound Blaster products. This promotion will be valid for all upcoming Sound Blaster products launched until the end of the year. 

Pricing and Availability

Sound Blaster X3 is available now for £119.99 from Creative.com.

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Acer took to the stage at IFA 2019 to announce a bunch of new products, including a Project Athena laptop, new ConceptD models for creators, and new Predator laptops for gamers.

Acer Swift 5

Kicking off at the highly portable end of things, the Acer Swift 5 qualifies as a Project Athena model. Featuring an Intel Core i7-1065G7 CPU (10th Gen Ice Lake) with Iris Plus graphics, there is also the option to add an Nvidia GeForce MX250 as a discrete GPU. 

Falling distinctly into the thin and light category, the chassis is constructed using magnesium alloys it weighs under 1kg and measures just under 15mm thin. Additionally, the Swift 5 is equipped with Wi-Fi 6, up to 512GB PCIe 3.0 x4 SSD, and a 14-inch IPS touchscreen. 

The Swift 5 is set for release this month with a starting price of 899 Euros.

Acer ConceptD

The company has also expanded its ConceptD portfolio, announcing the ConceptD 7 Pro and ConceptD 9 Pro.

The ConceptD Pro notebooks switch from GeForce GPUs to workstation-focussed Nvidia Quadro GPUs. Both the ConceptD 7 Pro and ConceptD 9 Pro sport the Quadro RTX 5000. 

The ConceptD 9 Pro boasts a 4K UHD display with 100% Adobe RGB coverage and Pantone validation. It measures less than 18mm thick and uses an Intel Core i7 9th Gen CPU. 

The highlight feature of the 17.3-inch ConceptD 9 Pro is the way its screen is attached to two arms, giving a wider range of position options. 

The ConceptD 9 Pro and 7 Pro will launch in November with starting prices of 5,499 Euros and 2,599 Euros respectively.

New Predators

The Predator brand saw the launch of the Triton 300 and has upgraded the Triton 500 to have a 300Hz display. 

The Predator Triton 300 weighs 2.3kg and packs in an Intel 9th Gen processor (up to Core i7), 16GB or 32GB of DDR4 at 2,666MHz, and the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1650 GPU. 

The 15.6-inch display has a 144Hz refresh rate, and it comes with up to 2TB of storage, Wi-Fi 6, and Killer Ethernet connectivity. 

The Triton 300 will be available in Q4 starting at 1,299 Euros, and the newly upgraded Predator Triton 500 will also become available in Q4 starting at 2,699 Euros.

Predator Thronos Air 

The Predator Thronos Air is Acer’s newest gaming chair. Well, we think that ‘chair’ rather undersells this gaming cave.

The steel structure includes a chair, modular desk and monitor arm. All of that envelops you in a comfortable, totally immersive gaming cockpit. 

We also dig the teal blue lighting that emits a soft cool glow.

The chair can be adjusted to various angles (130 degrees inside the cabin and 180 degrees outside the cabin) for maximum comfort. 

Additionally, the chair even includes a massage function, so you can relax in between battles. 

The desk includes an adjustable keyboard and mouse tray, whereas a footrest keeps your feet elevated.

The Thronos Air can support up to three displays. Also, the monitor arm can be manually raised and lowered with a handle conveniently located right below the middle monitor stand. 

Furthermore, a camera can be positioned right above the middle monitor, making it easy to live-stream the action to YouTube, Twitch or Mixer. An option that is almost essential these days.

Naturally, there is a platform to take a powerful gaming PC located behind the chair. There is also a cable management system that neatly stores cords and wires out of the way. 

Finally, Acer offers numerous customisation options and upgrades, such as a seat stabiliser to prevent the chair from moving around during game sessions, a cup holder, a headset holder, a USB hub, and a camera.

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SteelSeries announces the newest member of the Arctis family, the Arctis 1 Wireless. Touted as the world’s first USB-C wireless gaming headset the new headphones provide lossless, gaming-grade wireless across four different systems.

The Arctis 1 Wireless features the new slimmed-down body of the Arctis 1 but connects via a small USB-C dongle for a true lossless and low latency connection across Nintendo Switch, PS4, PC and mobile.

Game on the Go or at Home

The Arctis 1 Wireless utilises a small USB-C dongle and features SteelSeries’ lossless 2.4GHz wireless tech for ultra-low latency wireless on Nintendo Switch, PC, PS4 and Android. The upshot of this is that you get to take the same console or PC experience on-the-go on Nintendo Switch or Android devices.

Also, the Arctis 1 Wireless easily doubles as a stylish pair of on-the-go headphones. Thanks to a detachable microphone and sleek low-profile design, gamers can enjoy the award-winning performance of Arctis no matter where you are.

The Arctis 1 Wireless also uses the same ClearCast microphone for natural-sounding clarity and noise cancellation.

Ehtisham Rabbani, SteelSeries CEO, told GadgetyNews:

With the continual growth of console gaming, alongside the emergence of mobile gaming experiences such as game streaming services and Nintendo Switch, gamers’ audio needs have evolved, and that evolution is wireless. Gamers need a truly multi-platform wireless headset that easily transitions between experiences, and that’s exactly what we’ve delivered with the Arctis 1 Wireless.

New Headband

The Arctis 1 Wireless also forgoes the iconic ski goggle suspension headband in favour of a lower profile solution. The reason for this is that the new headband is optimised for use on the go.

However, it still boasts excellent comfort thanks to the Airweave fabric ear cushions. Finally, the steel-reinforced headband aids a perfect fit and lasting durability.

It also provides the added flexibility of a 3.5mm cable to easily plug into other devices like Xbox controllers or any other device with a 3.5mm connection.

Price and availability

The Arctis 1 Wireless is available now globally for $99.99/€119.99/$119.99 at steelseries.com.

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