Xbox Headphones: Xbox Wireless Headset vs. B&O Beoplay Portal vs. Astro A50 Gen 4
This review is a little off-topic from our typical gear reviews for fitness and health, but Pantheon got me into doing reviews, and I wanted to do something just for fun.
Xbox surprise announced two excellent headphones within a few weeks of each other. First they dropped the Xbox Wireless Headset then shortly after, they announced the Bang & Olfsen Beoplay Portal. Like many people, I was curious about how the two compare as gaming headsets. I managed to get a hold of both, and thought it might be helpful to share my impressions of the Xbox Wireless Headset vs. Bang & Olufsen Beoplay Portal.
I’m not a technical headphone expert. I just play video games and I like headphones. So this isn’t going to be a super technical comparison, just sharing my personal opinions.
To start, I think these serve different audiences. They’re at drastically different price points and the use cases differ.
I’ll include some thoughts as to how these compare them to my previous headset the Astro A50 Gen 4, for anyone who might be considering those.
Summary
The short version of it: if you’re looking for a gaming headset for your Xbox, it is really hard not to recommend the Xbox Wireless headset. I think this is the headset for almost everyone. It’s priced at only $100 when it could be priced for 2 times to 3 times as much.
The Beoplay Portal are for people who want a top-of-the-line listening experience and multipurpose headphones that are great at everything. The single drawback on the Beoplay Portal is that you can’t use Bluetooth while playing Xbox, which is weird. If thats important for you, that might be a deal killer. Otherwise, while these are expensive, they actually give features that justify the price.
Xbox Wireless Headset Impressions
If you’re exclusively looking for gaming headphones for the Xbox, its hard not to recommend the Xbox Wireless Headset.
The Xbox Wireless Headset is great. I don’t know how Microsoft arrived at the $100 price point, but they’re doing everyone a favor here.
The sound is solid when when you’re using Dolby Atmos, and I would put them in a similar sound experience as the Astro A50. They have a deep bass which gives a fun head-rattling experience, but they provide enough detail for an immersive experience.
The build quality is fantastic. The design is clean and minimal.
The first-party integration with the Xbox is perfect and provides a seamless user experience. You can change EQ settings in the Xbox dashboard to get to a sound profile you like. When you turn these on, they turn on your Xbox, just like the controller does.
They also have Bluetooth, and, importantly, you can use Bluetooth while you’re playing Xbox if you want to take a call or chat with friends on Discord.
I would pick these over the Astro A50 Gen 4. Part of that is quality issues with Astro. But really, the Xbox Wireless Headset sounds about as good and the native integration is a huge perk. All at 1/3 of the price.
Bang & Olufsen Beoplay Portal Impressions
As a gamer, I tend to think of gaming headphones as a separate category from standard headphones, but the Bang & Olufsen Beoplay Portal bend the categories. These headphones are for people who want the most premium listening experience on Xbox, or for gamers who want one pair of incredible-sounding headphones that do it all.
The obvious sticking point on the Beoplay Portal is the price, and people will say it’s ridiculous that these cost 5 times as much as the Xbox set. I don’t think the Beoplay Portal are overpriced as much as the Xbox Wireless headphones are underpriced. The Beoplay Portal feel like what you get with a $500 headset.
Where the Xbox Wireless Headphones feel like a great pair of gaming headphones, the Beoplay Portal are high-end luxury headphones that also happen to connect seamlessly to your Xbox. B&O makes incredible sounding headphones, and they have brought that sound to gaming. They come with the Dolby Atmos support, and audio detail on the Xbox is highly immersive. They also sound fantastic when watching movies or listening to music.
The B&O app lets you tune EQ settings and save several EQ presets, so you can switch between profiles for different games, music, or movies. They connect using a handful of Bluetooth standards, so they should sound great no matter what device you’re using. If you don’t mess with wireless for music and want to plug them in, they have a 3.5MM port (and an included cable!). They feature Active Noise Cancellation if you want to drown out the world when gaming, at an office, or traveling, as well as a transparency mode. The feature set is similar to the AirPods Pro Max, and after a few days, I think they’re a legitimate competitor.
They don’t look like your standard gaming headphones with the lights and the decals and the oversized cups, they look more like a luxury pair of headphones.
The Beoplay Portal are insanely light and comfortable. I wore these for almost 12 hours straight, jumping from Xbox to music sessions, and they never got hot or felt like they were pinching my head. They have a notch at the top of the head and extra padding in the memory foam earcups to relieve the headphone pressure, and it works.
Comparing the Xbox Wireless Headset, Bang & Olufsen Beoplay Portal, and Astro A50 Gen 4
Audio Quality
All 3 of these headsets have 40MM drivers, but they don’t sound the same.
The Xbox Wireless headphones and Astro A50 sound great, but they have the sound profile of gaming headphones. They have a heavy low end to give you the exciting, rumbling base, but that comes at the expense of clarity. If you try to use them for music or movies, things sound muddy. The Xbox Wireless headset is comparable to the Astro A50, which says a lot given the price difference, and I actually preferred the Xbox Wireless headset when I had Dolby Atmos enabled for both.
The Beoplay Portal are in their own category given the different soundscape they offer. They’re not as bass heavy, and at first I missed that rumbly impact, but after I while, I felt like I got a lot more detail which made games more immersive. This tuning also works great for movies on the Xbox, where the Dolby Atmos gives a surround experience, and dialog comes through clearly.
The Xbox Wireless Headset and Astro A50 don’t sound bad, by any means, they simply have a different profile that works for gaming and not much else. The Beoplay Portal definitely provide the superior audio quality.
Battery Life
Battery life is long on all of them in gaming sessions. The Beoplay Portal get 12 hours when playing games and 24 hours when listening to music. The Xbox Wireless Headset and Astro A50 get 15 hours when gaming.
Comfort
Comfort is important for gaming, and this is where I think the Xbox Wireless headphones are weakest. I have a large head, and after a couple of hours, I start to feel pressure right at the top of my head. Sometimes it was uncomfortable but other times it verged into painful.
The Astro A50 are more comfortable, but I paid extra for the leather pad addition, which should have come with the headset at this price. These are never painful for me, but they do feel hot after a couple of hours.
The Beoplay Portal are impossibly comfortable. There was clearly a lot of thought put into the design. These are not only the most comfortable gaming headphones I’ve used, they might be in the top 3 most comfortable headphones I’ve used, ever.
Connectivity
The Xbox Wireless headset and the Beoplay Portal both connect directly to the Xbox using the proprietary connection, so you don’t need a dongle or base station. The Astro A50 use a base station which also charges the headphones. The connection quality seems to be best in the Xbox wireless headset. I never had any interference or drop outs. The Beoplay Portal and A50 had a little bit of interference until I moved some things around my entertainment console to reduce the amount of wireless interference.
The Astro A50 don’t have Bluetooth at all for some reason, but the base station has a 3.5MM port if you want to connect your phone to it. It’s not convenient, but it’s a workaround if you want to use the headphones for music or to take a call while gaming.
One unusual drawback on the Beoplay Portal is that you can’t use the Bluetooth connection while playing Xbox. When you switch to Bluetooth, the Xbox connection turns off, and vice versa. This means you cant take a call while playing, which is not great if you use Discord. The manual says this is done to reduce distractions while gaming, but anyone can turn on Do Not Disturb if they really want that. I’m not sure this restriction is something Bang & Olufsen can reverse on with a software update, but if you are reading this, Bang and Olufsen, you really should. This one drawback makes these headphones less than perfect in my opinion.
Quality
Lastly, a comment on quality. The build quality on the Xbox Wireless Headset and Beoplay Portal feels fantastic so far, but they’re both relatively new. The Astro A50, on the other hand, are riddled with quality issues that Astro has not remediated. The paint on the A50 is known to quickly peel off from normal use, and the firmware is riddled with bugs. The internet is full of people complaining about Astro’s customer service. I personally went through an issue where my headset just stopped turning on one day, and I wasn’t able to get any support from Astro. I eventually found a solution, but for a $300 pair of headphones, you would expect a bit more support. For now, I won’t buy anything from Astro, which is sad, because I normally like their stuff.
Recommendation
If all you want is a headset to play Xbox, the Xbox Wireless Headset is probably for you. The audio quality is great for the price, and the first-party integrations give a seamless user experience.
If you want the best audio possible or you want top of the line headphones that you can use for gaming, music, and movies, the Beoplay Portal are a great pair of high end headphones that do it all, if you’re cool spending $500.
Stay away from the Astro A50 until Astro improves their customer service.
Most importantly, have fun.