While the 1990s were dominated by keyboard chatting games, the 21st century is dominated by voice and video. Improved bandwidth, better service and more sophisticated voice and video over IP technologies help create this reality. Recently we talked to a bunch of teenagers about instant messaging and communications before set online matches and they did not point to the keyboard as ways to communicate but to webcams and headsets as the primary way to communicate. “Texting” is definitely going to go away one day. The Turtle Batch Ear Force X3 is a replacement for headphone and microphone for the Xbox 360. It effectively lets you chat and play any Xbox 360 title with complete privacy and clarity.

The Ear Force X3 is a bit misleading in that from the packaging and the promotions we thought we would simply hook up the cable from the ear phone to the controller, like the default ear piece, and we would be able to listen and communicate at will. The set up is more complicated than that because the Ear Force X3 requires, firstly, an input to the controller for the microphone. On the other hand, in order to hear the sound effects, it has RCA pass throughs that you have to patch through to its transmitter box in order for the regular game sounds to come to your headset. Oh, we didn’t mention the transmitter requires a power adapter of its own. Perhaps we were misled, but we did genuinely believe such sounds would be digitally diverted to the headset through the wireless controller. That said, the RCA pass through was not hard to implement, however those with coaxial or optical links for digital surround will find it strange to have the surround plugged into a receiver while the Ear Force X3 transmitter monopolizes the dormant the RCA analog connections. No knock against analog, but because it’s only two channels, you’re going to get stereo sound in your Ear Force X3. We can envision this being a boon to those who have partners, spouses, roommates or children who want to game in quiet but you’re definitely giving up something when gaming with stereo sound.

The Ear Force X3 is able to handle stereo sound well from the wireless transmitter. At no point in the test did we experience any drops of sounds and this was with a significant amount of RF, Wi-FI and Bluetooth gear in the same premises. The amount of audio coming from the game didn’t have an effect on the performance either. What turned out annoying was the microphone itself. Even with the Xbox console turned off, the Ear Force X3 emitted a white noise hiss that was persistent because of the microphone. Muting the microphone would definitely help deliver the full fidelity of gaming sound. That said, we did find the microphone for the Ear Force X3 to be more sensitive and better at picking up the player’s voice.

By no means should we consider the Ear Force X3 to be a failure compared to the default mono headset that comes with the Xbox 360. The Ear Force X3 is head and shoulders above what you get from the console out of the box. However, we did wish that some surround capabilities and a quieter microphone were implemented in the device but if you find yourself using the Ear Force X3, you are likely in a discreet setting like competing in a LAN party or sneaking in a quiet late night gaming session. For that, the Ear Force X3 appears ideal.

Our one major complaint is that the Ear Force X3 is essentially enhancing an ability that is already found in the Xbox 360 console. There is little incentive for the uninformed to change unless they try it. Fortunately, Turtle Beach is embarking on an aggressive campaign to spread the gospel including supplying the headsets for the latest Halo 3 launch. It definitely makes a difference and those who need to be discrete or do a heavy amount of online gaming should look into the product.

Rating •••••80%•••••