HyperX has a wide range of headsets, but the heart of its lineup has always been the Cloud, in its various iterations and versions. Now it’s back with the Cloud III, the latest version of this adaptable and comfortable headset.
With a major boost to battery life and a refined design, it’s another entrant into an increasingly crowded field of great headsets, and I’ve been putting it through its paces.
HyperX Cloud III
Recommended
The Cloud III is an excellent new option, comfortable and lightweight with a nice design and excellent battery life, all at a very sensible price point.
Pros
- Sounds great
- Really comfortable
- Dongle with adapter
Design
- Weighs 330g
- Available in black or black-and-red
HyperX says that it’s given the Cloud III a brand-new design, but anyone who’s used one of its headsets in the last few years might dispute that claim a little.
While things are refined and tweaked, there’s still a very recognisable design language to trace here, centring on those lurid red struts and a largely black build otherwise.
Things are impressively lightweight, as you’d hope, but with decent materials used to ensure that it doesn’t all feel cheap or plasticky (the number one risk as a headset gets lighter).
The red metal arms feed into a padded headband that’s nice and cushioned, making for very good comfort levels during longer sessions.
The earcups themselves are a bit more rounded than before, with a few handy controls to let you turn the headset on or off, mute your microphone and adjust volumes.
Ear cushioning is key, of course, and these are really nice examples, finished in a leather-like manner that rests really comfortably, and big enough to get your whole ear in without any trouble.
Passive isolation is decent but not outstanding, but that’s fine when you’re actually gaming. Finally, there’s a detachable microphone with a new shape to it.
This is thanks to a built-in pop filter that removes the need for a furry ball that you can easily lose on the end of it, a welcome refinement.
I do prefer a foldaway or retractable microphone over a fully removable one, but these remain relatively rare – so I can’t complain too much.
Sound quality
- 53mm angled drivers
- 10 – 21 kHz frequency response
The Cloud III is a great-sounding headset and no mistake. While HyperX says that it’s redesigned the 53mm drivers in the earcups and angled them more optimally, it’s also true that picking out differences compared to the Cloud II isn’t the easiest.
That doesn’t mean anything bad though – this is a really great-sounding headset that brings balance and poise to a range of gaming genres. I played a dozen hours of Baldur’s Gate 3 with it on and really enjoyed how it represented that title’s expansive soundscapes.
Swapping over to my drug of choice, COD Warzone, and the precision I need to pick up the faintest of footsteps (so often impossible to notice given COD’s muddy sound mix) was present and correct.
There’s also appropriate oomph and power when needed, which makes sure that explosions and swells in the orchestration are appropriately heavy and full.
Volumes can get as ear-damagingly high as you’d like, which is great for those who really want to maximise every detail, but even when you keep things nice and low, you get a nice amount of detail.
That microphone is indeed a small bump in quality compared to the Cloud II, with solid pick-up and clarity, and not needing a pop filter is welcome for its ability to reduce the degree to which you look amusing while wearing the headset.
While the Cloud III doesn’t knock it completely out of the park and compete wildly above its price level, it does sound great – but is still outdone by favourites like the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless.
Battery life and features
- 120-hour battery life
HyperX has been a bit of a market leader where battery life is concerned in the last few years, so it’s no surprise that the Cloud III packs a major upgrade on that front.
You now get 120 hours of gameplay on a charge, the sort of timing that basically means you’ll very, very rarely plug the headset in (using its USB-C port).
When you do, around four and a half hours is enough to fully recharge it, another impressive metric that makes it a seriously great achievement at this price.
This technically is dwarfed by the Cloud Alpha Wireless that launched early last year, but given it comes with a nicer design and launches at a lower price, that’s no great defeat.
Plus, once you’re over the 100-hour mark the gains in battery life are not that sizeable from an actual player’s perspective – either way, you’re hardly ever charging the thing.
The on-earcup controls here are straightforwardly easy to use, although the mute button is a little tiny to isolate while you’re on the fly.
There’s no active noise-cancelling here, which is understandable at the price, leaving you with a good “what you see is what you get” headset.
One final small but welcome touch is an adapter to make the USB-C dongle work with USB-A ports if desired – something that HyperX would easily get away with ignoring.
Verdict
The Cloud III is another excellent entry in the upper-mid range from HyperX, with great battery life, a nice comfortable build and a design that looks impressively modernised without adding weight.
It doesn’t necessarily have audio that will have you reassessing games as you play them, but there’s enough oomph and detail to enhance basically any experience, making for a really great package overall.