I don’t use this word lightly, but I’m astounded by how good the Sony Inzone H5 Wireless Gaming Headset is. Genuinely astounded. For around $150/£130, you can nab yourself what I’d consider to be hands down the best gaming headset I’ve ever paired with my PS5 or gaming PC. And hot damn, does it ever compliment Robert Pattinson’s Dark Knight delight. But I’ll get to that.
I’ve been testing the Sony Inzone H5 extensively over the past few weeks, and I’ve been blown away. I’d just about consider anything less than $150 to be a budget option in the headset space, which makes the H5 one of the best cheap gaming headsets I’ve ever used. By comparison, I think it beats the brakes off the aging (yet still respectable) Sony PlayStation Pulse 3D Wireless Headset.
Though it’s primarily marketed as a gaming headset, it turns out the Inzone H5 is also pretty terrific for listening to movies. Which brings me back to The Batman. Matt Reeves’ gripping Gotham whodunnit — not that there’s much mystery surrounding Paul Dano’s Riddler, who violently offs some poor sap within the movie’s opening three minutes — is a fantastic superhero film.
During a recent press junket for his new Netflix movie Spaceman (Dano plays a — brace yourself — giant CGI spider who talks to Adam Sandler’s astronaut), Dano opened up to The Independent about the notion of “superhero fatigue”. It’s real, people. Just look at the disastrous Madame Web. Dano’s point essentially was, if you treat the caped material with respect and reverence, people may have more tolerance for questionable CG and Z-list Marvel characters. Well, maybe a smidge more
Dano's interview immediately had me desperate to rewatch 2022’s The Batman and holy Bat Nipples, am I glad I experienced the exceptional 4K Blu-ray wearing the Sony Inzone H5. The movie sounds sensational on these cans. The Batmobile chase with Penguin! That opening “I’m vengeance” smackdown! That bit where The Riddler makes a corrupt official go kaboom!
Bat's entertainment
Throughout every scene, whether its Pattinson’s Caped Crusader glumly brooding or Gotham looking like a flooded warzone, the Inzone H5 proves itself a headset that can nail quiet details while also delivering serious audio spectacle thanks to impressive bass levels that hit just the sweet spot between booming and “ear canal obliterating” for me.
To have such consistently rich, textured audio served up over the course of The Batman just reinforces how versatile this brilliant PS5 and PC headset is. While we think highly of the excellent Sony Inzone H9 Gaming Headset here at Tom’s Guide, at time of writing, Amazon is selling the H5’s big brother for double the price of its excellent sibling at $298. My eardrums have been so thoroughly titillated by the Inzone H5, I’d rather use the savings from buying the cheaper version to grab a couple of the best PS5 games.
Speaking of which, I finished Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves on one of the best gaming PCs last night, and talk about a special experience. Holy cow, Uncharted 4 looks good at native 4K locked to 120 frames per second thanks to the unbeatable knockout combo of the Nvidia GeForce RTX 4090 and AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D.
Drake my day
I didn’t even need to use Nvidia DLSS to claw back performance. Nathan Drake’s expert swansong runs flawlessly at 120 fps with every graphic bell and whistle maxed to the nines at full fat 4K on my mega rig. If I see a game look this astonishingly pretty on the rumored PS6 (let alone the equally rumored PS5 Pro), I’ll be flabbergasted. When high-end PC gaming is this eye-arousing, nothing gets close.
And the entire pirate-chasing adventure sounds amazing on the Sony Inzone H5 to boot. Taking advantage of the game’s spatial audio features, explosions are full bodied, dialect sounds punchy and the sheer audio clarity the H5 brings to the party makes it easier to tell where enemy gunshots are coming from.
I got such a kick out of this audio experience, I never went back to playing Uncharted 4 through my expensively assembled Sonos surround system, which includes a Sonos Arc soundbar and a couple of Sonos Era 300 speakers. Although granted, I had an angry altercation with my upstairs neighbors last month over my subwoofers, so I’m trying to be extra well behaved on the noise pollution front at the moment.
I also had a chance to test out the Sony Inzone H5’s pleasingly clear mic while getting slaughtered by gigantic aliens beasties during a recent crossplay co-op session of Helldivers 2 with my colleague Rory Mellon. The biggest compliment I can pay the H5’s mic? Rory could make out my thick Scottish tones with relative ease, and he sounded clear as a whistle on the headset, too… albeit a whistle who claims those last three cases of fatal friendly fire were “accidents”.
Sure they were, Rory. Sure they were.
Whether blasting bugs in a co-op shooter or listening to Bats break bones, the Sony Inzone H5 might just be the best gaming headset I’ve ever tested on either my PS5 or PC. I’m completely smitten by it.
