HyperX Cloud Flight S review: the ‘S’ stands for sacrifices

HyperX is banking on your desire to have Qi wireless charging support in everything you own, including in your next gaming headset. It’s the main selling point of the new $159 Cloud Flight S that ships today, and it’s what sets the 2020 model apart from previous versions. When you’re done gaming, just place the headset’s left ear cup down onto a wireless charger to top it up. It’s simple, and it essentially nixes the likelihood of encountering a dead battery mid-match.

Unfortunately, the company is also banking on you already owning a wireless charging pad because it doesn’t include one in the box. Of course, if you don’t have one, HyperX will upsell you its $59 dual wireless charging pad. Considering how affordable these are (as proved by our recommended picks for wireless charging pads), it’s unfortunate that the company chose to omit such a relatively low-cost toss-in. And without one in the box, many people will resort to using its Micro USB port to charge, which is the polar opposite in terms of ease of use.

This feels like a good place to mention this headset’s second big omission: wired playback. The ear cup lacks a 3. 5mm headphone jack. As a result, it doesn’t support wired playback of any kind.

HyperX is marketing this headset toward PC and PS4 gamers; with last year’s model (and most other headsets on the market), you could get around the incompatibility with the Xbox One by plugging it into your controller with a 3. 5mm-to-3. 5mm cable. Not this model — it’s exclusively a wireless affair.

However, it may be a consolation to some that the Cloud Flight S and its included USB receiver work perfectly when plugged into a Nintendo Switch dock. A change I’m in favor of is that this headset doesn’t have any LEDs (aside from the one that indicates when it’s powered on). The customizable LED on the previous model was a serious drag on battery life if you left it on, so you were almost better off not using it. In fact, HyperX claims a solid 30 hours of battery life per charge here.

I’ve been using the headset during work and off-peak hours for nearly a week, and it’s meeting both the claim and my expectations. According to the company’s NGenuity software, I have 15 percent of battery juice left after approximately 30 hours of use. (Of course, if you use Qi charging, there’s no reason to worry about battery life, though I’m still impressed with the performance.