Not so long ago ADATA was only involved in memory-related products, your SSD’s and RAM kits, and now they have a portfolio of the gaming-related peripherals, for which they’ve already established XPG sub-brand came in perfectly. Beside your high-end stuff, they also have more affordable, budget and better value for your money product and two of those stand here in front of me, the Emix H20 gaming headset and the Infarex M20 gaming mouse.
At around 25$ for the mouse and around 35$ for the headset, they seem to be a pretty compelling choice, at least price wise. The Infarex M20 carries Omron switches and what seems to be a decent 5000 DPI optical sensor, so it’s a pretty reasonable product for that price point, but right of the bat, I’m noticing that it’s somewhat heavy at around 160 grams. It could be due to RGB LED’s which are set around the bottom edge and few other spots on the mouse. As for the design and ergonomics, this shape reminds a bit of the Steelseries older Rival model, but then again, a lot of mice have this very similar sort of generic looking design, nothing too flashy or over the top, just supporting this simple plain design and with the goal of being useful before all.
Is ADATA’s XPG Infarex M20 a good choice for a budget gaming mouse?
The build quality is actually pretty decent, again considering the price point, it feels sturdy enough in hands, just what you would expect from a 25$ mouse. The middle wheel has this on and off rubber pattern, which makes it really grippy and it has a subtle tactile movement between each step, while it’s also light and easy to move, and has a firm middle click feel to it. The cable is just below 2 meters long, it’s completely braided and pretty rigid, while they’ve also used this really beefy housing around the USB connector.
The Infarex M20 is actually a driver-less and software-less, so you won’t get any additional control over its functions in Windows, which is something that I personally don’t mind having, but I like how they’ve included a dedicated switch on the bottom for the polling rate, with 250 Hz, 500 Hz to 1000 Hz setting, and another switch for turning off the LED’s. Again, as expected since it doesn’t have any software utility, the LED’s are not customizable and they can only change according to the DPI and its switch on the top, which range goes from 400 to 5000 DPI with a total of 5 steps.
You’ll get a total of four standard switches, two on the side, back and forward, and two on top, your left and right clicks, and using them feels very direct, virtually no travel at all or and without that mushy feel. As for the ergonomics of the mouse, it fit just fine in my what I think is a pretty normally sized hand, although you could say that it’s leaning more toward being a larger example of a mouse by today’s standard, as it’s a tad longer than for example my Logitech G403 or Logitech G603, but bottom line I would say that’s it’s good choice for palm and claw grip style users . Three Teflon feet are making sure that the mouse glides whiteout a problem, which goes along with the fact that the mouse sensor can achieve decent velocity, while it also seems to be very precise and has a good tracking performance. The lift-off distance is really low, there’s basically no angle snapping, nor unwanted acceleration, and overall I had zero complaints whatsoever during gameplay, except that’s it’s a bit on the heavier side as I said before, so all in all, when you draw the line, you’ll get a pretty compelling performance from a mouse that costs less than an iPhone charger. The exact sensor brand and model in question is still a mystery for me, as I didn’t manage to find any information about it.
Emix H20 gaming headset treading carefully
Pulling the XPG Emix H20 headset out of the box, the build quality seems to be on par with the mouse. It’s mostly made out of plastic, but it feels rigid enough, the headband has a decent range of adjustability, it has some flex to it since it doesn’t use any metal rails or chassis. The ear-cups also have the ability to rotate to a certain degree in one direction, so you can find that position which suits your head shape the bets, while the padding is made of this leather-like artificial material, it’s soft and comfortable enough for longer periods, especially since the headset doesn’t have a large amount of latter pressure, and they will cover up your both ears.
On the top, beneath the headband, you will find some padding, just the right amount I would say since the headset isn’t too heavy, to begin with.
It also has this very thick, sturdy and nicely braided and patterned cable, along of which you’ll find a dedicated control for the volume, mute and turning the RGB lighting on and off. As for it, you’ll get this pretty cool looking pattern on the ear-cup, while the only complain I have about it is that it only runs in this sort of like different color pulsing cycling mode, just like the mouse, and that’s it pretty much, you can only turn it off or on, nothing more.
Based on this you can also guess that this gaming headset is driver-less and software-less, just plug and play. Although this is in a way practical, I would still like to see an added software utility for it, especially since it only has a USB connection, and with that, we would get more detailed control over lighting, sound and other features.
The microphone boom arm is positioned on the left ear-cup, you can bring it up or down, but that doesn’t also mute it, although you’ve would expect or like to have that option, rather you have a dedicated switch for that as I’ve mentioned before. It’s really flexible, as the middle part of it is made out of this rubber material, while the microphone end sits enclosed in this plastic housing.
Budget gaming duo
The microphone itself is actually pretty decent recording quality wise, I was really surprised by it considering the price, but it has a few very interesting problems, and because of that I feel like this was a missed opportunity in a way. One problem is that it easily picks up other sounds rather than just your voice, like typing on the keyboard, which is a common issue, but for the other one it’s best that you hear it yourself in the following sample.
This is a raw, unedited recording sample made using the Emix H20 headsets microphone. Do you hear how my voice is unnaturally deep? Yeah, I didn’t want to mention that right off the bat, just so you can have that surprise factor, and no I didn’t change anything, I think we have some kind very weird type of post-processing going on here, almost like some kind voice changing app. Also, I’m going to start typing on the keyboard, I’m going to start typing on the keyboard, so you can hear how it picks that up. What are your thoughts on this microphone? Is it good for the price, would you use it or is this too much for you? Feel free to tell me in the comments down below!
Sticking with the topic of sound, to be completely honest, I wasn’t too impressed by what was coming out of the earcups, they really went all in on the low frequencies, it’s a bit too much base to handle, at least to me, but it also really affects everything that comes through the ADATA XPG Emix H20 pair of 50 mm drivers, the high’s and mid’s feel a bit muffled because of that . I managed to polish out the sound profile to a degree with some third party software utility, but I wish they’ve done a better job of the initial tuning of the driver itself. In the end, this wasn’t a big problem when it comes to gaming, I had a decent experience when it comes to that part of the user experience, while the virtual 7.1 surround sound, for what it’s worth, does an OK job in picking up the enemies.
Coming back to my initial thought from the beginning of the video, I still think both of these products bring in a very decent value, but the problem is that this part of the market is pretty saturated, so they’ll have to put up a quite of a good fight in order to win users. Of course, they can for a fraction of the cost, if any, also improve their existing products, like these ones, once they decide to release their successors based on the feedback we give them, and this way they’ll ensure a better chance of their products being purchased in the end.
That’s it from me, thanks for checking out my XPG Emix H20 review of a gaming headset and XPG Infarex M20 review of a gaming mouse! Hope it helps you in some way in which one to choose between them, if you have any question feel free to hit me in the comments section of my YouTube video listed above, you can contact me via my social media channels!
