Externally the headset can be a shock to the eyes. While the coloring is not of a bright neon orange, it is a fairly bright rust/orange tone that we find much less appealing a simple black and silver would have been, or even a solid white. But of course the way the headset looks is something each person has to decide on their own. The shape of the headset is fine and the earcups and headband are exceptionally comfortable even after long periods of use. The headset is also relatively lightweight and folds nicely to fit inside of the soft carrying bag that was included.

The headset comes with a software and drivers CD, a detachable boom microphone, and inline volume controls. There is also a small clip to help keep the cord out of your way. The software and drivers are suitable for XP but if you have Vista you need to visit the Tritton Technologies website and download them.

One of the features we really question and think is almost annoying is the rumble effect. That's right, think Force-Feedback or if you've every played with a Playstation controller. The effect works but isn't helpful and got annoying after a while. Perhaps we're just not used to having our ears massaged every time we frag someone in Quake 4 or Counter-Strike. The effect strength varies with the volume, increasing as the sounds get louder. While watching movies however we could appreciate it a bit more, with planes rumbling overhead and you can feel them even though you're using a laptop. This feature would be great if it had it's own power switch on the inline volume control, especially to save battery life when using a laptop.

One thing many people find they have issues with 5.1 headsets and speakers as well is that one of the channels isn't loud enough, whether the rear, front, center, or subwoofer. The AXPC Gaming Headphones have an inline volume control that enables you to control the volume of each of these without having to Alt-Tab out of the game or miss part of your movie. This is a great feature that we wish all sets of headphones would have because it makes adjustments far quicker and a lot easier. Combined with the integrated sound card you have a headset that allows you to game anywhere and keep consistent sound throughout. Not to mention it also makes 5.1 audio available to practically any computer by requiring only USB.

The headset features 4 speakers in each cup, enhancing the ability to reproduce 5.1 audio which the headset accels at. Once downlading the correct drivers from their website and configuring the applications properly the headset produced excellent sound quality on both Windows XP and Windows Vista. It is comparable to some analog headests for the PC such as the Zalman set we previously reviewed. The only issue we ran into was occasionally we would get some static crackling. We're not sure where this was coming from and could not consistently reproduce it. It did seem to clear up however when we rebooted. Also, after a reinstall of the software it did not seem to come back. We really liked the in-line controls for each channel as it helped to tune for each game while playing versus windowing out or closing the game. Overall, for the mobile gamer with a laptop who loves to have surround sound or the audiophile who wants their 5.1, the Tritton AXPC headset isn't a bad choice and taking the crackling into consideration, is worthy of silver.

Thanks goes to Tritton Technologies for making this review possible.