Logitech H800 Review

Welcome to the review of the Logitech H800 headset, regarded by many as the cheap go-to headset. In fact, early in the pandemic it was almost impossible to find since it kept selling out. Which leads to my first and also bizarre point.

This headset used to be $79 CAD or $69 USD, but during the pandemic, Logitech (not even resellers) increased the price to $99 CAD and $79 USD. Keep in mind this price increase was before the huge global inflation of 2022. So, why did they increase the price? It should be obvious, if the headset is so popular Logitech just increased the price because they know it’ll sell anyway.

Body & Design

It’s not the best-looking headset, but not the worst, it’s just an average looking headset that only comes in black colour. What looks strange is that the button controls are outlined in white so while you’re walking around, people will see your media control layout easily and ironically while you wear the headset you can’t see it. This isn’t a big deal, but it just looks a bit weird. A better design I’ve seen on headsets is to have the control symbols etched in the body so it’s faint.

The body feels a bit weak. Not that it should fall apart easily from regular use but if it were to be squished by something heavy, by your laptop in your bag while going through airport security. Just be careful if you purchase this headset and you plan to travel a lot with it.

The boom mic is also rather flimsy and loses its ability at the lowest angle to stay up. Eventually it’ll just come down on its own with regular use. I’ve had my unit for over 2 years, and this occurred after the first year of use. This doesn’t affect the performance of the microphone but it’s still strange that this would happen.

It’s surprisingly comfortable to wear considering the padding on each ear cup is rather thin (I mean really thin), it’s like a foam material. The comfort is most likely due to the flex on the headset being rather loose, so it doesn’t press too hard on your ears.  Even wearing them for about 4 hours straight my ears never got sore or too hot.

Not to forget about people with little to no hair, the inside of the top band also has some padding. Oddly enough, the padding on the band is thicker than on the ear pads.

While sitting around my neck, it’s quite easy to turn my head left, right, and even down. While looking down my chin doesn’t even touch the earcups due to the generous flex of the headband.

The earcups can rotate up, down, left, and right but it’s hardly noticeable.

As expected, there’s a decent amount of earcup extension to accommodate all head types of head sizes.

On the right ear cup is where the boom mic is. While not in use, you can put it all the way up and from the outside it looks like regular headphones (at most angles). While pulled down you can slightly bend the microphone to bring it closer to your mouth, but it doesn’t make much of a difference in performance.

Noise Cancelling

This is an on the ear headset type, so you would think that simply placing them on your ears would cancel some background noise, but it doesn’t. It’s strange how much background noise I can hear. Whether it be the TV in the next room, my wife on the phone or my kids shouting while throwing hot dogs at me (probably because I smell or something). If you work in a call centre with minimal barriers or an open office concept environment, this might not work for you.

There’s no active noise cancelling on this headset and it’s not surprising to have this feature lacking on such a low-priced headset but just thought it’s worth mentioning.

Controls

All the controls are on the right earcup. On the back is the switch for power off, USB connectivity and Bluetooth connectivity. Just below is a switch for forwarding tracks and previous track. On the right are controls to increase volume, lower volume, answer and hang up calls, play/pause and muting the mic.

Battery

The charging port is micro-USB and is located on the back right of the headset. While the headset is charging, the LED light will pulse slowly.

The battery lasts about 6 hours with a combination of talking and microphone use. This isn’t terrible battery performance but at this price tag, you can certainly get better. Charging the headset takes about 3 hours.

There’s no power adapter included in the box as you’re expected to use your own or plug it into your computer’s USB port.

Audio Quality

The microphone quality is decent enough, but it can pick up loud background noise. If you’re in a place like a cafe with people talking in the background, some of the noise will faintly be picked up. However, if my kids are in another room and fighting over a toy (which happens a lot in my house) then their screaming gets picked up easily, same if you have a barking dog in another room or emergency services sirens driving past your home. Any particularly loud noises will essentially get picked up. Despite Logitech advertising this headset as having a noise cancelling microphone, I wouldn’t trust that detail too much.

One thing I’m pleased to say is that the microphone performance for voice clarity is pretty good at this price. I’ve had other people wear this headset while on Zoom and Teams call with me listening and it’s surprisingly well. In quiet environments it’s rather clear, while used in noisy environments it’s still not bad for focusing on picking up the user’s voice.

The audio quality playback is just average for music. Mids sound pretty good but highs and lows are a little lacking. It’s nothing terrible but if you’re into good audio quality, you’re going to have to spend a bit more money. Even if I use a digital equaliser on my computer, it’ll increase the bass but it’s still missing the deep punch. I believe this to be a hardware limitation of the headset speakers.

It’s a similar case for video games and movies. It all sounds decent, but it wouldn’t make things sound as immersive as other better headsets.

Software

There’s no real software to be downloaded for this headset. In fact, if you go to the Logitech website, they have a tool to help sync it with your computer for Windows 7 and that’s it. Why is Logitech still supporting Windows 7? Who knows but it’s weird to see a huge company providing support for an end of life and unsecure OS (unless you have extended support until 2023).

It’s the same story for smartphones, there aren’t any apps available to adjust the equaliser and other features.

Again, at this price tag it’s not a big deal. Especially since more smartphones and computer operating systems have built-in equalisers or you can just install a 3rd-party app version.