Logitech Wireless Communicator for Xbox Live

The Logitech Wireless Communicator for Xbox Live is an almost realized great idea. The days of a gamer being tied to their console by a hellish tangle of cables are slowly becoming a thing of the past. There are wireless controllers on the market that work reasonably well and so it was only natural that Logitech would make a move to eliminate the wires on the Communicator as well.

The lightweight and rugged communicator has a rather attractive design. It sits comfortably via a dual spring clip that adjusts to the shape of the user's ear. The Communicator uses 2.4GHz transmissions to relay the voice traffic between the headset and the receiver, the latter of which plugs into the Xbox controller. The foldable microphone employs noise-canceling technology to provide clear voice over Xbox Live. We tested the microphone and found it to be of an exceptional quality. It provides far more accurate audio than the official Microsoft communicator without any voice lag.

The speaker in the headset reproduces a reasonable quality sound but cannot achieve as much volume as its wired counterpart. In testing, we noticed a constant background hiss to the speaker which is contrary to Logitech's claim of "crystal-clear sound". The quality of the audio is actually rather good despite its downfalls. If the Communicator could produce a little more volume, many gamers would gladly trade a slight hiss for the freedom that a wireless headset brings.

As with the wired communicator, the Logitech Wireless Communicator also has a mute button but it is on the side of the earpiece which means you can't see whether you are muted or not, as you could with its wired counterpart. Additionally, even if you were to take the headset off and look at it, there is still no indication on the LED as to whether the sound is muted. On Xbox Live, the gamers that use this headset tend to be the ones repeatedly asking if people can hear them in an attempt to check if the sound is off.

The Logitech Wireless Communicator has a range of 30 feet which we tested and can happily confirm to be true. However, as you get further away from the receiver, the quality of the audio starts to drop quite dramatically. After passing the 10 feet mark small changes in audio quality become noticeable which progressively become more prominent as the distance from the receiver increases.

With an average battery life of about 6 hours, the Logitech Wireless Communicator is sufficient for most gamers needs. That being said, there are also many user that will require more than 6 hours of game play. Unfortunately there is no way to extend the battery life as the lithium Ion unit is hard-wired to the board of the unit and cannot be upgraded. A full recharge of the unit takes about 3 hours and is achieved via an AC power adapter.