Logitech G Astro A30 review

The Logitech G Astro A30 is a gaming headset that will appeal to a person with specific requirements – hearing audio from multiple devices without having to change headsets.

The highlight here is the ability to hear audio from two different sources simultaneously. If you’re fortunate enough to have multiple devices, you can pause one and play the other without changing headsets. For example, I connected the Astro A30 to my PS5 and my PC simultaneously, and all I had to do was pause one and then play the other. It’s great. Similarly if you want to hear phone notifications through your headset while gaming, you can do that too. 

There are drawbacks, though. The audio quality isn’t as good as other gaming headsets I’ve used, like the Audeze Mobius; adjusting the headset via the Logitech G app is convoluted; and there aren’t many advanced features here, like active noise cancellation (ANC). But those niggles aside, you’re still getting a very good gaming headset that can work with almost everything.

Price

The Logitech G Astro A30 costs $429.

This makes it quite an expensive headset in line with the JBL Quantum 810 Wireless costing $400, and the SteelSeries Arctis Nova 7, costing $479.

Design

The Astro A30s have a relatively standard design. They’re exactly what you’d expect from a gaming headset. That’s not a bad thing, though, other than the customisable tags on the side (more below), there isn’t much here to make them stand out.

They boast square earcups with soft leatherette cushioning and the headband is a rubber material. I prefer a leather headband as it’s more comfortable on the top of my head, and I found the rubberised headband would occasionally pull at my hair, but overall, the comfort was fine. 

The headset is made out of a plastic material that feels sturdy and light, however, the clamp force was a bit strong. The headset felt tight, and I had to take it off after a while to give my head a break. 

The A30s utilise a slider system for resizing, which isn’t as easy to use as other headsets. It doesn’t have the familiar clicking function in which the headband clicks into position, and it requires quite a bit of force to adjust. It was only a minor inconvenience, once I got it into position, it stayed there, but it did take some time to get the size just right.

The A30 comes in two colours, White and Navy. We were given the White version to review, and it’s easily the standout. It looks sleek, futuristic and unique. On the sides of the earcups are customisable tags that you can take off and swap in and out. You can buy ready-made ones from the Astro A30 website, or you can create your own and have them shipped to you. These will set you back USD$30, which is expensive, but it’s a nice touch. In the world of Twitch streaming, being able to customise the look of your gaming apparel is a bonus.

The left earcup houses the microphone on/off control and ports for a 3.5mm jack and the detachable boom mic. On the right, there’s a power/Lightspeed connect button, a Bluetooth connection button and a joystick used for playback options like pausing music, skipping tracks and adjusting volume. It all works as well as it should, and the controls are easy to locate when the headset is on your head.

I wasn’t a big fan of the detachable mic. Coming from the JBL Quantum 810, where the mic folds up, having the mic detachable felt like another thing to misplace. If I wanted to eat or drink, I had to take my headset off and remove the mic entirely instead of simply folding it up. It’s also a sucker for breathing noise. The bendy mic wraps around to sit directly in front of your mouth. For me, this is just under my relatively large nose, and it picked up my breathing a lot. When gaming on PS5, where push-to-talk isn’t common, my breathing frustrated my friends and teammates.

Connectivity

The connectivity capabilities of the Astro A30s is where Logitech has placed most of its emphasis. Thanks to the three connection options available, they’re compatible with almost anything you can think of. They’re compatible with Logitech’s own Lightspeed Wireless 2.4ghz solution, which requires a dedicated USB dongle, Bluetooth, and there’s also a 3.5mm jack. This means they’re compatible with PC, Mac, iPhone, Android, Switch, PS5, Xbox and more.

It’s important to know that the headset comes in two different versions, one for Xbox and one for PlayStation. The Xbox version of the headset isn’t compatible with PlayStation consoles, but you can buy a USB-A dongle for USD$24.99 which will make it work. Unfortunately though, you can’t listen to a PlayStation and an Xbox simultaneously. You’ll have to remove the dongle and plug it into whichever console you’re playing. Not ideal for those who have both consoles. You’ll also need to buy a USD$34.99 dongle if you want to use the headset with USB-C-only devices. That’s quite expensive for dongles, especially as the headset is already $429.

The Astro A30s allow you to connect to three different devices simultaneously. On the surface, this sounds brilliant, but it isn’t realistic. You can only use three devices at the same time if you’re using all three connection types. I’m not convinced people will plug a device into the 3.5mm jack while connecting via Bluetooth and the Lightspeed dongle. In practice, you can only really connect to two devices simultaneously using Bluetooth and Lightspeed Wireless. 

I used the Lightspeed Wireless dongle on my PS5 and connected to my PC via Bluetooth, and I could hear both devices. All I had to do was pause my PS5 turnaround and play a game on my PC without changing headsets. It’s great. Similarly, I could connect to my phone and my console, play music from my phone in between games, pause it and then hear the game audio. 

Frustratingly though, every time I wanted to adjust the headset’s settings, I had to connect to my phone via Bluetooth. Adjusting the audio, changing the microphone or mixing the sound is done via the Logitech G app for iOS and Android. There’s no dedicated PC software. And I found the app a convoluted way to control the headset.

The Astro A30s don’t support multiple Bluetooth connections. If I were connected to my PC via Bluetooth, I would have to disconnect from my PC, connect to my phone, adjust the audio, disconnect from my phone then connect to my PC again, all to change a few settings. Not ideal. 

Audio/Microphones

The audio produced by the Astro A30 headset is well-balanced, generating a wide and even soundstage. It doesn’t excel in any area, I’ve used headsets like JBL’s Quantum 810s that produce better audio, but it’s adequate. 

I could easily hear enemy footsteps playing Call of Duty MW2 on PC, and dialogue and combat sounded clear and punchy when playing God of War Ragnarok on PS5.

You can equalise the audio on the Logitech G app, and there’s also a dual mixer allowing you to adjust the volume of game audio separately to party chat audio and vice versa. 

I also tested the headset by listening to music on my phone. It’s okay, it’s a long way off the best -of -the-best music-oriented headsets, but it’s a decent alternative that you can use comfortably with your gaming devices as well.

The headset boasts two microphones, there’s a removable boom mic, and there’s an internal mic that comes alive when the boom is taken off. Neither of these impressed me. As mentioned earlier, the boom mic is a sucker for picking up breathing noises, and the clarity isn’t great. My voice came through sounding thin, and there wasn’t much background noise isolation.

The internal mics are intended to be used if you wear the A30 headset on the go, but they’re poor. They picked up a lot of outside noise, and struggled to pick up my voice in loud areas. When it did, my voice came through garbled and very thin, lacking clarity.

The A30s are tight enough to produce a good deal of passive noise isolation but there’s no active noise cancellation (ANC) here. This feels like a missed opportunity, as there are similarly priced headsets that have this feature.

Battery

Logitech claims the Astro A30 has a 27-hour battery life. We can confirm this is accurate. 

It’s a decent amount lasting a day without needing to charge, however, it’s a long way off similarly priced products like the JBL Quantum 810, which boasts a 45-hour battery life with RGB lights turned off.

Verdict

If you get sick of changing headsets every time you move between devices, Logitech’s G Astro gaming headset is a good answer to that problem. 

The benefit you’ll get from this headset depends on how you intend to use it. If you’re fortunate enough to have multiple devices and want to quickly change audio between them, if you want to be able to hear phone notifications while playing games, or if you want to listen to music on the go, the Astro A30s are a great option. If however, you have an Xbox console and a PlayStation console and you want to be able to quickly switch between them, it won’t work, which is a bit of a setback.

While the audio quality isn’t the best, controlling the headset via the Logitech G app is unnecessarily tricky, and the boom and internal microphones are subpar, the Astro A30s are a good option for those who want to listen to multiple devices at the same time. They’ll prevent you from having to buy headsets for every device you own.