Gifts for the Gamer Who Has Everything

Pros

• +Physical, labelled keys for scene switches, mutes and clips remove the frantic alt-tabbing that ruins a live moment
• +Useful well beyond streaming — app launching, meeting mute, lighting control, macros
• +Each key is a small screen, so labels change with the profile instead of relying on memory

Cons

• −Needs setting up before it does anything; out of the box it is fifteen blank keys
• −The desk-space cost is real on a crowded desk
• −Overkill if the recipient only streams occasionally

Pros

• +Clearly more resolving and better-staged than the sub-$25 tier
• +Standard 0.78 2-pin cable, so the aftermarket is enormous
• +Well-damped bass that doesn't smear the mids — which is what protects positional cues

Cons

• −Four times the price of the CHU II for an improvement most people would call modest
• −No mic

Pros

• +Moving a microphone six inches closer to your mouth does more for your audio than most microphone upgrades, and this is how you do it
• +Takes the mic off the desk surface, so keyboard and mouse thumps stop travelling into it
• +Ships with the thread adapters most desk mics need

Cons

• −The springs are audible if you adjust the arm mid-stream
• −The clamp needs a desk edge with clear space underneath
• −Heavy mics sag on a budget arm over time

Pros

• +The LCD readout shows exact brightness and colour temperature, so you can reproduce a setup rather than eyeball it
• +Small enough to clip to a monitor arm or a camera without a full light stand
• +Solid metal-bodied build compared with the plastic in the budget tier

Cons

• −Small panel size means it must be close to you to be effective
• −Costs roughly twice a generic panel of similar output
• −No app or Wi-Fi control at this price

Pros

• +140W is enough to charge the Ally while you are still playing it — most banks are not
• +24,000mAh is roughly a full recharge and change for a handheld
• +The display tells you the actual watts flowing, which is genuinely useful for diagnosing a weak cable

Cons

• −Heavy. This is a brick, and you will feel it in a bag
• −The most expensive item in this roundup by a distance
• −Airline rules cap you near this capacity — check before you fly

Pros

• +The hot-swap battery system means it is never out of charge — the second cell sits charging in the base
• +The base station's parametric EQ is a real tool, not a marketing slider
• +Simultaneous 2.4GHz and Bluetooth, so game audio and a phone call coexist

Cons

• −Extremely expensive — several times the cost of headsets that get you most of the way
• −Closed back, so it still cannot match an open-back for raw staging
• −The feature list is doing a lot of the selling here