Asus Zenbook Pro UX501VW

Asus UX501VW is very well crafted. The sleek and stylish all-metal exterior has at least a whiff of Apple about it, which is no bad thing when it comes to laptop design. The width and depth are mainly dictated by its 15.6in screen; it’s very slim at 21.3mm and it’s also the lightest laptop in this class on test, weighing in at under 2.3kg.

A consequence of the size is a very large area for supporting your wrists when typing, and it’s comfortable to rest against the slightly textured metal. Meanwhile, the large touchpad is a single body model with a glass-coating and touch-sensitive buttons, which all works fine, although the key action on the backlit keyboard feels a little spongy.

HTC Vive

Ben Hardwidge takes a look at the room-scale technology behind the Steam VR system

And I’m back in the room. That’s good, as it means I haven’t been mobbed by zombies because I couldn’t work out how to reload my gun after all, but taking the Vive off my head and returning to real life is a truly odd sensation. I’ve apparently paced around the entirety of Overclockers’ new VR room while wearing the Vive headset and trying out the Brookhaven Experiment zombie shooting demo. It isn’t a photo-real demo; I clearly wasn’t actually there, but the Vive really makes you feel as if you’re right there in the middle of the action, and it’s bizarre to be returned to the bare walls and empty floor of the demo room.

This year sees a whole load of VR gear being released, including the Oculus Rift, but also Sony’s own VR platform on the PlayStation, as well as Samsung’s mobile Gear VR system. The Vive is the only VR system that offers what HTC calls ‘room-scale’ VR technology though. You’re not just sitting in a chair wearing a headset; you can position ceiling sensors in two opposing corners of a room and use the whole room as a virtual playground.

HyperX Cloud Revolver

Unlike the original Cloud and Cloud II, HyperX’s Cloud Revolver isn’t, as far as we know, a borrowed design from the likes of Qpad and it’s plain to see this fact in the design and specifications. It uses slightly smaller 50mm drivers than its predecessors, while the earcups and headband are different shapes and slot together differently. It uses a steel band as a frame that reaches from earcup to earcup, but still sports the same soft, padded headband as the previous Cloud models.

Corsair Gaming Void Surround

Corsair Gaming’s Void Surround can connect to your PC using a standard 3.5mm audio jack, but its primary connector is USB, as it sports its own sound card. This USB sound card provides virtual Dolby 7.1 surround sound – a feature that’s missing on both its Void siblings, although it’s purely a software-based implementation. The Void Surround still only has single 50mm drivers, so the effects only offer a small surround effect, but that’s the same with most 7.1 headsets. The effect is certainly noticeable, and it helps to increase your perception in games, but it’s no match for a decent surround speaker system.