The Trust GXT 498 Forta PS5 is an officially licensed budget gaming headset that features some impressive audio capabilities for its price range. For those on a budget, it can be considered one of the best PS5 headsets. However, its limited availability prevents it from being a catch-all solution for everyone around the globe as you cannot currently buy it in the US or Australia. 

There are a wealth of features here that set this PS5 headset apart in the budget range, including a detachable microphone, 50mm drivers, and leatherette ear cups. As far as some of the best wired headsets go on the PS5, this is a strong option if it’s available to you. 

Price and availability

The Trust GXT 498 Forta PS5 headset is currently only available in the UK for £28.99 (around $36 / AU$56) with availability yet to be confirmed for the US and Australia. This price tag means that this headset is one of the more affordable models for the platform from a trusted manufacturer. In terms of colorways, it’s available in both black and white. 

Design and features

The Trust GXT 498 Forta PS5 headset is partially made up of recycled materials and has a color scheme that fits right in with the PS5, especially with the PlayStation iconography on each side. There are leatherette ear cups for comfort that both look and feel decent with thick padding, too. 

There’s a 1.5m / 5ft cable that can be plugged into either the DualSense wireless controller or another of the best PS5 controllers. Due to the 3.5mm wired connection, you’re also able to use this budget gaming headset on PS4, PC, Switch, and Xbox if you're looking for something multiplatform. You’ve got all your basic controls on the cups as well, with a dedicated microphone mute button and a volume wheel, so settings are easy to tweak on the fly. 

A major strength of the Trust GXT 498 PS5 headset is the 50mm audio drivers found in each ear which are considerably larger than those found in budget models. Typically speaking, most sub $50 / £50 / AU$60 headsets, like the Turtle Beach Recon 70, use 40mm. This larger size of audio driver is usually reserved for more premium offerings like the Razer Kaira Pro Hyperspeed for PS5. 

Similar to some Razer gaming headsets, the Trust GXT 498 PS5 headset has a detachable 3.5mm microphone with an arm that can be bent easily to be closer or farther away from your mouth. It’s a great touch, and it means that you can simply detach if you would prefer to use one of the microphones for streaming instead without the microphone getting in the way. 

Performance

What was immediately clear to me with the Trust GXT 498 Forta PS5 headset is how crystal clear the audio is from the 50mm audio drivers. I’ve been consistently impressed with Trust’s latest offering when playing through some of the best PS5 games, especially those titles that make use of the console’s 3D audio capabilities. 

A particularly strong example was with Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart as there was a clear distinction between the background ambiance, firearms, and the characters while playing. This was also the case in Spider-Man: Miles Morales where the cars and background noise of the city genuinely sounded behind the character when swinging through New York City. It’s staggering just how deep and accurate such an affordable headset can be, with the sound quality provided almost rivaling that of the SteelSeries Arctis 7P+ when put side by side. 

This extends to audio reproduction as well as listening to music was a pleasant experience with the Trust GXT 498 Forta PS5 headset, punching up compared to many of the cheaper headphones I’ve used over the years. While no rival to some of the best headphones on the market, this PS5 headset provides an above-average listening experience thanks to those larger audio drivers. In my testing, I span the majority of Deftones’ discography while working, with Rosemary from Koi No Yokan sounding pitch-perfect. There was also a strong bass presence and low end when dialing things up a notch with Cannibal Corpse’s Blood Blind. 

The microphone is also solid. When playing with friends in multiplayer titles like Crash Team Rumble and Battlefield 2042, I could be heard clearly through the chaos. It’s far from the best microphone I’ve used on a gaming headset, but better than many others I have used in this price range with no tinniness or fizziness to speak of. 

Buy it if…  

You want a competitively-priced PS5 headset

The Trust GXT 498 Forta PS5 headset is one of the cheapest available for the console and sounds excellent for the humble sticker price. 

You need a headset with a good microphone

The microphone on this gaming headset sounds far better than many other budget models. 

Don’t buy it if…  

It’s not available in your country

While the Trust GXT 498 Forta PS5 headset is a strong performer, it’s currently not available in the US or Australia, which means you’ll need to go for an alternative instead. 

You want a wireless gaming headset 

You'll need to up your budget if you want to cut the cord completely as the Trust GXT 498 Forta PS5 headset uses a 3.5mm connection. 

Get the full experience of Sony's latest console with one of the best PS5 controllers, the best SSDs for PS5, and one of the best monitors for PS5. 

Bitdefender have been in business since the 90's in various incarnations and have become an industry leader in cybersecurity. Their XDR (Extended Detection and Response) platform was initially released in 2020 as 'GravityZone Elite' but is now known as 'BitDefender GravityZone Business Security Premium'. 

Given the number of platforms out there claiming to offer the best endpoint protection, it's hard to know which ones can actually deliver. In an ideal world an endpoint protection platform not only runs routine scans for known threats but proactively scans and blocks other suspicious behavior.

Read on to learn how we put the platform through its paces.

Bitdefender GravityZone Business Security Premium: Plans and pricing

Bitdefender are currently offering a 30% discount on their GravityZone Business Security Platform. Their pricing page defaults to quoting the price for protecting up to 10 devices for one year ($570.49), though you can reduce this to as little as three devices.

The website allows you to make further savings by paying upfront for 2 or 3 years. You can also submit an enquiry for a quote to cover more than 100 devices,

For the 'Premium' tier, which is the focus of this review, servers (including Linux servers) count as one device but can only account for 35% of your devices, rounded up: for instance if you sign up for the default 10 devices, then only 4 of these can be servers. The default tier also covers up to 15 mailboxes.  

You can sign up for a free 30-day trial of the cloud version of GravityZone Business Security without providing any payment information, though you'll need to register an online account to log in to the cloud console.

One important caveat is that certain features, such as Patch Management, Email Security, and Full Disk Encryption that are enabled by default in the trial version are not included in the standalone product, so must be purchased separately. 

In fairness, Bitdender alerts trial users to this and points readers to the GravityZone Business Security Premium main page to check exactly which products are covered in their plan. 

Bitdefender GravityZone Business Security Premium: Setup

Of all the endpoint protection platforms we've reviewed, Bitdefender is one of the quickest and easiest. After entering our e-mail address we were able to sign up for the aforementioned trial by registering an account and password.

This took us into the Bitdefender Gravity Zone cloud console, which immediately generated  a QR code to encourage users to set up two factor authentication. (Note you must choose 'Skip' here, as closing the window will return you to the login screen).

We were next shown a helpful welcome window with a download link for the agent software to "Install on this Computer" or "Send email invites for multiple installs."

The client software downloaded in under 2 minutes on our test machine running Windows 11 and immediately alerted us the device was at risk because a full scan hadn't been performed. 

Bitdefender GravityZone Business Security Premium: Features

As readers have seen, setup of Business Security Premium is very simple and the product page boasts that it supports a wide range of operating systems.

When we delved into the 'Installation Packages' of the 'Network' category in the cloud console, we found this largely to be true though the specific features from which you'll benefit will depend on the OS your endpoint is running. For example, the 'Anti Malware' and 'Network Attack Prevention' features are truly cross platform, being supported on Windows, Mac and Linux. 

However, most other features like Device Control and for Windows and Mac only. The Firewall also only seems to be compatible with Windows workstations. This is by no means a criticism of the software, given how many platforms are almost entirely Windows-centric.

Bitdefender also published their own datasheet listing all that is great and good about Business Security Premium but we found the easiest way to discover more was simply by logging in to the cloud console.

The helpful welcome screen that displays when you first log in has a section on creating 'Security Policies'. This is par for the course for Endpoint Protection Platforms but Bitdefender allows a great degree of control offering support to identify risky user behavior such as setting weak passwords or using compromised USBs.

As expected, the cloud console also has strong protection against ransomware, including the ability to create tamperproof backups of user files. It also supports blocking and prevention capabilities as we discovered during our tests (see below), as well as multiple detection layers. It accomplishes this through Bitdefenders' own tools like 'Process Inspector' and 'HyperDetect' as well as monitoring the Windows registry.

The console's 'Threats Xplorer' provides an excellent rundown of all detections based on the level of threat, your security policies, devices types etc. There's also a dedicated 'Quarantine' section for containing threats. 

Bitdefender GravityZone Business Security Premium: Interface

Bitdefender's Cloud Console allows you to manage multiple configuration options for your endpoints with ease. We've already mentioned the helpful welcome screen that appears when you first log in, allowing you to immediately download installers for endpoints, as well as set your initial security policies. The same screen also allows you to configure user accounts and reporting.

While we're on the subject of reporting, the 'Executive Summary' is one of the best dashboards we've ever seen in an Endpoint Security Platform. It displays the number of managed endpoints, as well as how many threats have been detected in, clear large text. You can click into any section to see more information.

Below this are two handy graphs - a stick chart which shows the type of threats detected, as well as a pie chart which breaks down threats by endpoint type. Further infographics are available showing endpoint modules status, the overall risk score for your organization, blocked websites/network attack techniques and more. The dashboard in the 'Monitoring' section also displays useful security information like detected malware and blocked applications. 

If we've talked at length about this Executive Summary, it's because it's an excellent presentation of the other sections of the cloud console which you can navigate by clicking on names in the left-hand pane. 

We particularly appreciated the fact that sub-menus aren't hidden away, so for example you can click right into 'Manual Submission' in the 'Sandbox' category to test out potentially harmful apps. 

While we're on the subject, Bitdefender link to a YouTube video on their website by a representative of Engineering firm GPI, who use the GravityZone’s Sandbox Analyzer to detect suspicious files. (Note that as this video was made in 2020 Bitfender Gravity Zone Business Security Premium is referred to as 'GravityZone Elite').   

Bitdefender GravityZone Business Security Premium: Performance

For our tests we used a fake computer virus, provided by the good people of EICAR. Our initial 'Quick Scan' failed to reveal it but this was unsurprising as these types of scan only seem to check the C:\Windows\System32 folder on our Windows 11.  

We next ran a 'Custom' scan to check the 'Downloads' folder specifically where the virus was located. The Bitdefender Agent recognized the virus immediately and quarantined it.

For our final round of tests we tried to download the fake virus directly from the EICAR website several times as a compressed (ZIP) file. In each case the agent either deleted the virus or changed file permissions, so we couldn't access. Our only criticism was that we had to open up the agent software to see the detection alerts - other endpoint protection software we've reviewed usually shows a pop up notification as soon as a threat is detected. 

Bitdefender GravityZone Business Security Premium: Final verdict

Overall we found that despite its long-winded name, BitDefender GravityZone Business Security Premium is very fast to set up, simple to use and displays reports clearly. 

Of these, we'd say the clearly laid out interface and reports are most important as it means you don't require a degree in Computer Engineering to understand a quick summarization of all detected threats. Navigating between sections is easy and the client software is extremely fast to set up. We found we didn't once have to check the online documentation for where to proceed next. 

Our tests showed that the platform detected malware almost instantly and immediately quarantined the affected file or made it inaccessible. We were also delighted to see that the 'Executive Summary' displayed the threat detection in its 'Notifications' area as soon as we logged in - other platforms we reviewed made us hunt around or generate reports just to see simple information like this. 

Our only slight criticism of the platform is that pricing is high for the 'Premium' tier, though naturally this does come with more advanced features. You can bring this down by limiting the number of endpoints you maintain, as well as subscribing for longer than one year. Make sure also to check exactly which features are included, as the trial may incorporate freebies of other products that need to be purchased separately. 

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