Razer Leviathan review

Razer has been steadily expanding from its core business of gaming mice and keyboards for years, but just because it now caters for consoles and the living room, it doesn’t mean the company has forgotten about dedicated PC gamers. The Leviathan is something of a crossover product; a budget soundbar that could give your TV a welcome audio boost, but one that’s also compact enough to sit beneath a monitor on your desk.

Design and build quality

Thanks to an all-black design and silver embossed Razer triple-headed snake logo, the Leviathan is almost understated – a far cry from the LED-illuminated peripherals we’ve seen from the company previously. A row of LED indicators on the top of the unit shows which sound mode is currently in use, but the lights aren’t overly bright and shouldn’t prove distracting when gaming in the dark.

The sound bar itself is 50cm long and will sit comfortably under most desktop monitors. Two sets of interchangeable feet either angle the sound bar directly forwards or upwards, depending on whether you’ll be using it with a TV or a PC monitor. You can also wall-mount the sound bar if you have the space, although you’ll have to take cable length into account; the power adapter cable is just 1.5m long and the subwoofer cable is about the same length, and all the soundbar’s inputs are on the back. Unless you have a way to hide the cables, wall-mounting could end up looking rather messy, as the wires are too short to give you much cable-routing flexibility.

The subwoofer doesn’t require an external power source, so only has one cable running to the sound bar. A 260mm square base and 220mm height means it’s compact enough to sit comfortably under a desk or to the side of an AV cabinet, but you may struggle to squeeze it behind a sofa.

INPUTS AND CONTROLS

The soundbar has 3.5mm analogue and digital optical audio inputs, so it’s easy enough to hook up a PC, TV or games console, but the addition of Bluetooth and NFC makes it simple to connect a compatible smartphone or tablet. We had no trouble manually searching for the Leviathan and pairing an iPhone, either. Bluetooth range was impressive, and we were able to maintain a stable connection at 10m distance and even with several walls between phone and speaker.

All the controls are located on the soundbar, and as there’s no remote control you’ll need to keep the soundbar within arm’s reach if you want to switch inputs, change sound mode or adjust the volume. This is fine in desktop use, but a pain if you plan on using the speaker with a TV. There’s no built-in IR receiver, meaning you can’t use universal remotes or smartphones with an IR blaster, either.

With no controls on the subwoofer, and no option to adjust the balance between sub and sound bar, you’re limited to the three sound modes (game, music and movie), and the Dolby Virtual Speakers preset, when it comes to tweaking audio.