The Trust USB Headset is a good and honest, plain and simple, salt-of-the-earth wired headset. If you or your staff are joining a few video calls a day and need an inexpensive pair of headphones and mic, this pretty much fits the bill in every way.
You could call the wired USB headset basic. It is. That’s not a bad thing here. This is about making video calls as easy as possible. No switches and flashing lights, no pressing and holding buttons to perform a series of convoluted tasks. Just plug it into your computer – it’s compatible with Windows, macOS, and ChromeOS – and you’re done.
Driving this point home is the user guide. It may be our favorite one yet. Imagine the untold relief at the sheer simplicity opening this up. Plug in headset. Twist right cup for volume. Flip mic to mute and unmute. What more needs to be said?
For comparison, we generally use the Jabra Evolve 2 65 Flex. More or less flawless in design, sound quality, and our overall pick for best Bluetooth headset. But it’s a high-end headset that’s difficult to justify for those not spending all day on calls. The Adya headset from the long-standing Trust is its mirror image in almost every conceivable way. But don’t let that fool you.
Trust Adya: Pricing & availability
The Adya retails for around £20 – which makes it about right for budget wired headsets, which tend to hover around the fifteen to thirty mark.
A slightly expensive, sustainably designed model is available, which features noise-canceling mic and Type-C adapter. A better fit for those who do more talking, but it’s otherwise the same headset design.
You can buy the standard 3.5mm version from Amazon and Argos in the UK, and it’s widely available elsewhere in Europe, but not – as far as we could see – the US.
Trust Adya: Design & features
We found the Trust Adya is thoughtfully designed. The pleasing circle-within-circle of the cups mellows the stark, no-nonsense black. A flat, slender, rubbery microphone arm blooms into a shaped foam windscreen. The podgy foam pads are compact, minimizing the profile, with another padded strip along a band made of stiff, tight plastic. In the hand it feels substantial and relatively lightweight, clocking in at 165kg.
There are two essential features built into the Trust Adya USB headset: a volume dial on the right ear-cup and the ability to mute and unmute the mic by flipping the arm. In design, both are well-executed. The microphone arm softly slots into place with a satisfying click, letting you know it’s now muted. The dial confidently turns in place, not wildly spinning like some cheap piece of plastic, which gave us a feeling of real control over the volume. And aside from the discreet labeling, the function blends so seamlessly into the design, you wouldn’t know it was there.
Trust Adya: Performance
When it comes to budget headphones with mic, it can sometimes feel like a bit of a dice roll. Often, the sound is tinny, lacking in bass. The volume so low you’re straining to hear, and worried that even if you do know how to respond to that half-heard question, the microphone will make you sound like a robot and ruin the rest of the day.
If it is a dice roll, though, the Adya headset is coming up sixes. We experienced no issues with the overall performance of the unit. During our tests, both in meetings, and through our own sound recordings, we found both audio and mic quality to be deep, crisp, clear. The volume dial complementing the set-up, because, as anyone in a large video call with lots of speakers knows, not all microphones are equal.
And the mute function on the mic worked very well. For us, it’s always a concern that, without pressing the on-screen mute, any physical button or switch may not really work, catching that unguarded slurp of tea or the start of an urgent call. But we can say, with the mic arm snug in the mute position, there wasn’t a single complaint about The Boys Are Back in Town playing during our last video call (although, in fairness, who would complain about that anyway?).
However, this is a budget model, so there are some compromises here. Without the ENC noise-canceling microphone found on the higher-range model, background noise and chatter was noticeable in our test recordings. Not enough to disrupt or derail a meeting, but present nonetheless, making them better suited if you can make calls in a quiet space or you work from home.
While we really like the overall design and construction, you definitely know when you’re wearing this headset. They may be lightweight in hand, but after longer meetings, they do start to feel heavy, and the initial comfortable tightness becomes wearing. Admittedly, that may be a consequence of a relatively new headset that hasn’t had time to somewhat slacken – and we prefer this over flimsy, creaking plastic headsets that threaten to break if you breathe too hard.
Trust Adya: Final verdict
The Trust Adya USB PC headset is a really good choice if you want something with absolutely minimal fuss. If you’re making casual video calls, either for home, work or school, it does a fine job, with a pleasing audio quality and a crackle-free microphone.
We like the addition of the volume dial and mute function built into the headset. Performance is here smooth, uncomplicated, the required actions discreet even when you can’t see what you’re doing. We did find the mic picks up background chatter, which the more advanced model mitigates with its noise-canceling mic. For busy offices where that matters, this is a must. While comfortable, we also found the on-ear cups can get wearing after longer meetings, making them a better option for those not sitting in all-day meetings.
Overall, we were confident using this for any standard day-to-day meetings, whether as a viewer or speaker. This is a solidly designed wired headset for PC, Mac, and Chromebooks that doesn’t feel like a budget choice, working exactly as intended and expected.