The Spawn On Me 2025 Buyer's Guide!

0:01Spawn on Me is the premier podcast spotlighting people of color. Every week, we talk news, what we've been playing, and tell you who's invited to the cookout. Our show is all about talking about gaming through a prism of blackness, because we are the culture. Welcome to Proconco, y 'all. Welcome to the Spawn of Me podcast. I'm your host, Kylee For Adams, and this is our 2025 Buyer's Guide. It's the chance that I get to share some dope tech with all of you at home. games, items, tchotchkes, tech, all of those wonderful things that I've been playing around with over the year. And I think you should know about in a lot of different ways.

0:39It is a fun time to work with some of our partners to be able to share some of this stuff. So thank you to each and every one of them who have given us some gear to be able to review on the show and also talk to all of you about. And it's great to be able to kind of include those in our end of year, buyer's guide to be able to give all of you at home some extra things to think about or some things you might want to put under the 2026 tree if you want to buy all your Christmas gifts really, really early. So here's some fun stuff that I've been playing around with that a lot of the folks have either sent us or have shared with us over the past year.

1:15I have been in the space of looking to buy a new PC case. I love the cases that we had, but I'm always looking to build another one we have another need for our second studio. So I've been definitely looking for a case and the wonderful folks from Haight reached out and said, hey, we're looking to showcase our X50 cases and maybe you'd wanna share those with your audience. And I was like, oh, please send one over. We'd love to review it, love to check it out. It was a weird timing only because as soon as we got this bad boy into the studio, all the prices for everything went up, GPUs, RAM, all the stuff went up in a really big way.

1:54So I've been holding off a little bit. We do have a good 5080 that we can throw in this thing that I've been waiting for, but I've been really excited because this thing is a monster and it looks gorgeous. I love just the rounded edges. I love the fact that you can throw multiple big fans in this case. I love the fact that it's a case that you can use for an ATX mid tower case. It means you can put a really beefy motherboard in here. or you can put really beefy fans in here. You have a lot of space to show off some RGB bits, you know, on your AIO or other places on the chassis because it has this really beautiful glass case that is on the front that is easy to remove.

2:33The sides are easy to remove. The back is easy to remove to be able to get all your pieces and your cable management in a good spot. And I really am just like super impressed with everything from height. I love the way that they are using the aesthetics and the function and functionality of these cases to really match the two of design and function in a really cool way that you don't really see from a lot of other folks. I'm hoping that they expand into other colorways. I am super hyped when they asked which one did I want? And I was like, please, please, please send me the red case because as you can see, red is my favorite color.

3:11It is one of the big colors of our show. But it's also one of those things where when you think about just construction, this thing is really, really beefy in terms of build quality. It's not super heavy, it's a little bit hefty, but it isn't one of those things that feels like one of those super old, really big gigantic cases that take up a lot of space and also are just heavy to move around when you have the full build in it. This feels like a case where you could move this around if you need to put it on a mini shelf. You can put it on a side holder on a desk as well. Like just so many different ways that you're able to kind of play around with these kinds of cases.

3:53So you can do an E-ATX motherboard, put an ATX, you can put an M-ATX and ITX. So you have the full gamut of range of different kinds of cases. I'm sorry, different kinds of motherboards you're able to put inside this case and you have the ability to do all of that within the X50. So I'm really excited about those. It comes in around retail around$159.99, which I think is a really amazing price for what you get. Plus they have the options of colorways that you have that you can potentially get. You have black, you have matcha, you have strawberry milk, and you have taro milk, which is a purple.

4:33All of them feel really cool. They have this really great pop of color. And it's something I think you should all definitely be checking out for sure. Next is I have been playing around with Magic the Gathering. I had a couple of different meetings over 2025 where I was invited into a couple of sessions to go play Magic the Gathering. As a person who is not a big card CCG player, as a person who is learning to kind of play more board games with more people, I really had a blast playing a ton of the Final Fantasy content that we wind up seeing kind of coming in the early part of 2025. And then later they blessed me, the team from Wizard of the Coast and the team from Magic the Gathering, with their newest decks, their new starter decks that are all around Marvel and Spider-Man.

5:25So you have Spider-Man, you have Venom, you have a couple of other ones in the mix, too, that are really funky. You get like the 2099 Spider-Man, you get Spider-Gwen, you get all of those versions within those kind of starter decks, those welcome decks, the white, the blue, the black, the red and the green with a key. Anyway, that's a whole nother story. But I have been really, really excited to play more Magic the Gathering. It has been a thing where I didn't know exactly if I was going to really vibe with it. I felt like I always feel like for card games, I'm always a little bit behind the curve.

6:00I always feel a little kind of dumb because it's a lot of things to take in all the time. It's a lot of memory. It's a lot of memorization, a lot of counting all at the same time, trying to figure out the rules of the road for the base game. And then you have those additional pieces that go along with those specific decks. But it's been really cool to learn how to play Magic the Gathering with my wife. I've been playing with a couple of friends online. I've been playing some MTG Arena to kind of get my feet wet in the space and really learn about how to play that game. And because it's a game that so many people play, it's a game that has been a worldwide success.

6:37It is a thing that is a part of the zeitgeist or part of the culture of gaming. and it felt like I was missing out on building my own repertoire of understanding how to play those games. And it's been really fun kind of learning how to incorporate gameplay into my sessions and really learn how to do that well, how to build decks. We had a lot of conversations with Cam Hawking, shout out to Cam Hawking, who's a big MTG player, about how to build very specific decks and how you kind of build your base decks and you build your your kind of tertiary decks and all of those things have been really cool to kind of learn so i i hope to do more mtg stuff in the future i think one of the things that i've been kind of poking at for a while is expanding my gaming repertoire i think it is one of those things where i always want to lean on you know my usual gaming spaces.

7:34I'm way more attuned to playing with a controller than playing board games, because I'll be honest, I used to get really bored playing board games. Maybe it's because I have ADHD. I don't know. Maybe it could be a whole bunch of other things where my just focus is always kind of wavering and trying to figure out what that looks like in a real way. But it has been really cool to be able to see magic continue to broaden out its expansions in terms of card decks, IP, working with a whole bunch of different kinds of deck builders and different kinds of IP holders to kind of add licenses to the space in that way.

8:12It would be kind of cool to see if they did a DC deck in some way to also work with Marvel and DC. You know, what would it look like to be able to have your kind of Marvel decks versus DC decks and stuff like that? That would be a fun space for them to play in and see what that looks like in a real way. Cause I'm like, man, that would be so dope to be able to see what that process would look like, um, in an actual real way. So I'm, I'm excited for where these things kind of lean and where these movements kind of go moving forward. Um, but it's always one of those really awesome kind of moments where the aha light, uh, light goes over your head and you're like, oh, I totally understand why people vibe with this or why people rock with this or why people kind of do this thing in this way.

9:04It's always super cool to kind of expand your horizons in a lot of different areas. And this is definitely one that I'm going to continue to kind of play in and learn more about and hopefully get better over time while I play more Magic the Gathering. Um, back to the PC space. Um, one of our partners in crime has always been Logitech. Logitech has been a company that has supported Spawn on Me in, in various ways for many, many years. They have kitted us out with so many different things from, uh, Herman Miller chairs and desks to full racing sim setups to headphones, mice, and keyboards in a lot of different ways.

9:51One of my favorite keyboards now that they have in their lineup that is now the kind of battleship for Spawn on Me Studio number one is the Logitech G515 TKL. So the 10 keyless version of that keyboard. It is beautiful. I love the version that they sent over for me, which was the kind of white on gray version. And ours isn't the wireless one. There's a wireless one that they have in the mix as well that I might want to see if we can switch out to, because I want that super clean aesthetic look on our desk for that stuff. But from everything from from the low profile key actuation to being able to have battery life up to 36 hours and it works on one USB-C cable.

10:42There are so many different aspects of what this really dope and fantastic piece of kit can do. It always makes me really happy to know that we are working with a team like Logitech for them believing in us and believing in kind of seeing how they continue to innovate in everything that they do. We're also going to be talking about one of the new Logitech G Astro A50X McLaren series headsets in a minute. But these are, this keyboard is one of those pieces of gear that you forget just how much it drives your productivity in things that you do. I think one of the things that also comes through is not only because it is a very low profile keyboard, meaning it is very thin in the way that it presents.

11:42It just feels like you're kind of typing on air. It never feels like you are struggling to push keys because of the actuation on those keys. They always are coming through with different variations on switches that feel really good. And also not only are stable and sturdy, but just feel good. Like they have a good sound to them. Even if you have a keyboard that has a fairly light travel from your home keys to the kind of extension keys that you need to be able to put through. they always are looking at finding good ways to make their gear feel premium and every version of them just feels fantastic like every keyboard that we've ever had from from Logitech has always felt good um and and and it always feels like they are finding new ways to make not only kind of productivity paramount but like how you're using those in gaming scenarios and gaming situations very, very kind of smartly done in those ways.

12:48I am really excited for it. It has been in our studio now for about a month or so. I think it's probably one of the best keyboards I've used in a very long time. I think it is something that you should be checking out in multiple different versions. I like the black version. I love the gray version, the white version. Also coming in at$159.99. And since that's a one-two punch that you can have in your studio or in your setup to make really dope content in really fantastic ways. Next up is the A50X McLaren Racing Edition, which comes in at$429.99. And this is their premium battle station of a headset.

13:32This is the one that I am currently using for all of my gaming when I'm in my living room. And I may put the McLaren version down here in the studio to swap these out with those. It is stunning because you can connect basically almost anything to this thing. You can connect your Xbox, PlayStation, and PC all at once. and you can tap through those systems with a button that's on one of the head cap, one of the side caps in the headset. The, of course, you know, the thing that is the most important part is not only the beautiful aesthetics that come along with this and this kind of stunning orange tinge that they've had on this, but the drivers are featuring their Pro-G graphene drivers, the 40 millimeter drivers, which give you this really great range across all the sound levels.

14:31So your mids are really good. Your highs are really crisp. Your basses, your deeps, your lows are really nice and full. Headphone audio compliance has Dolby Atmos. You can use the Windows Sonic TM spatial audio compatibility parts. It's not really heavy. It's only 360 grams, so it's around 12, almost 13 ounces. The thing that I really love about this is because it is in my living room, it has, and I don't have a lot of space behind my TV, which is where the base of it is, but it has HDMI 2.1 pass-through. So that means you can route all of your gaming devices into it, into their respective ports, and then you have an out that will go to the TV.

15:18so you're never having to swap cables. You're just clicking through whatever input is the one that you're looking for so that you can play that device whenever you want. So whenever I'm finished playing on my Xbox, I click over to my plate, so like two clicks over and it hits the PlayStation. And then I just, my TV will automatically kind of see that that input is now live and it'll switch to that specific one. Super, super cool to be able to have something like that in the mix. USB audio is in there up to 16 bit. It has omnidirectional pickup on the microphone. The frequency is up from 60 to 20 ,000 Hertz, which if you're a real nerd, you know what that means.

15:59But the thing that I love is that it has 24 hours of play time and you can charge it both on the dock, which it sits on, or you can charge it with the USB-C wired cable because there's a small port there as well. It also has wireless 24-bit light speed in it, and you can use that for up to 12 meters away from the base. It is my favorite headset that I've seen Logitech put out in a long time. Having that papaya color be in the mix and knowing that they are continuing to grow and build on this one piece of hardware, it really tells me a lot about the, again, the deep knowledge that they have from a design perspective.

16:44Their design teams in terms of aesthetics continue to be really good. Seeing them partner with McLaren and not only having the play seat, the big driving seat, the other pieces of gear for driving enthusiasts in the space, always super fun to be able to play around with. that we're hopefully gonna get the play seat in so we can go and hook up our GTA, not GTA, our Gran Turismo gameplay to that so we can play some games there or even some Forza stuff there as well. I just love what they've done with this combination of the pro racing wheels, the headset, the play seat. It's all very cohesive in the way that they work together.

17:27And it's always super fun to be able to see how they build all of these pieces with players in mind, with aesthetics in mind, with quality in mind. Because again, if you're asking people to spend $430 on a piece of gear, it has to be pro quality stuff. I've dropped it once or twice. I'm not happy to say that. And it feels like the build quality is rock solid. Never have a problem with it. It connects every time that I connected to the base. It connects and the charging is really, really fast. And everyone who I talked to on mic is like, wow, your mic sounds really, really good. What are you using?

18:05So I'm very, very pleased with everything that they have within this system. And you can also, I forgot, you can connect to your Switch too, as well, which is, which is super, super cool. Your Nintendo Switch and your Switch 2. So we're going to take a quick break. We have a couple more items to talk through and a couple more items to talk about. But right now we're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back after this hey there my name is naomi and you might know me from internet things like hosting for ign i'd like to introduce you to my new show this week in gaming it's 20 minutes short and sweet and every week i go through all the important gaming news that you need to know and then we have folks on like kalief adams who shows up quite often talk about all the important news and you get to listen to it wherever you get your podcast so it's easy to find just look for this week in gaming and make sure to give it a follow and every week Monday at 9 p.m.

18:57Pacific time you get a brand new episode. I hope you'll join me. Okay we are back from our break and we're going to end up with two last items that I wanted to talk about for our buyer's guide and one of them is the Razer Kaiju V3 Pro controller for PlayStation. We had this in the studio for a while. I showed this off during one of the streams earlier in the year. And I wanted to go over a couple of quick features because I think the thing that separates this from other controllers is the breadth and depth of the options there. And it is a really good, really just nice feeling controller. Again, it is extremely light, which I didn't expect.

19:42I thought it would be a little bit heftier in what it was going to kind of present. It looks like a kind of more chunky controller, but it feels extremely light. It feels about the size of a regular DualShock, a DualSense controller, but has a ton more options in it. Like you have these removable back buttons and the claw bumpers that are really, really important and really interesting because the claw bumpers, if you play with the claw kind of hand style, which a lot of folks play in terms of either first-person shooters, usually there's a you have to kind of like contort your fingers to do that but it has these buttons on the top of the controller that help to uh mimic what that claw grip would wind up being and you also again have those removal buttons if you want to have access to more buttons for more access for uh things you want to remap so like in many games i am remapping one of those back buttons to a grenade or a menu or something to that effect, which makes it a lot easier to be able to play with during a battle or fight where I'm like, oh man, do I have to go and like contort my fingers to get to another button?

20:59Or I can kind of gently press one of those to be able to do that. Has a symmetrical TMR thumbsticks with the swappable caps. That's always great because depending upon how you like your sticks, whether it be height or convex versus concave, they have options there for you there. The TMR thumbsticks also are really, really good because it makes it easy to be able to swap those out. And it gives you a good set of resistance in the sticks themselves because if you want to pull them off and you want to be able to have them, they're not going to fall off, they're going to be easy to remove and swap and push back on.

21:39You have the Razer Pro Hyper Triggers, which again, if you are playing with pro controllers, the ability to have a shorter throw on your sticks is really great, especially for first person shooters, because instead of having to make a full pull on one of the triggers, you can set the trigger stops to be able to give you more of more control in a shorter throw. So you're getting the same action without less actuation on the actual triggers. So you're shooting faster than other people who may have a default kind of controller. We have to pull the full stick down to get all of that in the mix, which you can tune as well with the Razer mobile app and the Synapse app that you can find as well.

22:29the Razer, I want to read it because I want to get the name right. Razer Mecha Tactile PBT Action Buttons and 8-Way Floating D-Pad. So this is actually really important if you're a fighting game fan. I know a lot of folks don't like the mushiness of the D-Pad on most controllers, even though that is what, if you're playing on a four-way D-Pad, there are those in-between spaces where you're not getting some of the full motion of a move. But this one has like a very nice, super clicky, tactile feel. It feels almost like you're clicking on a mouse, but it has the eight-way D-pad. I absolutely love that.

23:16I think that's one of the best features of this controller. It is something that really brings something different to the table and makes this an even more versatile controller because you can play this with multiple genres of games. and feel like you don't have to swap everything out, like with a potential Elite controller where you may need to swap out the full D-pad to be able to get from a kind of typical game to a more fighting game space there. Again, if you're playing on a big TV, you're sitting on your couch, the Razer Hypersense Wireless gives you that extra oomph with the 2.4 gigahertz wireless.

23:52You're not having to compete with your five gigahertz band. It is the most reliable, kind of most standard wireless protocol. So you're getting that super fast, super reactive, super connectivity to your console and never feeling like you're having this input lag, this latency between the controller and the console that you're playing with on the PS5, which is super, super good. Again, you can remap the buttons. You can tune the thumbstick sensitivity. All of those things there are four ways you can put four different profiles, which I love because I'm switching between different games all the time and have different protocols and different setups for each one of those with the profiles that are there.

24:34Lots of ways you can calibrate and tweak the controller to your liking. And it's a really, really good controller. It just feels really, really nice in the hand. The grips are super, super good. and again it's not going to be a thing with that kind of super matte black where you're worrying about how dirty the game is going to feel not the game but how dirty the controller is going to feel after long play sessions where your hands might get sweaty and things like that so you get a really nice carrying case 2 meter USB cable USB-C cable that really if you were taking it on the road and you're playing in multiple places you don't have to worry about those things I really do like the Razer Raiju V3.

25:16I said Kaiju in the beginning. There's a Raiju V3 controller. It is one of my favorite controllers that I've gotten a chance to play in a very long time. And I think it is something that you should be putting on your radar if you're looking for a new controller. And it comes in at around$219. So that is, I believe, absolutely worth it for the quality, for the build construction, for the ability to remap and do a lot of things with it. It is always one of my go-to controllers when I'm not feeling like using my DualSense Edge when that's charging or doing something to that effect. And lastly, the Xbox ROG Ally X, you know the deal.

25:59You have seen all of my videos, the reviews that we did earlier in the year. It has been now my go-to on the go mobile device for gaming. It used to be my PlayStation Portable, but this is the best feeling handheld console I've had in a very long time and I feel like it is going to continue to be a very big and strong player in the market because they continue to update it they continue to find really good ways to make sure that games are going to be viable on it screen is beautiful it feels really good best ergonomics in a handheld handheld that I've had in a very long time. And it is currently my version of the gold standard for what I think these controllers, not controllers, these handhelds can be in the market.

26:49I am hoping to see them do some more in terms of peripherals. I would love to see more cases. I'd love to see an Xbox case directly from Xbox or at least another partner. You know, the ROG crew, they always have really fun stuff in there to be able to play with. And I think that this will be, again, at$1 ,000. It It is not cheap, but it is a really good investment for folks who are looking to get into that market who may not necessarily want to play with a Steam Deck or have that feeling of, you know, maybe this device is too big in my hands and it makes my hands hurt. I have played this thing for multiple hours on end while connected and not, you know, playing it connected, you get that extra boost in the hardware, playing it off, off a charger feels really good.

27:36Never feels hot. Never sounds loud. I've played this thing on a, on a, on a flight and people have been like, what is that? That's super cool. And then, you know, we didn't feature the X-Rio glasses in this one, but that has also been a really big boon for that, too, of like getting that really big screen in your glasses and then playing on a device like this has made it super fun to be able to get some gaming in on the road when I didn't expect to. so massive love to all of the folks who sent us all these fantastic pieces of gear throughout the year for us to review for us to talk about and hopefully you'll be looking towards some of these as uh potential you know ideas that you might want to kind of prop into your your gaming library into your gaming ecosystem uh for things you might want to check out and play or use uh so please you know we're going to have links to these in the show notes uh and we're going to do another one of these next year for 2026.

28:33I always kind of dig doing these. It's always a little bit of like, how do we kind of make this happen? And this is one that we haven't done in a while. So it's been able to get some love and come back to doing these, which is something I really, really want to do more of in the next year. So thank you to each and every one of you who've hung out with us and rocked for this year. Thank you to everyone who's listened to the show. Thank you to all the new subscribers, all the new listeners. And thank you again to all of our tech partners who have been a part of building our ecosystem here in, in the Spawn of Me studio, uh, and continue to work with us.

29:05And I'm very, very grateful and thank you, thankful to all of you for believing in us, uh, for believing in me, uh, to be able to do this work alongside you, even though sometimes those reviews get up a little late. Uh, so I thank you for your patience as well. Uh, but thank you all for listening, for watching, and we'll all see you in 2026 when we do our next holiday buyer's God. Until then, we say much love and peace.