// PC GAMER — GAMING
Creative XF1 speaker review
The XF1 offers mighty sound in a small package, with robust connectivity and some great presets. You naturally have to make compromises for compact speakers, but Creative has done a creative job of picking the best ones.
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I've slowly come to the realisation that, for computer speakers, once you get past the mid-range price point it becomes all about diminishing returns. There are some really solid budget picks (with Creative's Pebble Pro being our budget speaker of choice), but the $100-200 range is where you get the most features and the best price-to-value ratio. Go beyond that and you're spending a lot of money for only incrementally better sound and some non-essential luxuries.
And nothing quite proves that better than the Creative XF1, a set of compact yet incredibly useful speakers with a whole host of neat extra features. And they even come with two cork stands to prop the speakers, which can go entirely unused if you like your speakers flat, but It's still plain neat that they come in the box for no extra charge.
Naturally, the more compact you go, the less room you have to jam speakers full of large tweeters and woofers, and as such, the balance with the XF1 isn't just where to cut costs in each unit, but just how small you can condense them down before the sound starts to take a hit.
And Creative, for the most part, has nailed that balance, with a set of speakers that are small enough to fit on my desk, but loud enough to shake it.
✅ You're running out of desk space: The XF1 are a small and understated set of speakers that felt at home on my admittedly pretty small desk.
❌ You want high-end sound: Though sound replication is very strong for the price and size, you aren't getting audiophile-level quality.
The XF1 offer mighty sound in a small package, with robust connectivity and some great presets. You naturally have to make compromises for compact speakers, but Creative have done a creative job of finding the best ones.
Lighting Status LED for connectivity, no addressable RGB