[gxqoz]

Eh, I think this is overstating the case for the typical user (Zoom or gaming rather than something like podcasting).

The sound quality is more than acceptable, even when placed relatively far away from the speaker, for Zoom meetings. It will be night and day compared to a laptop microphone or AirPods (although this is true even with cheaper USB headsets). Unlike the other recommended non-headset microphones, you don't need a special stand or to ensure you're very close to the microphone. In terms of aesthetics, you also don't have to have a large microphone in your face on camera. Sure, this is the norm on Twitch, but every time I've been on a Zoom call with someone with this setup it's always at least a little awkward.

I also find the speakers in a lot of USB headsets to be either not the best or uncomfortable. I use a separate output-only headset and a Yeti as my input and this works well enough for me.

I find the microphone to have one of the most convenient hardware mute buttons of similarly priced options. Of course, mics with more intelligent muting may reduce your need to mute so often, but I personally prefer to have 100% control over this and not rely on software. One of my biggest pet peeves about all teleconferencing software is they give you almost no feedback on your sound quality and what's coming through in the background. I'd rather control that than the software doing something wrong.

Big picture, though, is to use any form of external microphone and headset rather than laptops + speakers. Even a cheap $15 headset is going to be a much better experience for everyone else on the call. Better sound quality from you and less echo (yes, software tries to take care of this, but in practice I've found this highly unreliable on the other ends of Zoom, Teams, Discord, etc. calls).