Speaker 1: What is the best all-around budget USB mic? In this video, I'll be reviewing the Samsung Q2U, a plug-and-play all-in-one USB mic with everything you need for under $60. Let's get it. You gotta just press record. Hey, what's up? It's Omar El-Takrori with Think Media, helping you build your influence with online video. And on this channel, sometimes we do tutorials as well as tech gear reviews just like this one. So if you're new here, consider subscribing. So the Samsung Q2U comes in at around $60 at the time of shooting this video. And with that, you get the microphone itself, a stand with a mic clip, an extender for more height, a USB cable, an XLR cable, and a windscreen. So literally, out of the box, you're ready to go. This microphone is a dynamic mic, which essentially means it cuts out all the noise that isn't coming straight into the mic. And so dynamic mics are great for things like podcasts, live streaming, voiceovers, music and events, or even if you just wanna level up your Zoom call audio. The other kind of mic would be a condenser mic, which is the mic I'm using to film this video. And that kind of mic will capture all around noise. So you wanna make sure what's going on around this microphone is very quiet. And that the only thing that you're picking up is the sound you wanna pick up. We love using dynamic mics at things like CES or NAB or conventions or very noisy areas, even outside. It just cuts out all the extra noise that you don't wanna hear and making it really easy and trustworthy. However, the difference between the two visually is you will always see a dynamic mic in the shot because that's how you get the best sound out of it. And so you would always see a mic like this in the shot or any other dynamic mic is usually right in front of the mouth. And that's what's cool about a condenser mic is cause it could be outside the shot boomed and you don't have to see it, although it's capturing audio. Now let's just do a quick audio test of the Samsung Q2U. And now you can actually hear the difference between a condenser mic and a dynamic mic as we switch into the test in three, two, one. So this is how the Samsung Q2U sounds simply just plugged right into my laptop, my MacBook over here, and I'm recording this on audition. And what do you think, question of the day is what do you think this sounds like? What I was using prior to this test was a condenser mic. This is a dynamic mic. So you can notice when my mouth is not around the mic, it doesn't pick it up too well. But when my mouth is right in front of the mic, it picks it up really good, sounding like a legit podcaster radio vibe, but overall good sound. Now I wanna show you how this sounds on a Zoom call. So if you bought this just to level up your Zoom call audio, we're gonna start with the onboard mic of a MacBook Pro, and then we're gonna hop into how it sounds with using the Q2U. All right, so here we are on Zoom. This is me recording a Zoom meeting, and this is the onboard mic on my MacBook. Essentially what people would hear if I was using AirPods, obviously it would sound a little bit different, but essentially this is what it sounds like if you didn't have anything. Now I'm gonna turn on this $60 Q2U mic and see how it levels up the call. So now here's the Q2U mic selected, and how does it sound? Does it sound better? Does it sound clearer? You know, if you are doing Zoom calls for work, or even if you just wanna sound better than everybody else, this might be the way to go. But let me know what you think about how this sounds, and overall what you think about the mic's test. Now there are some things that make this a super versatile and user-friendly mic. The build quality is really nice, made of metal, having nice weight to it, making it feel pretty solid to take a beating if it had to. It has an on and off switch and an LED light that tells you it's powered, or will also blink if you are peaking or clipping your audio, which is nice. And then there's a volume control toward the bottom, which controls the headphone volume. Surprisingly, this mic has a headphone jack to monitor your audio, USB micro to hook up to your computer, phone, or tablet, which I'll show you in just a moment. And the icing on the cake is it also has an XLR output, just in case you wanna connect this to a recorder like a Zoom H4n or H5n, or use an audio interface to control audio gain on the fly. Because I have an Apple iPhone, you definitely need the adapter that allows you to go from lightning to USB female, and I'll put that link in the description below, as well as any other things I mentioned in this video. But simply plugging it in and powering up, and you're good to go. Now, something cool I found out about this mic plugging it into my iPhone when I was running tests is that, you know, it has great default settings. Like if you just plug it straight into your iPhone, it's good to go. Whether you're using a voice recorder or actually turning on your video camera on your phone and recording straight from it. So this is the Samsung Q2U plugged right into my iPhone 11 with the lightning USB adapter. And we dialed in the audio prior to hitting record with the FairWrite app. Again, we'll link that app in the description. And what do you think it sounds like? I think it sounds pretty good. And I'm just monitoring straight from the mic itself. And this also allows me when I do the playback to listen to it without having to unplug everything, which is really nice. But all in all, super easy to set up and got the good audio baked into the video footage. But what's super cool about bypassing your default settings if you wanna make any tweaks to your gain is you can download a free app like FairWrite, and we'll put a link to this app in the description below. You can control your gain and then hop into your video camera of your iPhone. And then record video with your audio dialed. This is super cool because if you're doing things like video podcast work or you wanna save the extra step of syncing your audio in post, if you're using your smartphone as your camera, then this is an awesome way to go. What's also cool is if you have this mic hooked up to your iPhone and you open up Instagram stories, you can straight up record cool audio onto your Instagram stories without having to do anything special in editing or anything. It just knows that the mic is hooked up and it uses that mic to record your audio. So all in all, this is an incredible budget-friendly and versatile mic. I think if you don't own a dynamic mic currently or if you just wanna level up the mic that you're using for your computer, this is an incredible USB mic allowing you to grow and level up your audio. And definitely we always say that 50% of video is audio. And so check out this mic. Again, we'll put links in the description below. And I wanna point your attention to our playlist. It's our podcast playlist where we break down all the gear from video podcasts to podcast recorders and things like that. So be sure to check out that playlist. You can click or tap the screen and I can't wait to see you in a future video. Peace.