Tifosi Swank Gaming review: Protect your eyes with these stylish glasses

Tifosi is a brand best known for making sports glasses for men and women. These high-quality specs can be kitted out with custom features and cover a wide range of price points. Eyeing up esports, Tifosi has released a new gaming sub-brand with the new Swank Gaming glasses for extended sessions.

Available in a variety of colors, the new glasses from Tifosi promises to help combat eye strain when staring at a screen for countless hours each day. Do they work and are they worth the asking price?

Tifosi Swank Gaming glasses are great for gamers

The Tifosi Swank Gaming glasses are well-made and look sporty, as one would expect from the brand. The frame is a Grilamid TR-90, making it light to wear and durable in case you somehow knock them off your head. The lenses used are Enliven Gaming, which focuses on filtering blue light thrown out from displays.

How these glasses are marketed to work — and I believe they do to a certain point after years of use — is by filtering out the more harmful blue rays of the light spectrum. By allowing your eyes to absorb said rays for long periods, it's more likely you'll encounter eye fatigue and dry eyes. It's why you often see professionals wearing them, aside from sponsorships, of course.

Another handy feature of the Swank (I love the name) Gaming is the integrated hinge, which is designed in such a way that it shouldn't pull on any hair. The frame can be found in five different colors, though it's not currently possible to add a prescription or other custom elements to order.

As for comfort, the Swank Gaming is very comfortable to wear, even for hours at a time. Prefer to use headphones? That's no problem either. I did find with some pairs of lenses; they can either prevent cups from forming an insulated seal around your ears or be pushed into the side of your skull. Testing a few different headphones found no issues.

It's difficult to tell whether or not the Tifosi Swank Gaming lenses work better for me compared to my trusty Gunnars, but there's certainly less of a tint with these glasses. That could mean my equivalent Gunnars pair — though more expensive — is blocking more of the harmful rays, but messing with the colors ever so slightly more.

Still, that doesn't mean the Tifosi Swank Gaming glasses don't work, because they do. Wearing these for a good 8-10 hours each day for the past week has not resulted in any more blurriness than usual when away from the screen. If I go completely without some sort of protection for my eyes, I can expect to strain my eyesight considerably, so it's worth the money if you experience similar symptoms.

What you might dislike about the Tifosi Swank Gaming

The main issue with Tifosi's Swank Gaming is the lack of customization. With competitor glasses, you're able to add a prescription, as well as other features like different lenses, depending on how strong you want the filtering to be. This isn't possible with Swank Gaming. Tifosi ships a single type of lens with one frame, albeit in five different colors.

Working off this complaint is the lack of sunlight protection. There's no option to add UV shielding, which would allow you to wear the same glasses both in front of the PC and outside, much like transition lenses found from other brands. This could be something Tifosi adds in the future, but for the time being, it's a deal-breaker if you require such additions.

Should you buy the Tifosi Swank Gaming?

Should you use your PC often enough and struggle with strained or tired eyes afterward, you may need to look at picking up a pair of glasses with blue light shielding. This Swank Gaming pair from Tifosi is a solid option, coming in at an affordable price with the excellent build quality, and you won't notice much of a difference while wearing them.

If you already wear glasses with prescriptions, you'll want to look elsewhere since it's not currently possible to customize these glasses with lenses to correct sight, nor can you add transition technology for use outside. Still, as a simple pair of specs for your PC, this is well worth considering.