Mainstream VR Has Arrived: We Take Samsung's Gear VR For A Ride

[kcarbotte]

Samsung's Gear VR is the first VR headset to get mainstream attention. It has the potential to fuel the early days of consumer-grade VR, but is it really worth your money and attention?

Mainstream VR Has Arrived: We Take Samsung's Gear VR For A Ride : Read more

 

[hoofhearted]

Would be nice to try this, but since I am on a Note 4, I'm screwed. I refuse to go to a Note 5 because Samsung did away with removable battery and SD card. So the other option would be to go with the Note 4 version except that Samsung stopped making this. They had the Note 4 version on Amazon a couple of months ago for $99. Now the only ones available are these scumbag price gougers on eBay and Amazon wanting $300 to $800 for them. Amazon is slowly turning into eBay with this crap!

 

[Chief Thunder]

To the writer, it's rather easy to watch Netflix on bed. All you have to do is look up above your head when you're in that living room, and you'll see an option to go to the 'void theater'. Then you can get on bed and bliss! Took me a while to figure it out

 

[everygamer]

Picked this up, I have both the DK1 and DK2 so I can speak from experience that the full devices do give a more compelling experience due to the positional tracking (DK2) and the additional power that a full PC's hardware can provide towards rendering latency. That said this is a very interesting example of a well made device, a clean experience and its mobile (not connected to a PC) made it really easy for me to bring into work to show to my co-workers. The screen-door effect (being able to see the gaps between the pixels) is something you can get used too, but anything highly detailed and far away will still look fuzzy. I did not run into any of the overheating issues the reviewer mentioned, but then again I am running this with a Samsung Note 5 not the S6.

Pros: Good way to play with the early stages of VR, mobility is a plus and if you are already a Samsung (S6, Note5) owner its low cost.

Cons: Latency is still a little too high, this combined with a limited lens adjustment can lead to the sea-sick feeling in some people.

 

[Joe Black]

Its literally just a peripheral for people that have the specific phone already. Unless you have deep pockets and simply cannot bear to wait for a second rate preview of what's to come.

 

[TheBigb1973]

I had note 4. I just traded in for note 5. Who cares about not removing the back. Ive never bought a battery. I did have external sd card. But who cares. Buy the 64 gig model. Plus now i can use the up to date VR! Plus note 5 blows 4 outta the water! I dont regret it at all

 

[Dritman]

I picked up the Gear VR and I think this is a pretty fair assessment. If you're really hyped for VR this might be a cool thing to have, but it's definitely not perfect and not everyone should buy one. I'm happy with mine though. One thing I will add, is that I'm using the bigger edge+, and it's not once overheated on me. It does warm up quite a bit, no idea how close it gets that that warning, but I have not seen it yet. I can play Drift or Eve for 30 minutes without issue.

 

[SBMfromLA]

I picked up the Gear VR and I think this is a pretty fair assessment. If you're really hyped for VR this might be a cool thing to have, but it's definitely not perfect and not everyone should buy one. I'm happy with mine though. One thing I will add, is that I'm using the bigger edge+, and it's not once overheated on me. It does warm up quite a bit, no idea how close it gets that that warning, but I have not seen it yet. I can play Drift or Eve for 30 minutes without issue.

I think it's just a matter of personal preference and opinion. Many people believe the Note 5 was a step down from the Note 4... and it seems kind of stupid to spend $100 extra to add 32GB Ram as opposed to only spending $21 to add 64GB of REMOVABLE/SWAPPABLE storage.

 

[SBMfromLA]

@hoofhearted

To be fair... the Innovator Edition had been out for a while and if you were really serious about getting one you would have bought one by now... especially when the price dropped in half.

 

[dark_lord69]

Rift $599 + Tax + Shipping + Video Card upgrade = Nearly $1000 on the low end, and I have the rest of the system needed.

Gear VR overheats and isn't capable of running anything with good graphics.
Look at the screenshot in this article.. ugh, orange and white, OMG what amazing graphics *sarcasm* Lands End looks just as plain and seems to have poor quality graphics too (Cartoony)... on the plus side at least EVE: Gunjack looks decent (visually)
.... This is just a sad day.. ;-(

 

[ah]

Personally, I don't think it worth my while playing games on a cellphone. It is simply way not comparable to playing games on a PC. So, this VR thing doesn't interest me at all.

Not to mention u get rift off with in-app purchases which can go up as high as $150, while I can a full blown AAA game life Tom Raider on Steam for a mere $4.50.

 

[eltoro]

I tried for for 10 minutes of a game which looked like Grimrock, and my head was spinning. The owner of the device said that he's experiencing that too, leading to headaches and nausea. From reading some articles it appears that there's a relationship between the refresh rate and the sea sickness. The lower it is, the more likely you are to get the sea sickness. I understood that the refresh rate in the Samsung device leaves much to be desired.

 

[mebalzer]

If you find the VR experience with your Gear VR lacking, You might want to look into the NEODiVR Loupe. It not only has the largest lenses with widest FOV of any VR viewer (50mm), they are also AR coated optical glass; which provides a bright, razor sharp image with with no visual distortion of the image and very little chromatic aberrations. Since the lenses are so big, the lenses do not need to have an IPD adjust, but there is +_ 5mm focus adjust for fine tuning.

Made for comfort, the eye pads are made out of medical grade soft compliant silicone to form fit around your eyes. They also include lens flaps to significantly reduce ambient light and glare. Since most VR viewers require you to insert or hide your phone, anytime you want to change VR apps, you have to take out of the viewer. Not so with the Loupe. The lens boxes lift up exposing the screen for easy access, as well as cutouts for the home, and soft buttons. The Loupe attaches easily to any 5.5" phone with included silicone tension bands and stays firmly in place due to the semi-sticky TPU covered bottom plate.

The NEODiVR Loupe can also be purchased with the optional G&S BT grip for one handed operation and triggering, as well as a head mounting bracket system, that resembles a special forces night vision goggles. Finally, a 9-axis BT paired hand locators and be used in conjunction with G&S grip or attached to the magnetic bracelet for hand usage within the VR environment.

The NEODiVR Loupe will be launched on Indiegogo next week with a very competitive price. To find out more in the coming days, head out to http://neodivr.com/loupe