Recently, Valve invited me to their headquarters to check out their new cutting-edge VR headset,
the Steam Frame. As you might have noticed, in this little B-roll shot here,
I packed a whack of other headsets that I had intended to compare against it.
There's just one small problem. I had less than two hours with the bloody thing.
I was to learn about the headset, experience the headset, gather my thoughts, write a 1700-word script,
and then shoot the video, which I ended up having to do partially at the airport,
and even then, I still missed my flight. We need some way to avoid this kind of thing in the future.
Anywho, now that I'm in the comfort of my own studio, they can't stop me from gathering up
all the key VR headsets from the major players like Apple.
Just kidding, Apple. From the major players like Meta and Valve themselves,
as well as from some more niche players like Apple,
and also Bigscreen and Sony. That last one is pretty key
because the frame takes one of the best features of the PSVR2 and steps it up to a whole new level.
But it's not all sunshine and yachts.
In some ways, the Steam Frame absolutes everything else on the market,
but in others, it's still legs behind.
So let's sit down and talk about what I saw. Oh yeah, there's a standing desk,
just like this standing segway to our sponsor.
Before we jump into these headsets, let's do a quick recap of the Steam Frame.
Elijah, time me. Powered by Snapdragon 8 Gen 3
and 16 gigs of LPDDR5X memory, the frame features an ARM-based computer running SteamOS
with the ability to play native ARM games, Linux x86 games, and even Windows x86 games
on a big virtual screen. Or if you're more about total immersion,
you can play the aforementioned flavors of VR games either on device or you can power them
with your dedicated desktop and stream video to the frame using the included Wi-Fi 6 gigahertz dongle.
Valve uses an incredible technology called foveated streaming, more on this in a bit,
to deliver low-latency, high-fidelity video wirelessly
to the frame's 2160 by 2160 LCD displays
at up to 144 hertz, all while weighing just 185 grams,
including the integrated 21.6 watt hour battery.
Time. Pretty good, right? I think you were a little generous.
With the headstrap, it's more like 440 grams. Okay, not what I meant.
And besides, even with the headstrap, the Steam Frame is still around half the weight
of some of the other headsets that we're looking at today.
Why don't we start with one that isn't on the table? The original, the Valve Index.
Right out of the gate, the Index has some glaring disadvantages.
The ergonomics were fine at the time, but when we compare to the frame,
not only does it weigh far more, not to mention need to ratchet onto your noggin,
but the light seal is worse, the balance of the weight is worse
with it all kind of hanging off the front of your face, and the constant drag of the cord
is something that many have tried to overcome, but even the best solutions seem to be plagued with issues.
And that's not the only way that the Index has aged ungracefully.
Even at the time of its release, its field of view and its resolution
were hardly groundbreaking, and they were quickly surpassed by competitors
like Pimax, HP, and HTC.
The frame is gonna have a major advantage there, upgrading not only the display resolution,
but also the optics to dramatically enhance the perceived image quality.
With that said, that doesn't make the Index suddenly irrelevant
for everyone who owns one. One area that Valve didn't even aim to improve
was the field of view, and like the Index, the frame uses LCD panels still.
So don't expect the same kind of mind-blowing contrast
that you might get from some of our other headsets today.
Another area that Valve didn't even try to improve was tracking.
They told me point blank that the target was as good as Index,
but that also ain't a bad thing. The Index used anywhere from two
to up to four base stations for room-scale tracking.
These little guys sweep infrared lasers across your entire play area
to determine the exact position of your headset and controllers.
This form of tracking from the outside in
is still considered the best because even if one sensor gets blocked,
you can basically guarantee that another will be able to pick up the slack.
With that said, Valve sounded very confident that the wide, near 180-degree side-mounted cameras
on the frame would allow their new inside-out tracking
to capable handle even unusual positions like drawing an arrow out of a quiver.
What I'm less sure about is unusual VR accessories.
I've had a lot of fun over the years streaming with a full-body VR avatar,
and unless Valve releases one later, I have a hard time imagining a way
to get reliable tracking on my waist and my feet
without relying on an outside-in system.
Another mixed bag is the controllers. On the one hand,
I can see why Valve chose a more industry-standard approach this time.
It will make default keybind simpler for VR developers,
and it allows flat-screen games to be easily enjoyed without learning a new controller layout,
but I and many others loved both the ergonomics
and especially the five-finger awareness of the Knuckles controllers.
The good news is that with a modestly priced upgrade pack, you can maintain a similar feel,
and personally, I love the change to a single AA battery per controller
because that means no more waiting around to play. You just drop a freshly-recharged battery in,
and you're good to go. The last point is one that I'm particularly nervous about.
The indexes on-board audio is nothing short of legendary.
The near-field speakers sound great, and somehow they leak very little externally.
That can be a pretty big deal, depending on the things you like to do in VR.
And the microphone is so good that my chat was often flooded with messages
demanding to know what amazing microphone I was using. Now, Valve says that the frame should be on par,
and I haven't got a reason to doubt them, but I do worry a little bit
that the position of the speakers might make it hard for them to sound quite as good,
and it may cause more leakage. The thing is, I love my index,
and many on-paper superior headsets have come and gone through my house
with the index staying part of my setup. It's just one of those truly great products
that is more than the sum of its parts. But it's not the only great VR headset.
Let's compare now to the G-Sote, the greatest selling of all time, the MetaQuest series.
The current king of the hill for Meta is the Quest 3, and this really shows you
what an unlimited budget will do for you. This thing is a couple of years old now,
but it is aged like fine wine and still holds up surprisingly well.
It boasts nearly the same per eye resolution as the Steam Frame,
and it also uses low-profile pancake lens objects.
Meta has invested heavily in attracting VR game developers to their platform,
even going as far as to acquire beat games, maker of the smash hit Beat Saber,
and it even got a $150 price drop for the 512 gig model,
making it the obvious choice for a value VR setup
until its little brother, the 3S, showed up more recently.
Even now though, the Quest 3 is gonna be a tough package
to beat from a bang for the buck perspective. It also boasts convenient inside out tracking
thanks to its camera array, and it also plays games on board
thanks to its Snapdragon XR Gen 2 processor. It also allows streaming from a Steam VR PC,
either over a USB-C connection or wirelessly,
and it features color rather than black and white pass-through cameras like Valve chose for the frame.
But worry not, Valve fanboys, for GabeN didn't come to this gunfight
equipped with just any knife. It's a Karambit Doppler Sapphire knife.
Oh my days! First things first, the frame is not only lighter
than the Quest 3, but the weight distribution is noticeably better.
See, all the weight of the optics, the computer,
the battery hangs off of the front of this bad boy.
Valve moved the battery pack around to the back, which gives you less weight directly on your cheeks
and nose, and also less swing pull,
which is not a real term, but it's like the way that when you swing,
it kinda pulls. You know what I mean? Valve also holds a slight advantage
when it comes to screen refresh rate. While both headsets officially top out at 120 Hertz,
Valve includes an experimental 144 Hertz mode.
Finally, the Quest 3 does not have out-of-the-box eye tracking.
This makes it way harder for someone to realize that you're checking out their VR avatar
and come over and talk to you, either to say, hey, I like your avatar too,
or to say, stop looking at me, weirdo. But more importantly, it gives Valve
a giant advantage for wireless streaming. It's time to talk about foveated streaming.
See, when Meta beams a video frame from your connected PC over to your Quest 3,
they do so using the same bitrate or the same quality for the entire frame.
That's because Meta has no way of knowing where you're looking,
and you probably wouldn't want them to the way they would use it.
By contrast, Valve uses high-speed sensors
to track your gaze and then encode only the part of the frame
that you're actually looking at at the highest quality level.
In practice, it works amazingly well.
Like, I could not flick my eyes fast enough
to focus on a crappier part of the image before it updated and started rendering it at full fidelity.
And to ensure a smooth experience, Valve came up with a really clever way
to reduce the likelihood of network congestion by giving you a six gigahertz wireless dongle
that connects directly from your PC to your headset.
Six gigahertz wireless enables higher speeds and is less prone to interference.
Now, one drawback of six gigahertz is range
and obstacle penetration. But, I mean, given the bar is a cord,
Valve seems to be clearing it handily. It's also worth noting that the Quest 3
also supports six gigahertz Wi-Fi, but depending on your Wi-Fi access point
and your network configuration, your experience with it may vary.
As for controllers, I'd call these a draw
because Valve pretty much copied Meta's homework, but I do expect audio to be a disadvantage
for the Quest 3, along with the closed ecosystem
and its dependency on Meta, who, no, we haven't forgotten, is basically Facebook.
Only time is gonna tell how battery life and tracking performance will compare
and whether Valve will build gimmicky features like camera-based hand and finger tracking,
which the Quest does have. Now, for the most gimmicky of all of our headsets today,
the Apple Vision Pro. Not because it's bad.
I mean, the technology is really cool. It's just that Apple really, really, like,
desperately wanted this thing to be anything but a VR headset.
So, they ended up with this, which is maybe a great spatial computer,
but nobody, even now, knows what the fuck that is,
which really sucks because as a VR headset, this thing had so much potential.
Oh my God, it's so heavy. I haven't tried the M5 one yet.
It's so heavy. Starting with one of the highest resolution displays
on the market and not just high res, high fidelity.
Thanks to Apple having the R&D budget of a small nation,
they shipped micro OLED displays that boast otherworldly contrast
and incredible color accuracy. They also equipped the Vision Pro
with probably the best full-color pass-through cameras
on the market, which makes it great just for VR,
but even for augmented reality, for about five minutes.
Apple should have borrowed Monster Truck marketing rate for their battery life.
Two and a half hours, but you'll only need the edge.
It is no understatement to describe the ergonomics of this thing as horrible.
Even after putting the battery in a separate pack, it is still among the heaviest headsets on the market
and the way that it rests on people's cheeks or noses
really does not do it any favors. The M5 version does come with a new strap
that I am trying for the first time, and it does seem to actually help take some of the weight
off of my nose, but oh man, it's still rough, dude.
Now, one advantage that the Vision Pro currently has over the frame is its ability to watch stereoscopic content.
This is great for spatial photos and videos that you might record on your iPhone
or for watching 3D movies. Valve does say that they are looking at adding that
in the future, but hey, you can refer back to the Vision Pro for proof of this.
You should never buy anything based on a promise.
With that said, as easy as it is to rip into Apple for their confusing choices and prices,
one thing that they nailed on the Vision Pro was hand gestures and the no controller experience.
Vision OS really does provide a seamless way to move things around and interact with 3D space.
Even if Apple's prudishness and their apathy towards gaming
ended up boxing out two of the biggest app categories
for VR users, so sorry. Excuse me, I mean, spatial computing enthusiasts.
Which raises another problem with this device. In spite of its up to 120 Hertz refresh rate,
not to mention God tier displays, it's not a gaming headset.
So no matter how good it is, and it is good, even the speakers are okay for their size.
It's not really a competing product, or maybe Apple wishes it wasn't.
Valve confirmed for me that the frame is also going
to support desktop projection, which was one of the best use cases that I personally found
for the Vision Pro, just setting up like giant virtual monitors in your workspace.
That leaves Apple with a pretty tough sales pitch, and I've hardly even talked about the price.
For the cost of this Vision Pro M5, I could buy a VR capable gaming system
and our next VR headset, the big screen beyond two.
It's expensive, it's a little light on the extras,
but it is impossible to not marvel at the size
and the phenomenal displays that they packed into this thing.
Like the Vision Pro, big screen gets great contrast
and outstanding motion performance thanks to using micro OLED displays.
They are at a lower resolution and a lower peak refresh rate of 90 Hertz,
but without close they sit to your face, not to mention their new upgraded pancake optics,
you get a measurably wider field of view to go along with your great contrast.
There is no question in my mind that the frame will fall behind the beyond two
when it comes to image quality and when it comes to weight.
The beyond two boasts a super lightweight of just 107 grams.
Okay, all right, they lean pretty heavily into that number in their marketing,
which does not include the weight of their head strap, a head strap that I would describe as garbage
on any other headset, but the beyond two gets away with it a little bit
because it is still so light
and that's not even the best part of the ergonomics. When you get one of these,
you can send in a scan of your face to get a custom molded face plate
that will fit you perfectly. Unparalleled comfort, zero light spill.
Does make it a little trickier to share your headset
unless your housemates also buy their own face gaskets,
but with this level of immersion, are you gonna wanna share with your SO anyway?
Well, maybe because otherwise they might object to a few things, first being the base stations
and the headset tether that are gonna be lying around in your shared living space.
Yep, the beyond two uses Valve's second generation
outside in tracking solution, which kind of raises some questions
about how they're gonna support themselves in the future now that Valve has moved their first party base stations
to end of life. The second big one is the price.
This headset I'm holding is 11 Hundo. That's for the base non eye tracking version
and includes no base stations, no controllers and not even an audio solution.
You have to BYO USB-C headphones. Now you can get an audio strap from big screen
so you don't have to put headphones on and off every time and it's pretty nice.
They use cost drivers, but it's 130 bucks, man.
Still, you gotta give these guys credit. They came out of nowhere, they set a goal,
built in no compromises, lightweight headset and they absolutely nailed it
with diamond encrusted golden nails, which I guess brings us to the PSVR 2,
which is on the other end of the spectrum, an unbelievable bang for the buck
if you don't mind being tethered to your PC. Originally launched as a standalone accessory
for the PlayStation 5, Sony's sales of this device
allegedly did not meet their expectations and they later opened up compatibility for PC.
They also dropped the price from a launch price of $550 to just 400
and there is a lot of value on the table at that price.
I'm talking 2,000 by 2040 OLED displays at up to 120 Hertz.
There are some drawbacks, they're not micro OLED and they're using Fresnel lenses
rather than pancake optics, probably to squeeze out as much brightness as possible
from those OLEDs and the ergonomics do leave a little bit to be desired
with some light spill and kind of a one size fits all approach
but again, at that price, you're getting the headset,
you're getting the controllers and you might not care about this
but you're also getting compatibility with the PlayStation 5 and the PlayStation 5 Pro,
something that you won't get from any of these other headsets which finally brings us to the frame
and maybe the toughest part of our discussion. What price does the steam frame need to hit
to be the industry disruptor that we all want it to be? So far, all that Valve has said on the subject
is that they expect it to be cheaper than the index
but as much as people might hope that they meant just the headset, there is zero shot of that.
So all that that tells us then is that they expect it
to be under the $1,000 price of the index bundle
and if I'm being honest, I don't think it's gonna be by much.
Incoming hot take here, come closer.
One of the reasons is that I don't think Valve has to price it any lower than the index.
I think they can charge however much they want for it and that sucks but hearing people internally
talk about this thing, it is very clear that people are willing to spend a ton of money
to get this device because there are so many other layers
to the frame that none of our other headsets even approach the effects compatibility layer
that allows you to play Windows x86 games on this thing
or the expansion port that will allow third-party manufacturers to make all sorts of modules.
The generally open approach that Valve takes to their hardware that you purchased.
I hate that that sets them apart but it does.
Now, I have a pretty decent wish list for our frame two already.
I want OLED displays, I want a better light seal around the nose and maybe I hope not
but probably better audio but there is no denying
that Valve has put together an outstanding package and even if it is $1,000,
I'm gonna be buying one on launch day and so will a lot of people.
Just like I hope you'll buy this segue to our sponsor.
If you guys enjoyed this video, why not go check out the original Steam Frame video
where I got hands on and gave my first impressions.
I'm super excited to get my hands on this thing and take a look at it in more depth in the future.