8K VR Headset from China – BS marketing, very cool experience…
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2018-05-06
·
2,719 words · ~13 min read
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pymax then so these guys are actually a pretty new company based out of china
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and they are making some very bold claims
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so they boast that their vr headset i've got a
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prototype of it right here delivers dramatically better field of view and
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resolution compared to competing solutions from big name companies like
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oculus and htc and they actually flew
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all the way out to my studio here in vancouver to have me try it but my bs
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detector started going off pretty hardcore when i realized that they were
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calling the two 4k displays one for each
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eye 8k that is at best a little misleading
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but i mean i'm already in at work on my
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sunday due to some scheduling challenges so
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what the hey why don't we check it out
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well this bag broke okay
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i guess we don't get another shot at this then um
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so right here in my hands i've got what they're calling emphasis on their
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calling because i don't necessarily agree what they're calling the pimax 8
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k the resolution that it's running at here
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is 3840 by 2160 per
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eye so in order to achieve that
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well they had to put some pretty different hardware in here although
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there's really not much point um showing it to you because the finished version
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of the pi max 8k is actually going to have one usb 3 this one has a usb 3 and
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a usb 2 and it's going to have a single displayport 1.4
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this guy is using dual hdmis and then because we're using a laptop for the
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demo uh an HDMI to mini DisplayPort
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adapter to drive the displays while the displays themselves run at
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3840x2160 the way that we're actually driving this
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is with two 2560x1440
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signals that are being upscaled if you
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want to run them at native resolution you are actually going to need a higher
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end product called the pimax 8k x
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and you're going to need a pretty banging computer because running two
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displays at 4k is not exactly straightforward especially if you factor
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in that they gotta run at 90 hertz if you
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want the kind of fluidity that well you're gonna want if you are
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playing games in vr now size-wise this thing is really big
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it's like kinda chunky looking but the good news is that when you're gaming in
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vr you're obviously not looking at yourself so all that really means is
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that your your wife or your boyfriend or whoever's watching you play vr gets to
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watch you look like even more of an idiot but weight wise it's actually not bad
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you still got that tether drag but the distribution of weight is
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actually pretty solid i got to give them credit for that
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now tracking is handled with these laser trackers along the outside right now
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they don't look like anything special but this is pretty early going
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and this is pretty cool so they're gonna ship they have a complete kit that ships
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with lighthouses but if you already have an htc vive you can actually use your
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existing htc lighthouses and just plug
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and play and then that's also true
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of any vive controllers so those are
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intercompatible with a pimax headset whether you go with the 8k the 8k x or
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the lower end 5k now that's not to say that they don't
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strive to build their own controller so this
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is actually a prototype version of their controller it seems to bear a lot of
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resemblance to the htc controller but check this out
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somebody dropped it at an earlier demo this whole thing has been fairly well
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used so hey intercompatibility is still pretty cool the the rep was able to run
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to the store buy a couple of these and then bring them over here for the demo
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so experience wise because it uses the lighthouses you can do a seated vr
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experience or you can do a room scale vr experience the maximum distance is about
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the same as the vive so you can do a play area about
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well this big i think it's a five meter
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distance uh between the two lighthouses
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brutally i can't say i'm too disappointed that i'm going to be using vive controllers today um
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this is a prototype but they've got a lot of work to do here
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so this touch pad has to be matte there's no way that they
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they can ship it with a glossy surface like this and the tactility of the
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buttons i'll give them credit it's lighter than the vive controller so
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that's good but the tactile feel of the buttons has a long way to go especially
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this trigger down here so hopefully these are all things they can
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get resolved one bonus though is hey type c charging so that's good this is
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what they're planning to ship but i would consider this to be kind of the base model because part of their whole
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concept is having a modular design for this product so you could add like
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a scent module you could add support for prescription built-in lenses
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um you could add freaking what else they got they're
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claiming that they can do wireless transmission though they sure as heck
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won't be doing that at full resolution um there's there's a cooling fan module
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planned apparently that would be pretty trippy oh and there
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it is it is it's running
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oh no they weren't kidding about the field of view it's all the way from
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about i mean i can't see what i'm doing but from about here to about here
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and then from like here to here and we've got another hilariously
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yes this thing is definitely a prototype in case you were wondering
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revelation here um the controllers are not running
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wirelessly yet that will happen this is only prototype
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two i think out of like i think they're gonna do they're
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planning four prototypes at least before they actually deliver this thing
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feel like uh freaking you know
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i don't know i don't watch movies so i have a hard
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time doing like movie references okay yes i know i'm mirroring the
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display i'm gonna try and get away with it steamvr give me a break here
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okay so man this is going to be hard to
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to not walk too far uh
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okay i think i need to adjust my inter-pupillary distance here because
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this is clearly not correct
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it's clear that they have some work to do
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with respect to making the flat displays
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appear a little bit more natural as you move your head around
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so right now there's a little bit of waviness
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as you look from one side to another
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there's a little bit of distortion and it is a little bit motion sickness
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inducing but clearly they're not done yet and i
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will say text is incredibly readable
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compared to anything that i have tried before
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all right so let's let's fire up a game shall we why don't
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we do my first vr game
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space pirate trainer
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so this is what i initially set up my first time trying vr
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in my uh in my computer room upstairs
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the night before i had to bring the htc vive back to the office for luke to do
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his review this was the game that i played when i set it up in my office
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upstairs
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oh that's my oh wow i've never seen this enemy before
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what the heck so what it's like armored until it's like not armored or something or well
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okay oh come on now
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now i just want the high score on this uh setup here
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so that everybody whoever does this demo can know
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that i was better than them all right so i'm dead so initial impressions um i'm gonna try
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it again in a minute without that secondary screen running because i know that that can
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affect performance but what i will say right now is that
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they have got some um
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they have some motion tracking responsiveness stuff
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to address because as someone who can comfortably play vr for over an hour
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in games like hollow point running around jumping
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i've been in for about five minutes so far and i'm already feeling nauseated
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they're saying that they're planning to ship units early next year
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i don't think they're going to hit that target and if they don't hit that target i don't necessarily think that's a bad
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thing because i would rather that they spend a little bit more time on that
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with that said they're moving in the right direction
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in some ways the increased field of view
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and the increased pixel density makes
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for a very different experience i was pretty skeptical about 2560 by 1440
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upscaled to 4k and for text i don't know
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what the people talking about how you could use this at
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the desktop or talking about like it's clearer but it's obviously upscaled so
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for text i wouldn't recommend the non-x version or i just get the 5k and run
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that at 5k natively but in games
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there is virtually no screen door effect so they're using what they're calling a
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c l p l display and i don't remember
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what the clp stands for but the l at the end is liquid um and they're saying that
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it's competitive with OLED in terms of the
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pixel response times so that the smearing that you'll see in the image as
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you move from side to side it is not and i don't know i don't know why they would
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say that it's a very um
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it's a very strange thing to say because
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it's common knowledge that an OLED responds instantly while the best you
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can do gray to gray with an lcd is
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multiple milliseconds
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with that said it is better than i thought it would be but right now it's
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hard for me to say how much of the motion sickness is from that and how
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much of it is from the actual motion delay when i'm moving around or moving
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my hands now they told me that they haven't validated space pirate trainer
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so the next game i'm going to try is one that i've spent a lot of time with and
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one that they actually suggested and that is the lab
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so here in longbow definitely enjoying the increased
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peripheral vision so like
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facing this way looking at the gate i can clearly see guys coming down the
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steps towards the right approach also in a brightly colored scene like this i'm
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not noticing any difference in pixel response times
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to nearly the same degree that i did when i was in space pirate trainer where
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everything that you're looking at is brightly colored objects on a black
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backdrop which is typically a more difficult scenario
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so i think i've narrowed down
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where most of the motion sickness is coming from
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um it seems to be mostly to do
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with the slight distortion effect of the display because ultimately you're
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looking at a flat display through a lens that is stretching it out into your
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peripheral vision but it seems to be coming from the way
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that the image distorts as i move around particularly when i look up and down
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now they tell me
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that the next version is going to have an updated lens
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so i'm hoping that they can resolve everything that i'm experiencing today
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but like anything that you'd be backing
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on kickstarter based on an early prototype you can't take for granted that
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anything will be any better than it was when they were initially pitching it
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i will say this though again the field of view is incredible like i
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actually feel like i'm standing in a plaza
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instead of feeling like i'm looking at
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a three-dimensional plaza that's like threw a pair of binoculars in front of
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me and that effect is really cool
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so impressions wise guys remember this is based on a
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pre-production unit so take it for what it is right now they're asking for
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4.99 for a pi max bare bones on their
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kickstarter campaign so by bare bones i mean it is just the headset and they
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assume that you already own vive controllers and vive lighthouses that
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you'll continue to use then if you want the full package it's
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eight hundred dollars for this one with the whole kit or a thousand dollars for
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the pi max 8k x although that one is actually sold out at this time right now
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even though that is actually quite a bit cheaper than the htc vive the rift at
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400 bucks with sensors and with touch controllers
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included is a more seamless experience for sure
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with that said now that i've experienced what a next-gen resolution display is
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like in vr i would have a very hard time recommending that you buy a current gen
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vr experience because the increased immersion from the wider field of view
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and the higher pixel density makes an enormous
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difference and this was a pretty cool experience
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even if i do feel a little nauseated right now i wish them the best of luck
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on the next couple of iterations because i can see they're headed towards
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something pretty cool here and on the subject of being headed
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