Oculus Rift or HTC Vive – Which VR Headset is right for you?
So you are thinking of buying a VR headset? These first generation virtual reality head mounted displays are expensive and you want to feel sure that the one you invest in is the best one available on the market. But it isn’t that straight forward, each headset has it’s strengths and weaknesses, each have their focus from an overall gaming experience.
I am lucky enough to own both an Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, and just like my children, I cannot possibly pick a favourite. I can, however, see the positive and negatives in each. One has slightly ginger hair for instance, but I love him just the same, I digress.
In my video I go into high (at an hour in length you could argue too high) levels of detail in several key areas, comparing and contrasting the merits and drawbacks of both the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift systems. The comparison is, naturally, focused on the HMD visuals and audio, to include the wireless controllers would not make it a fair comparison at this time due to the fact the Oculus touch controllers are not yet available. The review also factors in the ordering, sales support and after-care experienced as these are key to making the right decision.
I hope you enjoy the video review, be sure to comment and subscribe for more reviews on the Vive and Rift software.
” to include the wireless controllers would not make it a fair comparison at this time due to the fact the Oculus touch controllers are not yet available”
Uhmm…yeah, actually that is a perfectly fair comparison. Especially given how poorly the launch for the Rift has been, and the actions of Oculus.
Support from the company was also covered in this review and both companies were equally poor with their shipments. Oculus were not able to ship the touch controllers due to issues with the software, not the hardware, but they knew that until the software issue has been resolved overall experience will suffer. This is not something HTCVive care about so much, their OpenVR based platform is less mature (less complex?) and as a result has not had the same controller integration issues that Oculus had. Not being first to market with the controllers may badly damage Oculus, it’s a decision they would not have taken lightly. Ignoring all of this, when you look he quality of the HMDs, ignore the politics in respect to the companies behind them, the Vive feels like a less refined dev kit, which is basically is (it’s a Vive Pre i.e. the pre-release beta kit). The Oculus feels like a commercial product.
I wish someone would review and compare the Gear VR *image quality* with the Samsung S7 (not the edge version) because it has the highest pixel density of 577ppi with 2560×1440 instead of only 2160×1200 both rift and vive. I wish they could have made the displays on rift and vive easy to swap in/out. And I wish they had kept the lenses the same on rift as dk2 just bumped the resolution.
I don’t own one but I have access to one, so I may do a quick comparison. I believe the FOV is better and the screendoor effect feels less. The drawback *currently* with gearvr is a) no positional tracking b) you can’t fit a 980TI in a phone.
It is possible to adjust FOV on a flat screen in elite. Is it not possible with a HMD?
It probably is, but that would not be a good idea. The FOV is correct for the size of the aperture you look through. The FOV is a physical constraint. If you alter it then the image would feel fisheyed and movement / tracking not correct.