Top critical review
2.0 out of 5 starsSomehow a step DOWN from first gen Rift
Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on October 22, 2019
Most of the complaints on amazon regarding this headset are correct (coming from about 1 year use of the CV1).
TLDR:
It's true that a lot of the characteristics of this headset are replicated, and better, on the Quest (which I also tried but returned due to lack of compatibility of games between Quest, CV1, and other headsets) and was hoping this was the more 'enthusiast' Rift for people with powerful PCS...
Every advancement, other than the graphics and less screen door effect (mind you, you get used to it on the first gen almost instantly) has been a step down. The fact you can't adjust the width of the eyes, no matter what people say, is the most important thing for a headset like this. You end up criss-cross your eyes which can have serious long term problems if you play for 2 hours straight.
This headset is a step down from the first gen for a number of reasons:
Pro:
- Graphics are a bit better (only right in the center)
- Screen door effect is less obvious, but still there
- No sensors (but get wobbly aiming in archery games)
Cons:
- The higher graphics are only apparent when you look dead center. If you look even a few mm to the left, right up or down (with your eyes) you notice massive godrays and in fact gives you nausea
- Near impossible to get a sweet spot where your field of view even comes close to the advertised percentage. No matter how close I get the goggles to my eyes all I see are the huge rings where the lens are. It looks like you have 2 monitors stuck really close to your face.
- Incredibly nausea inducing due to the inability to look around. If you're looking at text, yes, it is more clear, but if youre reading an entire sentence and NOT moving your head one word at a time it is completely blurry.
- Can't adjust the width of the eyes apart and I'm still having trouble adjusting my eyesight while typing this. I feel I was crossing my eyes in order to be able to focus in the center.
- The sound is TERRIBLE. I thought people were just being picky but man, it is just awful. Was going to get a 3rd party headset just for this but glad I didn't before trying out the headset.
- Not comfortable. They removed a lot of the padding under the eyes (perhaps because you have to SQUISH your face against the lens to even get a decent FOV) so after about 15 mins of play i can feel my face throbbing.
- The head adjusting wheel thing is flimsy plastic. After only a bit of use I can hear it struggling to loosen/tighten and I can't imagine it's going to last very long. They ditched the velcro for this plastic, flimsy system. A bad move.
- Had some trouble setting up as it wasn't detected the controllers (even tho they were in pairing mode). After a reboot was fixed, not a big deal
If you can, try to wait for the CV1 to go back on sale again on amazon (it was there briefly last month) and get it for cheaper than this. Tho the graphics aren't better but it's a small price to pay and at least your not blinking non stop to try to get your eyesight back like I am.
Or, if you have the rig, and the money, check out other VR systems or go with the Quest. Sad to see that they released this as Rift was top of the line before this gen
