Hands-on: Gear VR is better than smartphone VR has a right to be
As someone who has logged dozens of hours on Oculus Rift development kits and prototypes, I was immediately struck by how much more comfortable the Gear VR was on my face. It lacks the thick, heavy cable that can weigh a device down and throw it off balance. The rigid, cushioned straps on the top and back of the device allowed for nice support without forcing the screen too tightly against my face, as the Rift dev kits do. The device didn't seem overly heavy, and I was able to wear it for an entire hour without feeling any pressure to take it off (except to occasionally scratch a facial itch underneath the device).
One big leg up Gear VR has over previous phone-based virtual reality systems—and even over current Oculus development kits—is its impressive resolution. The 1440p, 515 PPI display on the Galaxy Note 4 doesn't totally do away with the problem of visible pixels, but it's above or equal to most any other consumer-grade VR product on the horizon.
Gear VR also offers the kind of smooth, jutter-free screen refreshing that you just have no right to expect from cell phone hardware. Samsung and Oculus are advertising latency of less than 20 milliseconds between the time you move your head and the time the scene updates on Gear VR, thanks in part to additional head-tracking hardware in the holster itself.
The only thing that really breaks this immersion is the lack of any lateral head tracking on the Gear VR. Unlike the Rift DK2, which uses an external camera to figure out when your head changes position, Gear VR has no way to account for any head movements, aside from angular direction. Very quickly, you learn not to lean in to look more closely at a virtual object unless you want to feel your stomach drop.
For those looking for the best quality VR experience, the Gear VR seems likely to be a mere stopgap on the path to the eventual consumer version of the Oculus Rift. Gear VR will likely be available in a matter of months, and only for a few hundred dollars on top of a cell phone you might want anyway. It seems more than good enough to provide a solid, proof-of-concept virtual reality experience that will be easy to show off to friends.
See the full story here: http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/09/hands-on-gear-vr-is-better-than-smartphone-vr-has-a-right-to-be/