Budget VR Phone headsets. Have you tried them?

[Drillbit]

Hello there.

Samsung has recently made a VR headset that can be connected to any 6th Gen Samsung Galaxy Phone. called Gear VR, the thing only costs about $100, and from what I know online. The headset is mainly focused on making VR work for the mobile phone market as it has alot of apps made solely for the mobile phones than run them. But it also seems pretty darn compatible with being used on Computer games.

Didn't take me long to find out that theres already a fair bit of these headsets made to be compatible with pretty much every phone out there. Like this one And this one Seem the most prominent out there. I've already got a 2K screen phone, so If I were to get one of these. That would allow me to get about 800p VR headset for.... $50. Sounds like it's worth the try, but not really good enough for the only game I want VR on.... Star Citizen. My computer would not be up to scratch at all. Currently have a 960OC with 16GB of ram and an ok CPU.

When my PC is good enough, I'm tempted to go ahead and give this a go. Just curious if anyone here has given this a shot (probs not) or knows more about this than I do.

 

[BOX3R]

I have the Google Cardboard and a Note 3. It's fun to play around with for a little bit, get a taste of that VR experience. But AFAIK, it's app-only, there's no way to display content from your PC. It's also uncomfortable as hell. Kinda reminds me of the XBox Kinect in terms of usability ... fun for a gimmick, a cool party trick, but not something worth investing serious money in.

 

[KingNerd]

I have the Google Cardboard and a Note 3. It's fun to play around with for a little bit, get a taste of that VR experience. But AFAIK, it's app-only, there's no way to display content from your PC. It's also uncomfortable as hell. Kinda reminds me of the XBox Kinect in terms of usability ... fun for a gimmick, a cool party trick, but not something worth investing serious money in.

I agree with this totally and also have Cardboard, also have played with the rift for a while. The gear and things like that just hold your phone, it IS just an app so there's no way to stream anything from your PC you'll need something built for that. The app is fun for about 30 minutes then you don't go back to it, the headset is not super comfortable with cardboard and doesn't block all the light, doesn't split the screen perfectly, makes it hard to control your phone, etc. That's what you get when you go for $10 instead of the $150 Gear VR built specifically for that purpose. TRUST ME ON THIS ONE! Go with cardboard or one of the cheaper plastic and foam models that run about $30, don't spend $150 on a phone holder and you'll get the same use out of it just because it's made by Samsung, you'll be disappointed in what you can do with the apps and that you can't use it for an extension of your PC. Wait for the RIFT or the one that Valve is working on so that you can enjoy the full experience.

 

[glockjs]

eh why invest in a half ass device? wait for the real thing. buy the tool that does the job well.....

 

[Drillbit]

Yeah that settles it, may aswell just wait for the real thing. But, for only $30 for a cheap one I still feel tempted to give that a go fore spending about $450 AUD (give or take) on a legit VR headset.

 

[glockjs]

there's guides out there to make em out of cardboard if you really wanna try it out for cheap