Google Cardboard ’s smartphone VRis a coolheaded trick , but Samsung has just announce a rig that read just how legit smartphone practical reality can be . Gear VR is like an Oculus Rift with a encephalon you may fit in your sac , and it ’s pretty incredible .
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Just like the rumors suggested , Samsung ’s Gear VR isa speech sound - powered headset that work entirely with the new Galaxy Note 4and comes by way ofa partnership with Oculus itself . In practice , it ’s a lot like Google Cardboard but comfier , with a strap , and design so that it will only form witha Samsung Galaxy Note 4 , thanks to the shape of the hardware and some exclusive software from Oculus . Samsung ’s VR headset is not unlike theDurovis Dive , or similar smartphone - masks . But Gear VR is so much more than the marrow of its parts .
For starter there ’s that screenland . The Note 4 has a bonkers screen . With a 2560 x 1440 resolution on a 5.7 - in Super AMOLED display , the Note 4 ’s screen hit an astronomic 515 PPI . That ’s dumb high , second only to LG ’s G3 . It ’s also higher than the display inthe ( fantastic ) Oculus Rift DK2 , which in reality usesa re - purposed 386 PPI Note 3 showing . The +100 jump in PPI make for a screen that look fantastically in high spirits character — the best VR screen I ’ve laid eyes on so far — but it ’s not quite consummate yet . There ’s still a very noticeable “ projection screen door core ” where you may see sharpness of lightlessness around the pixel . It ’s not damning or anything , but it ’s still very noticeable , just about as noticeable as it is on the Oculus Rift DK2 .
Of of course what take a leak the Oculus Rift DK2 great is more than just the issue of pel in its showing ; it ’s the “ low tenaciousness ” screen refreshing , a software system trick that makes usance of an AMOLED sieve ’s high refresh rate to imperceptibly black - out sure pixels while your head is in motion . It ’s a fast one that vote out motility blur and generally clears up pestering nausea problems . Samsung ’s representatives could n’t say whether the use of this tech was part of Samsung ’s raft with Oculus , but there ’s hardly any motion fuzz with the Gear VR headset — way less than with Project Morpheus or any Google Cardboard apparatus — so it seems very , very likely that it is .
As for the headset itself , Gear VR has a few little flourish to help it bear out from the shoulder strap - a - phone - to - your - cheek crowd . First among them is perhaps the focus dial on the top of the headset . Just twist the telephone dial left or right-hand until it look pretty . It ’s hand - down the easiest fourth dimension I ’ve ever had bringing a VR screen into focus , compared to say , the Oculus Rift DK II ’s main lens . On the side , you ’ll also find a volume rocker as well as a small touchpad , and a back button so you do n’t have to bolt down the whole thing aside or have a controller paired in ordering to do introductory things like navigate menus .
In fact , if you declare down the back push , the Gear VR will switch the feed from whatever game you are play or video you are see to a watercourse from the phone ’s camera , so you could take a quick glimpse at the real human race without having to rive the whole headset off .
Moreover though , the whole thing is very prosperous . It ’s well padded in the strap and around the eye , and strickle me as being particularly clean . You wo n’t bury it ’s there or anything , but it ’s far from heavy . It also helps that it ’s not tether to anything by cables , although its design also cook it impossible to excite your Note 4 while using it , which could be a bit of a drag if you want to wager some VR game and then , say , leave the house for a while and take your phone with you .
In pattern , Gear VR just looks and work great . There ’s not a whole lot to adjudicate it out with right now , but I keep an eye on a bit of 3D Coldplay concert footage , and take a very guided turn of a CG version of Tony Stark ’s lab , both of which were skillful enough to give me small explosion of that “ Wow wait where am I really ” feeling . The 515 PPI venire plus minimum apparent movement fuzz makes this jolly much the unspoilt VR apparatus you’re able to lay eyes on right now .
It ’s kind of nuts how tight this is all move , and that the headset thatblew my head back in January of this yearis already being trumped in declamatory part by a telephone set . There are a few places where Oculus still holds superiority though . Gear VR ca n’t do any sort of upper - body tracking , so you ’re relegated to being a head on a control stick with no ability to list in . That lean — which Gear VR could maybe accommodate later somehow — is a huge factor of what make the Rift DK2 feel so immersive , so in that way Gear VR is still behind .
Gear VR will also eventually run into the limits of mobile processing magnate . The Note 4 ’s 2.7 Ghz Snapdragon 805 psyche is no slouch , but the games that search considerably on the Oculus Rift can give powerful computer graphic posting a outpouring for their money ; render a panorama for two heart is tough . So while Gear VR will be great for TV and more mobile - centre games , it ’ll never be quite as serious as a devoted , non - phone - power , VR headset .
Gear VR is slat to be usable sometime later this year , with no word on price yet . And while it would probably be a trivial overkill to go out and get a Note 4 just for using it as a VR headset , Gear VR is nothing less than amazing and one netherworld of a marketing point for anyone who might be see the Note 4 already . Of course , the real question is what kind of insane screens did Samsung give to Oculus in exchange for their know - atomic number 67 ? Yes , speech sound - powered VR is awesomer than it ’s ever been , but there ’s still right smart more in store for VR .
Gear VRSamsungVirtual reality
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