SAMSUNG GEAR VR
At a glance
Gear VR (+) A lot of varied content; social VR adds a sense of presence; resolution is surprisingly good; only $100!
Fear VR (-) Overheats and drain's phone's battery life; some motion sickness present depending on experience; can get heavy and cause eye strain after a while
Competent virtual reality on the go
We’ve been dreaming about virtual reality for years, but up until now, those dreams have been pretty well disappointed. While we’ll have to wait a bit for the release of the crème de la crème of modern VR —Oculus Rift and HTC Vive—you can get a good taste of it now with Samsung’s Gear VR.
Made in partnership with Oculus VR, the Gear VR is essentially a headset attachment for modern Samsung phones, with support for the Note 5 and S6 series devices. We tested ours with Samsung’s Edge 6 Edge, which is one of the lighter options. It’s also a pretty good phone for VR with its 557 PPI screen. While the headset is made mostly of plastic, inside are optics that magnify and refocus your eyes on your phone’s screen. The phone locks into place via a Micro USB connector, and there’s some foam padding surrounding the face plate. The Gear VR also has an IPD adjuster, to accommodate for varying pupil distances (everyone’s is different), and a volume rocker. You secure the headset via a horizontal strap that wraps around the back of your head, and there’s an optional strap that goes straight down the top-middle of your head. Once you lock your phone in place, it automatically engages VR mode and you can navigate menus using the headset’s physical back button and 4-way directional touchpad on the right. But perhaps the niftiest feature of the Gear VR is that it retails for $100, which is a steal if you have a compatible Samsung phone.
If you have a compatible Samsung phone, you have to get this.
What does the Gear VR feel like? Inside the headset, you have access to roughly an 80–90 degree field of view, which seems a little more narrow in comparison to the Oculus Rift, by about 10 degrees or so. Within this view, you can look around with the help of the headset’s accelerometer and gyroscope. Tracking is pretty much 1:1. When VR experiences are done well, the headset is able to trick your brain into believing that your body is somewhere it is not. Of course, the experience isn’t perfect. With the S6 Edge’s 1440x2560-resolution screen, the “screen door effect” wasn’t bad, but you can still make out some of the pixels if you try. Also, sometimes the headset will be disoriented and will get out of whack. The view will go off axis, but by holding down the back button, you can bring up the menu to reorient the screen to the direction that you’re looking. This whole process can take a few up seconds with loading times, so we would have appreciated a one-touch button that did this more quickly. We also wish there was a separate button for the headset’s Passthrough Mode, which is a mode that enables you to see the real-life environment around you using the phone’s camera. As implemented now, it’s much faster to simply lift up the headset to look at your surroundings than to go through the menus to enable it.
We were pleasantly surprised by how many apps there were at launch. There’s a wide variety of content, ranging from games to movies and beyond, and there's tons of free content. While most games are compatible with the headset’s simple swipe gestures, you can also pair a Bluetooth controller to the device. In terms of games, most of them have you using your head to look at targets in a shooting gallery. This can quickly start to feel shallow and tiring. Because Gear VR is running on Android, it inherits the platform’s cheap quality games. And because it’s running off a phone, don’t expect Crysis-level graphics. There are some fun VR games at the moment, however. Land’s End makes you feel like you’re a floating wizard in a fantastical land trying to solve puzzles. In Omega Agent, you feel like you’re floating through a city using a jetpack. Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is a great asymmetrically designed game in which one player wearing the Gear VR has to defuse a bomb while other players have to flip through a manual to help them figure out how to do it. There’s also an arcade app that, as the name implies, throws you into a virtual arcade and allows you to play old-school games from Sega, Midway, and Bandai Namco.
Even if you aren’t interested in games, the Gear VR has a bunch of other experiences to sift through. There are a ton of 360-degree photos from all around the globe to view, a healthy dose of 360-degree videos to watch (including all the 360 videos on Youtube), and you can even watch 2D movies in a 3D environment. There’s essentially a movie theater app that allows you to watch any movie you have on your phone in various three-dimensionally fleshed-out environments that include the aforementioned movie theater; you can even watch movies on the moon. Netflix also has a VR app that allows you to watch your favorite content in a virtual cozy cabin. It seems kind of silly to watch Netflix this way, but it works surprisingly well. Virtual tourism is another big component of Gear VR and there’s a healthy amount of 360-degree videos to watch that take you scuba diving with sharks or ringside at a fight. You can also watch Paul McCartney perform live in 360 degrees, or check out a futuristic-themed Muse music video that allows you to see something new every time you view it. Surprisingly enough, perhaps the most compelling aspect of Gear VR is the social app. Here, you choose an avatar and can sit in a virtual theater and watch live Twitch streams or online videos with strangers from across the globe. We virtually met people from Australia and Europe and legitimately felt like we were in the same room with them. Because Gear VR has a gyroscope, it can also track head movements, and coupled with the directional audio, it really feels like you’re looking at someone and talking with them. There is a certain sense of “presence” there, and it's pretty trippy.
VR can take you to virtual worlds...
That’s not to say that the Gear VR is without flaws, however. The biggest issue here is motion sickness. It’s better than the Oculus Rift development kit 2, but if the experience isn’t well optimized, chances are you’re going to get a little dizzy and/or motion sick. Your mileage will vary, of course. We suspect that its 60Hz refresh rate has something to do with it, as Oculus has stated in the past that 90Hz and above is what’s comfortable for most people. We also suspect that a lack of a positional camera doesn’t help, since the headset doesn’t accommodate for when you lean in or around objects. In our experience, dizziness occurs when your eyes don’t line up with what your brain expects to see. Gear VR does try to mitigate this issue by providing comfortability ratings for each app. Another gripe we had with Gear VR is that it quickly drains the phone’s battery and tends to overheat the device. There were times when games would judder or crash as a result. While you can’t really mitigate the heat issue, you can charge the device while using it. Another obstacle that Gear VR faces is that many VR apps take up a lot of space, so your phone can quickly fill up with VR programs. Some 360-degree videos try to deal with this by using compression, but the end results are generally blurry. The screen also tended to fog up when we had it on a little too tight, and we encountered several audio incompatibilities using a Bluetooth headset. To top it off, the Gear VR can cause some eye strain and be a bit heavy after extended use, even though the headset itself only weighs .62 pounds. Add to that the weight of the phone coupled with experiences that force you to constantly look up, and it can cause fatigue.
Despite these problems, however, if you have a capable Samsung phone, getting the Gear VR is a no-brainer at $100. There’s a decent amount of content already and we’re confident it will only continue to increase. The big question is whether people who are currently content with their non-Samsung smartphones should jump aboard. Unless you’re a die-hard VR enthusiast, we’d suggest holding off until gen two. Hopefully by then it will have a faster refresh rate, wider FOV, and perhaps some integrated speakers. This additional time will also allow the Oculus store to make some UI improvements and bolster its library. If you have a compatible phone and are at all interested in VR, though, gear up for a good time!
At a glance
Gear VR (+) A lot of varied content; social VR adds a sense of presence; resolution is surprisingly good; only $100!
Fear VR (-) Overheats and drain's phone's battery life; some motion sickness present depending on experience; can get heavy and cause eye strain after a while
Competent virtual reality on the go
We’ve been dreaming about virtual reality for years, but up until now, those dreams have been pretty well disappointed. While we’ll have to wait a bit for the release of the crème de la crème of modern VR —Oculus Rift and HTC Vive—you can get a good taste of it now with Samsung’s Gear VR.
Made in partnership with Oculus VR, the Gear VR is essentially a headset attachment for modern Samsung phones, with support for the Note 5 and S6 series devices. We tested ours with Samsung’s Edge 6 Edge, which is one of the lighter options. It’s also a pretty good phone for VR with its 557 PPI screen. While the headset is made mostly of plastic, inside are optics that magnify and refocus your eyes on your phone’s screen. The phone locks into place via a Micro USB connector, and there’s some foam padding surrounding the face plate. The Gear VR also has an IPD adjuster, to accommodate for varying pupil distances (everyone’s is different), and a volume rocker. You secure the headset via a horizontal strap that wraps around the back of your head, and there’s an optional strap that goes straight down the top-middle of your head. Once you lock your phone in place, it automatically engages VR mode and you can navigate menus using the headset’s physical back button and 4-way directional touchpad on the right. But perhaps the niftiest feature of the Gear VR is that it retails for $100, which is a steal if you have a compatible Samsung phone.
If you have a compatible Samsung phone, you have to get this.
What does the Gear VR feel like? Inside the headset, you have access to roughly an 80–90 degree field of view, which seems a little more narrow in comparison to the Oculus Rift, by about 10 degrees or so. Within this view, you can look around with the help of the headset’s accelerometer and gyroscope. Tracking is pretty much 1:1. When VR experiences are done well, the headset is able to trick your brain into believing that your body is somewhere it is not. Of course, the experience isn’t perfect. With the S6 Edge’s 1440x2560-resolution screen, the “screen door effect” wasn’t bad, but you can still make out some of the pixels if you try. Also, sometimes the headset will be disoriented and will get out of whack. The view will go off axis, but by holding down the back button, you can bring up the menu to reorient the screen to the direction that you’re looking. This whole process can take a few up seconds with loading times, so we would have appreciated a one-touch button that did this more quickly. We also wish there was a separate button for the headset’s Passthrough Mode, which is a mode that enables you to see the real-life environment around you using the phone’s camera. As implemented now, it’s much faster to simply lift up the headset to look at your surroundings than to go through the menus to enable it.
We were pleasantly surprised by how many apps there were at launch. There’s a wide variety of content, ranging from games to movies and beyond, and there's tons of free content. While most games are compatible with the headset’s simple swipe gestures, you can also pair a Bluetooth controller to the device. In terms of games, most of them have you using your head to look at targets in a shooting gallery. This can quickly start to feel shallow and tiring. Because Gear VR is running on Android, it inherits the platform’s cheap quality games. And because it’s running off a phone, don’t expect Crysis-level graphics. There are some fun VR games at the moment, however. Land’s End makes you feel like you’re a floating wizard in a fantastical land trying to solve puzzles. In Omega Agent, you feel like you’re floating through a city using a jetpack. Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is a great asymmetrically designed game in which one player wearing the Gear VR has to defuse a bomb while other players have to flip through a manual to help them figure out how to do it. There’s also an arcade app that, as the name implies, throws you into a virtual arcade and allows you to play old-school games from Sega, Midway, and Bandai Namco.
Even if you aren’t interested in games, the Gear VR has a bunch of other experiences to sift through. There are a ton of 360-degree photos from all around the globe to view, a healthy dose of 360-degree videos to watch (including all the 360 videos on Youtube), and you can even watch 2D movies in a 3D environment. There’s essentially a movie theater app that allows you to watch any movie you have on your phone in various three-dimensionally fleshed-out environments that include the aforementioned movie theater; you can even watch movies on the moon. Netflix also has a VR app that allows you to watch your favorite content in a virtual cozy cabin. It seems kind of silly to watch Netflix this way, but it works surprisingly well. Virtual tourism is another big component of Gear VR and there’s a healthy amount of 360-degree videos to watch that take you scuba diving with sharks or ringside at a fight. You can also watch Paul McCartney perform live in 360 degrees, or check out a futuristic-themed Muse music video that allows you to see something new every time you view it. Surprisingly enough, perhaps the most compelling aspect of Gear VR is the social app. Here, you choose an avatar and can sit in a virtual theater and watch live Twitch streams or online videos with strangers from across the globe. We virtually met people from Australia and Europe and legitimately felt like we were in the same room with them. Because Gear VR has a gyroscope, it can also track head movements, and coupled with the directional audio, it really feels like you’re looking at someone and talking with them. There is a certain sense of “presence” there, and it's pretty trippy.
VR can take you to virtual worlds...
That’s not to say that the Gear VR is without flaws, however. The biggest issue here is motion sickness. It’s better than the Oculus Rift development kit 2, but if the experience isn’t well optimized, chances are you’re going to get a little dizzy and/or motion sick. Your mileage will vary, of course. We suspect that its 60Hz refresh rate has something to do with it, as Oculus has stated in the past that 90Hz and above is what’s comfortable for most people. We also suspect that a lack of a positional camera doesn’t help, since the headset doesn’t accommodate for when you lean in or around objects. In our experience, dizziness occurs when your eyes don’t line up with what your brain expects to see. Gear VR does try to mitigate this issue by providing comfortability ratings for each app. Another gripe we had with Gear VR is that it quickly drains the phone’s battery and tends to overheat the device. There were times when games would judder or crash as a result. While you can’t really mitigate the heat issue, you can charge the device while using it. Another obstacle that Gear VR faces is that many VR apps take up a lot of space, so your phone can quickly fill up with VR programs. Some 360-degree videos try to deal with this by using compression, but the end results are generally blurry. The screen also tended to fog up when we had it on a little too tight, and we encountered several audio incompatibilities using a Bluetooth headset. To top it off, the Gear VR can cause some eye strain and be a bit heavy after extended use, even though the headset itself only weighs .62 pounds. Add to that the weight of the phone coupled with experiences that force you to constantly look up, and it can cause fatigue.
Despite these problems, however, if you have a capable Samsung phone, getting the Gear VR is a no-brainer at $100. There’s a decent amount of content already and we’re confident it will only continue to increase. The big question is whether people who are currently content with their non-Samsung smartphones should jump aboard. Unless you’re a die-hard VR enthusiast, we’d suggest holding off until gen two. Hopefully by then it will have a faster refresh rate, wider FOV, and perhaps some integrated speakers. This additional time will also allow the Oculus store to make some UI improvements and bolster its library. If you have a compatible phone and are at all interested in VR, though, gear up for a good time!
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