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23/05/2016: Samsung is offering anyone who purchases the Galaxy S7 an opportunity to pick up an exclusive Gear Vr content package.
This includes a collection of games such as Keep Talking And Nobody
Explodes, Darknet, Drift, and Starchart, along with an unspecified
discount on purchasing the Gear VR itself.
"The smartphone is already so fundamental to our lives," said David
Lowes, chief marketing officer at Samsung Electronics Europe, "but
connecting it with a product like the Gear VR opens up incredible new
experiences that are often as emotional as they are immersive."
"With this new incentive, we're encouraging broader VR adoption so
that more people can experience this amazing new technology for
themselves."
The news follows the announcement of a first-party Google competitor to the Samsung Gear VR, known as Daydream.
Rather than a fully standalone headset with its own screen (as was
rumoured), Daydream will be a housing allowing users to use any high-end
Android handset for mobile VR, rather than just Samsung flagships.
If 2016 will be remembered for one thing, it will be the year we
embarked into the world of virtual reality. After nearly five years of
hype and development, the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive are finally available
to buy and Sony's PlayStation VR will be bringing up the rear in
October.
However, these headsets not only cost in excess of £350 – the Vive is
almost double that – but Oculus and HTC's headsets also require a
monumentally powerful PC in order to run, limiting their initial appeal
to hardcore PC enthusiasts only.
Samsung, on the other hand, has taken a different approach. Following
in the mobile-based footsteps instigated by Google's do-it-yourself
Cardboard initiative, Samsung's Gear VR headset costs just £80 inc VAT
(£67 ex VAT) and only requires that you have a compatible Samsung
smartphone, which in the UK extends to the Galaxy S6, S6 Edge, S6 Edge+, S7 and S7 Edge.
You'll need to install the Oculus app and create an account before
you get started, but the rest of the setup process is simple. Just pop
off the headset's plastic cover, slot in your phone, adjust the velcro
straps and turn the wheel on top of the headset to bring your new world
into focus.
It's a quick, easy way to impress your friends, family and
co-workers, and there's no denying the initial wow factor of suddenly
being whisked away to a floating apartment in the sky as you sit back
and browse the Gear's menu of offerings. It’s surprisingly convincing,
and after a couple of minutes, you’ll barely even notice the headset's
there, as its meagre weight of around 500g (depending on which phone you
use) never felt like it was putting any undue pressure on our head.
The straps are very secure, and the padding around your eyes and nose
is comfortable. The cushioning could do a better job at blocking out
external light, but for the most part the Gear VR feels just as good to
wear as the Vive and Oculus Rift. You can also remove the head strap
altogether and simply hold it up to your face, but you’ll probably only
want to do this when you’re passing it around to other users.
We tested the Gear VR with a Galaxy S7. This is arguably the best
choice when it comes to delivering a smooth virtual reality experience,
as it not only has more powerful components than any of Samsung’s S6
phones, but its 5.1in, 2560x1440 screen resolution will also, in theory,
provide the sharpest picture, as it has a higher pixel density than the
5.5in S7 Edge.
In practice, you can still see the screen's individual pixels no
matter what you’re looking at, but this is a problem we've encountered
on the high-end headsets as well, so it's certainly not unique to the
Gear. The edges of our black-rimmed porthole were also never quite as
sharp as objects in the centre of the display, but again this is
something we've noticed elsewhere, too. If anything, it's impressive
that Samsung has managed to come this close to other VR headsets, which
in some cases cost almost ten times the price.
However, the Gear's mobile origins start to become clear as soon as
you start moving your head, as the phone's 60Hz refresh rate can
occasionally produce a noticeable amount of ghosting. The worst culprit
is the menu crosshair showing your line of sight, as this can quite
often leave a prominent trail of pixels behind as you move your head.
It's not bad enough to immediately make you grasp for the sick bucket,
but it can be off-putting, particularly when it's accompanied by regular
drops in framerate.
Of course, how much you’ll be bothered by these technical hitches
will depend on the kind of content you’re using. The Gear’s most obvious
attraction is its virtual reality games. Most can be controlled by
simply moving your head, but many require the use of the headset's
four-way directional touchpad as well. This is found on the side of the
headset, and can be tapped in the middle or used to swipe up and down or
left to right. Considering its lack of haptic feedback, it's
surprisingly responsive, and we were never left wondering whether we'd
tapped or swiped it correctly.
Holding your hand to the side of your head can get tiring pretty
quickly, though, so you may want to pair the headset with an optional
Bluetooth controller instead if the game supports it. In fact, apps such
as the Oculus Arcade won't load without one, so you may need to invest
in an additional gamepad if you're absolutely desperate to have the
original Sonic the Hedgehog writ large in front of your eyeballs.
However, beyond the type of retro classics you'll find in Oculus
Arcade, the vast majority of the Gear's free gaming titles are pretty
throwaway. Some are quite impressive, such as the endless flight game
Polyrunner, but most, like In Cell or Cerevrum, aren't any more
compelling than the average mobile game you'd play to while the time
away on your phone.
No one's going to sit down for half an hour to play Temple Run VR,
for example, and the games that solely relied on head-tracking made us
feel quite nauseous, forcing us to quit after just a few minutes of
play.
It’s only when you venture into paid VR games that you begin to see
where the Gear’s magic lies. Puzzle game Esper 2 was particularly
brilliant, and it’s clear that titles like this have been designed with
VR in the mind right from the ground up rather than simply had it tacked
on in a quick port.
The 360-degree video experiences are a bit hit and miss, too. For
instance, as much as we love the idea of sitting right in the middle of
the Saturday Night Live studio, complete with its live audience behind
us, the resolution of the video footage in the VRSE video app is so poor
and grainy that you can barely see the actors in front of you.
The same goes for some of the sports videos inside the NextVR app as
well. It's a great idea putting viewers right in the middle of the Youth
Olympics ski jumping, but when each jumper quickly descends into a mere
blur of grainy pixels, the awe and wonder of the experience becomes
disappointingly underwhelming.
There's also Netflix to enjoy if someone else is using the TV. Here,
you're placed in a virtual living room, and watching films on its
virtual big screen really does make it feel more impressive than bending
over a real-life phone or tablet. That said, our eyes got quite tired
after a while, and we found that 30 minutes was about all we could take
before we had to take a break.
All this poses some big problems for the Gear VR. As with any new
platform, more (and hopefully better) content is undoubtedly on its way,
but the sheer number of problems we experienced does call into question
the headset's overall longevity.
For instance, outside of its entertainment possibilities, the Gear
could be a useful tool for virtual meetings or professional simulation
and training experiences, such as medical procedures or military
situations. But unless the footage resolution becomes a lot sharper,
we're not sure it will provide any more benefit than traditional videos
and demonstrations.
The Gear VR's micro USB connector is used for communication
between your Galaxy phone and the headset's various sensors. It also has
a passthrough socket for charging your phone while in use - essential
as VR can quickly drain your phone's battery.
Likewise, the Gear is inherently limited by the hardware inside
Samsung's smartphones, from the processor and GPU to the display's
refresh rate. This is possibly why the Gear's initial selection of apps
feels very much like the worst side of the Google Play Store as opposed
to an enticing glimpse into the future, but there is some good stuff
there if you’re willing to hunt for it and, more importantly, pay for
it.
This lack of quality experiences is perhaps understandable when the
headset is so much cheaper than its rivals, but whereas other headset
demos have continually blown us away with their ingenious use of VR
technology, our time with the Gear left us feeling distinctly
unimpressed.
What's more, we can't help but think this is the type of experience
Oculus founder Palmer Luckey might have been talking about when he said
that 'really bad VR is the only thing that can kill off VR'. The Gear VR
might surprise us by becoming a mass market hit, but we fear its
novelty factor will be pretty short-lived.
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