Did the 8k have the huge sweet spot that a lot of reviewers experienced ?
Yes, I liked the fact that I didnāt have to move my head around anymore to get things sharply in view. I could just look at any part of the view in front of me and it would be sharp. I donāt move my head around in the real world that much either, so it felt very natural. Almost to a point of it being too normal but that is in itself exactly what makes this so awesome. But all that seems to be irrevelabnt now because that was due to very accurate yet expensive lenses that wonāt be used in the final product. So itās all useless information now.
Surely the final product is going to be at least as good as what you experienced.
I donāt see why that would have to happen. We will hope so but if they are unable to produce mass produced lenses with a similar quality then unfortunately it will not be as good. And they are again working on new lenses so for now we can be sure to know itās not as good yet, and they might never get there and will be forced to create lenses with a small sweet spot.
That would be a disaster.
All Iām saying is there is no guarantee they will match the v3 lenses in the final product. But itās good that they keep trying right now.
Yes we will have to wait and see. At least another couple of weeks . Some good news would be nice.
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the most important is the end product and not the delivery date, pimax is a small company, there are unpredictable problems, thatās quite normal, this includes several misconceptions. if pimax finds things that can be improved, then they should do that. because that means we get a better product in the end. I find the wait very difficult, but we have no other choice ā¦ try to relax with much anticipation on our VR glasses
Now that it became clear they still have very big issues to deal with, Iām happy to wait as long as it takes for them to fix it. Like so many have said already, if Pimax produces a quality headset, they are likely going to be market leader.
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If you havenāt been in a startup with R&D and then manufacturing itās really difficult to understand why things donāt just ā¦ poof ā¦ happen, magic! But from the language, descriptions of what is going on, even the pauses in communication, I can really tell that something is really going on here. And that the BEST TESTERS that Pimax has are probably the Founders. They are doing exactly what we want here folks ā¦ refining, refining, refining ā¦ pushing off delivery ā¦ refining, refining, refining. Because I think there is a a little bit of they donāt really give a damn what we want. THEY want the best VR experience possible. And THEIR TASTES are Very Sophisticated and Refined.
Iām telling you this kind of work only comes along once in a while. People like them are where our best products come from. Not the corporate lackeys who are only doing the trick for the money. They want the product probably more than we do. They liked the idea so much, they built a company around it. Just be patient. Iām more excited about this now than I have been in the past.
If they manage to do away with Godrays, and they donāt have the myopic issues like the 4k versions, Iāll be very happy.
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Do you actually own a Pimax 4k? I donāt really recognize Pimax in any of what you just said. For example when they couldnāt get their drivers working correctly and it still was a mess after 1 year, I got Pimax in touch with one of the best VR driver developers out there. He offered to rewrite their driver model from scratch for only 10k usd. Pimax declined. Now, they eventually did get their driver working more or less but man itās still a mess. If theyād taken the deal they would have had perfectly working 4k drivers and would have gained a lot of knowledge that they could use for developing the 8k. I think if theyād really cared about the 4k experience they would have coughed up that 10k.
I love Pimax for creating the 8k but youāre portraying them like some kind of heroes who are not satisfied with anything less than perfection, which does not correspond AT ALL to what theyāve been doing with the Pimax 4k (or the CES disaster for example)
So what I think is happening with the lens refinements, is exactly like somebody wrote above: they got pretty neat lenses with the V2/V3 version but this lens was not suitable for cheap/affordable mass production. So they had to redesign it which resulted in V5. They werenāt too happy with it themselves but thought, hey letās see what our customers think about it and if they eat it, then weāll release it. So they went to CES and showed the HMD and it got KILLED by the reviewers, FORCING Pimax to redesign it again. And thatās where we are at now. Sure, a lot less āromanticā explanation than yours but this is what I think is happening based on past experiences with Pimax. Youāre saying theyāre not doing the trick for the money. Iām saying it actually is ALL about the money and about creating a lens thatās cheap to mass produce so that Pimax doesnāt lose money on the kickstarter and doesnāt have to raise prices too much.
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this is a really weird discussion. 
As long as new prototypes and testing versions get produced nobody can tell when the design is really finished.
Otherwise there would have been no need for another and another almost final thingā¦
Apply some logic and all the wording surrounding it was wishful thinking 
at best, and it was clear all the time says my 
I got the impression lately that these test headsets for the community will rather be really final 
, no new tooling and no changes in hardware possible for the launch, but rather software fixes and fine tuningā¦
(i admit i hope these will be final hardware, i need my headset as soon as the summer is gone on northern hemisphere) 
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I have had both the BE and 4K. The issues you saw in those were of two kinds. Sourcing: they did not have/ were not able to get the parts for what they were building. Cultural barrier: They myopia issue is not one in China. Perhaps they had no idea that people out of that market would be more interested.
Driver developers are not easy to find. And I can completely understand why they didnāt want to outsource that work and keep it in house. They need control over it, and they way to get that is for their own developers to do the work. Working in someone elses code into your code is more often harder to do than doing it yourself. Itās more often a very bad choice in the end.
I think you are forgetting the rest of the market. Everyone else is selling us crap too, With Budgets 100 times that of what PImax had. That makes Pimax my little Underdog Hero. In the face of what they are actually attempting to do, who they are taking on in that marketplace, is one of the funnest things Iāve seen in IT in years. Period.
If I still had the contacts I had 15 years ago I would be advising them to help Pimax get up to speed ASAP. But I also think that with their abilities they also know they deserve to keep their own winnings. I canāt blame them for that either. There are a lot of fat cats that have done nothing but scrape the cream off of the froth of otherās activity. I also know that that attitude of organic growth tends to keep one modest and Not Greedy. Honest with their peers. The less fat pig/cats the better.
I honestly think they made a lens change to save money and hated the product And Themselves for it.
I appreciate cynicism, I really do. But you have to understand that Not Everyone is a Damned Crook. People are not perfect and they stumble, that does not make them selfish and devious. Sometimes it means their tired and need inspiration and assistance. I think the fund raising did that, and it worked because they shared Their vision. Remember whose vision it was first. You didnāt do that. They did. You talk as if youāve done all this stuff yourself. It Is Not Easy and the really good ones make it look easier than it is. But No One Is Flawless Out Of The Gate. They already went around the track with the 4k. They didnāt win, but they definitely finished strong for a scrappy little horse.
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Hehe, now Iāve just got kinda idea of why you wonāt be a tester ever. Didnāt know the story with the driver.
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Hehe. Well thereās even more to it. After I had brought this developer and Pimax in contact, I didnt hear from Xunshu for 2 weeks. So I mailed her, she said āYes our team is already working with himā. So I was really excited to hear that, I figured, now weāre FINALLY going to get good drivers! So I emailed that VR developer ācongratulations, I hear you are now working for Pimaxā. He said āWHAT? I havenāt heard from them in 2 weeksā. So then it turns out that the Pimax developers had been asking this guy technical questions on a developer forum, which he, out of politeness, answered. So he helped Pimax for free, although he didnāt realize that in the moment, since he didnāt realize it was Pimax developers he was helping. When he found out that Pimax didnāt want to pay a dime but only receive his help for free, he got angry and decided to not to talk to them anymore. In fact heās still pissed at Pimax I think (he was the last time I spoke to him). Itās really a shame, this guy is an awesome developer, with a lot of knowhow, but Pimax only wanted his help for free ā¦
BTW the forum Iām talking about is the Valve/OpenVR forum, in this thread āHelenXRā (=Pimax) is asking āTheDeveloperGuyā (the developer Iām talking about) questions for example: Cannot enable "Direct Mode" with IVRDriverDirectModeComponent implemented Ā· Issue #431 Ā· ValveSoftware/openvr Ā· GitHub But he stopped helping them after Pimax said they only wanted help for free.
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Yeah. That is a a part of Chinese culture Unfortunately. I donāt know if that is part of that they donāt really have families and so expect a lot from each other as if family, or if it is something else. But I donāt think itās sinister ā¦ to them. Taking IP or copying it is also a big issue there that no one seems to realize is a really bad, read Immoral, thing. And itās a piece you need to comprehend to understand what environment they are working in. Getting truly reliable suppliers is going to be an issue they Must Nail Down. Itās where I think some of their 4k issues came from, particularly the stability of the gyro. Cheap knockoff of one that actually works.
Weāll see how it goes. You have to keep your eye on the fact that they are the front runners in the vision space in spite of the environment.
Exactly. And donāt get me wrong, I still have hope otherwise I wouldnt be a backer. Future will tell!
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Well truthfully not just them.
I do feel for the developer friend of @Sjef. However it also serves as a valuable lesson. Itās hard to sell your services if you are also providing information for free.
Truth the team didnāt lie when rhey said they were working with him. They simply went with the free service he was providing opposed to paying him. Granted hiring him would likely have helped them advance things quicker & solve some of the problems still present (ie 4k ghosting, my lgg2 & g4 do not have as noticeable).
This style of tactic got microsoft where it is today.
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My dream headset would have upgradeable lenses. The thing that disappoints me the most about the path VR has taken so far is the lack of variation in models. Their all one size fits all. Consumers need different models to choose from. Why not make a top spec model with all the best parts for the āprosumerā buyers. The Vive pro would make a terrible example
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