Pimax is much better at doing damage to themselves than by others. No one made them release the 5k+ with bad QC and quickly change hardware versions and leave people hanging. No one made them deny support to users. No one made them have poor support communications repeatedly and broken ticking systems. No one made them take people’s money upfront for pre-orders that are close to a year away from delivery. No one made them miss every deadline and expectation. No one made them design poor working and documented software. No one made then introduce features which created problems and then kill them off silently (gpu catalyst). No one made then send out poorly working pre production hardware.
6 Likes
at least we can invalidate the point. it has not been killed, it works invisibly in the background.
This is a big problem for pimax.
The hoops & lengths some people have to go through to get the pimax feeling ok for their eyes.
Different face cushions, Velcro changing the distance (top or bottom), manual ipd, software ipd, vertical offset, brightness/contrast and so on…
Sometimes it’s not even enough & even if it is, you then have probably made the headset less suitable for someone you want to pass it to, to have a go.
In a world where you can pick up a headset, set the ipd in seconds & start to enjoy.
Then pass the headset on to the next person to do the same, pimax headsets are not appealing.
A huge problem for pimax is the lens they use.
They are flawed & not good for too many people.
The sooner they ditch them & redesign, the better
8 Likes
You guys are right, but I just would like to see some comparisons, instead of “it’s just better”
So far inconsistency really undermines the credibility.
Having watched all the reviews videos I’m left with a big question mark.
Not that it matters, I will eventually try them all anyway, but this will leave me wondering until September lol
1 Like
Yes I agree pimax had some poor choices.
1 Like
Common, it’s well known fact that Pimax isn’t plug & play & you guys where Dennis tried it completely unconfigured or not tuned for him specifically just had no any chance to have a positive experience.
The changes (apart of hardware ones which includes changing some stuff, but you at least could give him old pimax 5k+ foam) are not a rocket sience, all was explained a lot & there is only need to adjust settings for 5 mins apart of each title / performance calibration to get nice picture & setup IPD offsets properly.
I understand that when you put your HMD on & it doesn’t require any adjustments it’s great. We also all know Pimax isn’t such a headset. But knowing this & letting people to compare it as it’s without correct setting it up just doesn’t look to me right. If you want FOV it’s the only option, if you don’t need FOV buy something else. Or if you don’t need much FOV but want a modular designed HMD or more control on the settings & HMD behaviour you can still try it.
I also don’t like Pimax (prefer Vive Pro). However eventually I found that some titles look pretty decent in it like DCS, some auto sims, FOVs gives you more sense of speed. I even bought steering wheel (never owned one) & hotas (same never had one) & started to enjoy using Pimax in some specific cases.
While for more casual gaming I prefer another HMDs.
Also another point on Pimax is that usually people who like it the people who had this HMD for a while without having another HMD & then once they got a new they already got used to Pimax & were comparing those from another point of view. By quickly grabbing HMDs you can’t really experience how that or another device feels. You need spend some time with it, at least weeks. I found this also a problem as I have 13 HMDs & I can’t use them all, so I stick to couple of them but it doesn’t mean other ones are bad, e.g. I almost don’t use index but use pimax & vive pro & quest (primary for echo arena).
And
I see this as advantage rather than disadvantage. Coz it allows you to tune it the way you want & you have a quite nice feedback from Pimax & can request some features (I didn’t find such an option from other manufactures).
6 Likes
Thanks for letting me know I always thought this is a pimax forum.
Good point. I think it is in fact a (big) disadvantage of Pimax HMDs that configuration is needed to get it good. But it’s not crap, you can get a pretty good experience out of them. Even unique in some aspects.
Perhaps a little far stretched: But when picking up a violin the first time it will sound crap compared to a piano which is at least in tune. Both allow to spend a lifetime to master, but the beginning of the experience slope is different. Which doesn’t mean either is “worse”, you just have to start with appropriate expectations.
Of course an HMD is more an insta-consumption product in most cases (which neither a violin nor a piano will ever be), which is a big point for Quest, Index&Co. And it should definitely occur as a point to mention in a review and will likely disqualify it for many. But at least when experts test the device that is known to require configuration effort, I would also wish to see at least one run with fully optimized settings, to give willing people an outlook what the device is capable of.
Additional note: I think Pimax went a little too far into the borderline area what is still possible with payable lenses in respect to FoV - which is probably the main reason for the need for customization - the eyes have to be exactly at the right spot for the effect to work. A few degrees less (and even more details in return) would imho have been better. And for such a design a mechanical lense eye distance adjustment would almost have been a must. Now it’s a little hit and miss, almost like with an HMD with fixed IPD.
1 Like
Noooo, its “open” MR, the fact that threads routinely get locked by pimax staff for saying negative things about pimax customer support is purely coincedental. 
2 Likes
Dear @NoamLoop, this was a hands on experience, no one ever claimed this was a full review. These were his personal impressions after A-B comparing both preproduction devices. So I still cannot agree with you calling this a “bummer”. But that is okay, people can always agree to disagree. In my opinion these first impressions are just as valid as those impressions of people who tried the 8KX at some exhibtions and loved it. Just like here he had the chance to A-B compare quite a few devices.
Again,this was his impression. @Axacuatl and @NoamLoop For my personal objective preview of the device, you can watch it here: https://youtu.be/O1D_FbBJZ04
And so far, from what I can read here on the forum about the final 8KX, it seems to be still quite accurate! 
9 Likes
Agreed, I understand that it is not a review. It’s still an opinion from Dennis, not anybody, which has much more impact. But I also already wrote that.
I also agree that we observe almost the same effects (you in your preview, not Dennis’ impressions which imho suffer from suboptimal adjustment) - and I’m not convinced that the final 8kX is leaps and bounds improved over yours: https://community.openmr.ai/t/8kx-first-impressions/29672
It’s just that we come to different weighting of these observations and conclusions - to be still able to enjoy the experience or not. Which is the decisive and somehow subjective part.
2 Likes
It still is. The admins are Pimax employees and they decide whom to ban or anonymize.
1 Like
As an X user I’ll say that it did take me a day or THREE to mess around enough to find a sweetspot in terms of wearing the headset comfortably and making sure I could get a decent picture. I seriously cannot imagine someone putting it on and immediately getting a good experience with minimal fiddling around. But who knows maybe people are masters of wearing headsets and I’m too noob.
12 Likes
I personally like such videos. again a good contribution from mrtv for VR friends and those who want to become one. Everyone who wants to buy a VR headset should know what he is getting into and where the advantages and disadvantages of the devices are. that the wide fov headsets are not toys that you can put on and take off at any time and immediately deliver a great result for everyone was once again clearly demonstrated here. the technology is still at the beginning and is constantly evolving. I think it’s a shame that it is seldom mentioned by experienced people like seb. starvr xtal pimax are tools for a specific group of users who want to deal with the complexity of a new technology.
4 Likes
Then thats something Pimax needs to make clear in their own advertising / manual / guides, which really pimax staff keep glossing over. It is an issue which buyers need to be aware of and whilst pimax try to down play it then that’s the response they are likely to get from “youtube” / the general public.
On the one hand they don’t want to put off potential customers, but the backlash of trying to hide it is exactly feedback like this.
3 Likes
and you really got into the field as a tough critic. 
2 Likes
you mean pimax is already marketing itself where it might be in five years.(startet 2017) a great product with great quality and super simple and good software and great support. I really want that too. and i am a patient customer.
I said the following:
It was in the context of sending unpolished versions to e.g. Youtubers. If these then report flaws of a pre-production unit, which is fair to do if they see such, because you cannot be sure these will be gone in the final version, many potential customers, who never had any Pimax headset but only read complaints about Pimax in general on reddit etc. will form an opinion about the 8KX without having ever laid hands on the (final) device themselves. And when the final device arrives, possibly in better shape with the reported flaws corrected, they will not notice because they already believe to know what 8KX offers and don’t bother to read any newer reviews.
That was the point I was trying to make, sorry if it was not clear.
Having said that, I don’t claim that the final device is polished and good, but if I were Pimax I would want to at least have a fair chance. They better not expect reviewers to give them a second chance if they sent them an early unfinished version of the 8KX which didn’t impress such reviewers…
Had I heard to all the reviews and reports, I would never have gotten an 8k.
Fortunately, I bought it (blindly) and it was the right decision at the time.
But I also understand the procedure in the video. Just like that, a noob came into the store and decided after looking at it. In this regard, it’s a simple customer perspective. The technology enthusiast reads a little more here and there and then decides for himself.
2 Likes
To illustrate the importance of weighting of observations and subjective conclusions here a fictional G2 preview based on the same observations as the MRTV preview - I guess the effect on the audience would have been slightly different…
This is not against Sebastian (who I value highly) nor the G2 (which I have preordered to compare it against the 8kX).
Please do NOT take this serious, I’m sure the G2 will be a good device and I’m optimistic that Sebastian’s enthusiasm is justified!
This is there for… exemplification as Lars von Trier might express it.
HP Reverb G2 Preview - Take Two
Ok, here we have a preproduction model of the HP Reverb G2. Please keep this in mind with everything we say here, things might still improve. The G2 is the successor of the G1. Some may remember, the resolution was already quite high with 2kx2k per eye on the G1, but because of the small sweetspot, strong mura effect, small FoV and sub-par tracking compared to lighthouse, many people were not too impressed by it. Some may say it was specs over polish.
So let’s start the device up. On first sight it is very obvious that brightness isn’t correct. Colors are certainly nice - perhaps a little on the oversaturated side. But details and sweetspot are good indeed and FoV looks even a little bigger than the G1 and Quest. On paper it’s the same as the G1 though and people who are used to a current generation device like the Index and particularly a Pimax headset might feel a remarkable step back.
The new controllers aren’t as clumsy as the ones from the G1, but no comparison to Index controllers regarding handling, per-finger tracking and layout.
The actual new controllers are still nonfunctional prototypes. So we can only test with special G1 controllers atm.
Even with the new cameras, tracking precision still isn’t en par with lighthouse and even slightly worse than Oculus inside out tracking. Compared to previous WMR generations it got a little better, but occlusion can still happen in some situations, according to a controller specialist who could also test the device.
Another thing that is pretty obvious is the high level of ghosting. It is still a pre production model, so it is in the cards that they can do something about this with firmware optimizations - at least that’s what I was told.
Oh, now the headset just spontaneously switched off. Hopefully it’s not overheating, the G1 had problems with that. Let’s hope this won’t happen again.
A note while restarting: The audio solution is promising. Currently bass is still lacking, but it is supposed to get the drivers of the Index, which are quite good.
Good, now the device is up again!
So a first conclusion: The G2 is certainly promising, even though the resolution hasn’t improved, details and sweetspot feel noticably better than on the G1. The price is also good for a all-in-one set, even though it cannot beat the Quest from an all-in-one and price perspective, it’s less expensive than e.g. the full Index package - that money pays for the definitely superior lighthouse tracking though.
So people who aren’t too much into precise tracking and FoV should definitely keep this on the radar.
Given the problems HP had with the G1 launch, the over-brightness, ghosting and stability issues of the current prototype and the fact that we couldn’t test the final controllers, we would strongly recommend to wait for the review of the final unit though. I was told that brightness has to be decreased by 20-30%, so it remains to be seen how much of the color fidelity can be rescued over to the final unit, particularly if it turns out to be a heat problem like with the G1.
Oh, now the headset just crashed again, that is really unfortunate. But keep in mind it’s a preproduction model, so HP will certainly do their best to get rid of this. Hopefully the price the device has to pay in fidelity won’t be too high. HP is still rather new in the VR market and might have to follow a learning path for a few iterations - but we will see. We think it is worth to keep an eye on them!
If HP sends us a final unit we will of course review it again and tell you about our observations!
4 Likes