Well as long as i’m in the “its in the periphery only” camp then I’ll be fine with that because that’s where I won’t be looking.
Only one way of finding out indeed to find out how much it bothers you. But again, even though there are distortions, it’s just a really good headset. No way I can go back to anything else right now. I get that some people are disappointed, I was too, but you just need to realize that even for $2400 the perfect headset still doesn’t exist. But that it’s quite a bit better than anything else that exists right now.
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whats going wrong?youtubers proly acting like its some sacred flawless artifact to stay on the good side of varjo and recieve review units in the future,id trust the people that pay their own hard earned money for it.
maybe but for 2400 euro,its unacceptable to me,than again people said the 8kx has severe distortions and i only notice some minor distortions with the wide 160 fov and thin 11mm foam,without that zero distortion,but for varjo i heard alot of people say the aero distortions are way more severe than the 8kx,dont matter cause you can return it easily anyway.
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indeed i should have kept it because i can return it in 14 days anyway i literally forgot,i just saw comment after comment from the people that got it and i cancelled instantly :(.
I think you could say that the 8k-X distortions are maybe slightly better. Because there’s a part in the center where the 8kX really seems distortion free. And the varjo even has in the center some very slight distortion. And then, the center part that’s distortion free is, because of the much higher FoV, is much bigger on the 8k-X.
However, it’s hard to quantify. Because with the 8k-X I get that ‘wet goggles feeling’, because the distortions are further away from the center. So in the end, they feel about equal. They both disturb me.
Until more companies jump on FOV as being a critical element however, it’s basically Pimax or nothing for me. I find “Normal” FOV to be barely acceptable, “Small” to be so intrusive that the only time I can possibly use it is in a game with a helmet so it kinda sorta makes sense, and Potato to be utterly and totally unacceptable in any way. We all like/dislike different things, but there is simply no way I could ever move to a HMD with FOV as tiny as the Aero or Quest.
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@Djonko just to illustrate the variation in user impressions of distorsion, here’s a snippet of an aero review posted y’day on msfs forum:
“Barrel distortion? I read a lot about that, but it is not an issue for me. I was kind of bracing myself for that shortcoming. No big deal for me. I do see odd ‘movements’ from time to time at the edges of my peripheral vision but it is not significant to me.”
I never see 8kx distorsion unless i look to the extremes of the fov which i don’t 99% of the time and even then, to me, it really is nothing.
Agreed. I like fov too, I do notice the lack of it when I move between 8kx and quest. Apparently near edge to edge clarity does somewhat make up for the aeros lack of fov.
I’m in no way implying that everybody’s bothered by distortions on the Aero. But I’ve been on/off the discord reading first impressions and a clear majority seems to experience them as a disadvantage. That being said, I think the only one who has sent back his Varjo still only is @john2910 
I don’t disagree, I think to most they will be a con of the headset. What really interests me is how many perceive distortions away from the periphery. Like the review quoted above, he/she only mentions seeing stuff on the “edges” but barrel distortion is “not an issue” so i assume they meant they only seen distorsion on the edges.
Just to clarify what i’m on about, barrel distortion (to me) is distorsion or warping in much of the image, or a pin cushion effect, whereas edge distorsion is literally just in the edges of the view. I know you say there’s even a little distorsion in the center, not many have said that. If I find that then i’ll find it hard to live with, i’ve never had that with any headset previously.
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when was your order placed?il honestly want to hear your opinion about it since you also have an 8kx,and youre a fan of FOV…
Ordered 9th dec and was told by the aero reseller who i bought from that they’d receive my hmd by end of jan but ive not heard anything yet. Yeh pimax fov is cool, just been flying around on Normal fov in msfs and the sense of movement, of flying, with that fov is really nice. I’m keeping my 8kx, its a really good hmd.
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Varjo Aero Through the Lens, Half Life Alyx - YouTube finally a video that you can clearly see the distortion from the same guy,tbh i think i could get used to that but the image looks insane
I think I seen it most obviously at 2:10-15, the edge of the pot was bending at the edge of the screen. To me, that’s not too bad, yeah I can live with that. On another note, I was supposed to have my aero by now but haven’t and the guy I was dealing with hasn’t answered the email I sent him 4 days ago 
That looks crazy sharp!! The image is really vibrant and alive.
Actually there are parts in the video where the distortions looks worse in the video than I see in my headset. The author of the video also says “Please bear in mind that sometimes the distortion you see will be because I lose registration with the camera and that will combine any issues. The camera wide angle is also introducing barrel distortion.”
Then again, I do also see parts where it looks quite similar to what I see myself, like in the first 5 seconds if you watch the vertical pillars below the bridge. They look slightly rubberish, that’s pretty much what I see. Althought maybe it again looks slightly worse in the video. Not sure. The effect I see is quite subtle I’d say. But my brain just picks up on it and that’s not good for the feeling of immersion.
The video does also quite nicely show the sharpness of the Varjo’s. It’s just so nice.
Yeh i think i can see that slight rubber effect in places, its not as bad as i feared…ive read that alyx is 1 of the worst for distortions.
you know what im noticing much more in the video and i think it seems much more annoying than the distortion,the chromatic aberration,is it really like that?the fence almost has a yellow outline even in the center.
I was initially very interested in the Aero until I found out about its unusually small FOV and complete omission of built-in audio. But I’ve followed the discussions about it closely. I wish I could try one out somehow. Perhaps the clarity really is so great that it would change my mind.
The comparison to the 8KX is interesting because it has roughly the same resolution. The fundamental difference between these two headsets is in the direct trade off between clarity and FOV. Both headsets exist at opposite extremes of that tradeoff.
This seems to have led to sometimes rather heated arguments as to which is better. And these seem to boil down to whether clarity or FOV is more important to the individual’s use cases and personal perception. And also to the variability in lens performance for each headset due to different face shapes, IPD, etc.
I’ve seen the claim, for instance, that the 8KX is blurry over 90% of its display area and therefore its wider FOV is useless. That is certainly not what I experience when I use mine. But for the person making that claim, it may not be hyperbole. The lens geometry of the 8KX may simply not work correctly for them, and if the Aero’s does, then that person will surely choose the Aero (and perhaps wonder why anyone else would ever choose the 8KX).
So all of that makes sense from my perspective. The Aero seems to be a very min-maxed VR headset which sacrifices everything for the highest clarity achievable. I can see why that would have great appeal to the flight sim guys. I think the Aero finds its niche in that market.
The part that doesn’t make sense to me, however, is the optical problems the Aero seems to struggle with. From a technical standpoint, the wide FOV of the 8KX is the much more difficult proposition. And the 8KX suffers its drawbacks as a direct result of that. But what excuse does the Aero have?
Theoretically, the unusually narrow FOV of the Aero should simplify its optical challenges greatly. The lenses can be much smaller and simpler. The Quest 2 and Reverb G2 both have larger FOV than the Aero does, and yet don’t seem to suffer its optical problems. I wonder what’s going on there?
That it’s using asphalt lenses and not fresnel.
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