@Atmos might be a good time to bring up your table of specs again from the OP. With news hopefully dripping in from now on we might get a better picture if features are functional now and how good they perform.
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Your impressions on the unboxing is quite good not really too long imho.
So atm the beta group has the copper cable and test plastic lenses for only the 35ppd.
The controller does look decent upgrade. I am also looking forward to hear more on the inside out to remove LH use; less components to go wrong. And of course LH currently is useless for non pcvr.
Congrats.
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Nice unboxing @SmallBaguette
I always thought you were Italian so surprised with the Irish accent haha.
It the sticker to solid piece of plastic your get out clause? Lol
Did you get two pairs of lenses or did I miss that part?
Shame the battery doesn’t come out easier that seems like another revision needed and another two months lost but seriously Pimax will not delay this headset again.
Was there a power adapter in the box or did I miss that as well?
Overall Crystal looks like a nice headset, better built than Previous headsets but I don’t see it surviving the competition if not in 2023 definitely not in 2024.
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Sure will. I’m not sure much has changed up to this point. But I’ll go through it again later today.
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The build quality is definitely looking up. I think tbh the crystal will do fine with the competition as atm the main one is Varjo. Only time will tell. AppleXR hmd will really push things forward with there features and form factor. However it is stated to be a $3000 us hmd; which there not expecting to sell high volume of.
With the Crystal now established FoV with the 35ppd lenses as has been reported by a variety of users including Voodoode who used test hmd agrees with the non subjective hmdq. The thing that would directly make things harder will be if a micro oled hmd comes out with a similar formfactor as bigscreen with the clarity of Crystal without battery use in tethered mode using the xr2+ or newer xr chip if available. Of course adding usb4 and DP 2.x vs sticking with 1.4.
But with that being said these should sell well for year to 2 for sure till new things come out. Which is where vr hmds are heading for is the 2 year cycle if your always wanting the new releases. Form factor and battery life atm are the weaker points for this FoV hmd.
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I believe he more means as new info comes out as yes for tye moment still not much new save maybe controller info and that the lenses in the beta test are not final with being plastic and not glass.
That being said @SmallBaguette atm the hmd is well balanced in terms of weight and likely will still be decent once you receive “Final glass lenses” as they will be considerably heavier than plastic.
A question for those that went to the roadshows was the lenses plastic there as well?
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Just 1 set of lenses, and they are plastic as Helio mentioned. The plastic lenses aren’t going to be retail, they are just placeholders for us testers. The glass ones should be much better (they definitely were better when I tried them at the roadshow). My understanding is that retail still will have 2 sets of lenses in the box.
The battery has gotten easier over time, there is a technique to it. I will make a ‘tips and tricks’ video at some stage with useful things to know for new users. But yeah, that’s the one physical thing I would really want changed other than that I am pretty happy with the physical unit itself. I have already modded on a vive DAS but that’s just me because I like that strap, the type of headstrap one prefers is completely subjective and down to headshape so some will much prefer the default headstrap and others will want to mod it. I will make a modding guide also as it’s a bit trickier than previously as the audio is routed through the strap and battery bank must be moved over. With the DAS now though, I find it super comfortable (it was already very comfortable before but I just really love the DAS, it fits my head perfectly… Or maybe I have worn it long enough to have had my head adapt to it haha).
No power adapter.
And yeah, I am very much Irish and not Italian haha.
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No they were glass
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The Vive Focus 3 was launched in 2021 which has everything the Crystal has but without Aspherical lenses and slightly less resolution. I honestly don’t see it being too hard for HTC to bump the resoloution and switch out those fresnel lenses. They already have everything else in place.
Varjo, Valve, Apple will be on a whole different level imo.
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I am surprised they still don’t seem to be including a paper manual that should have clear pictures and instructions, specs etc…
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So am I reading this right.
Crystal has Glass lenses at the roadshows?
Testers are using plastic.
Retail 35 and 42 lenses will both be glass?
How is this possible if Pimax are sending out 200 retail units soon? Are they going to ship with plastic to be repaced with glass in the future? Wow it just seems like a messy situation.
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The Vive Focus 3 is nice but I believe the clarity is still much lower. The form factor is nice.
Thrillseeker has praised though Bigscreen as an Index replacement. But if your buying nit already having lh and controllers it’s price point atm matches Crystal.
With Varjo yes with there out of this world priced non Consumer models. Apple though is said to be working with gane devs. But has specifically said the AppleXR is expected untended to be low volume. But I would wager will be able to easily compete against Varjo’s higher end offerings at what will still be a friendlier price point.
Chart updated.
I’ve added the new wide FoV lenses. I guessed the PPD as 28, 7PPD lowerr then the 32PPD.
Charge Dock is single battery and stiff to use.
HMD Battery Life - 4 hours reported by YTs - 6 hours reported by Pimax.
Eye tracking has now been shown - Not very acurrate looking at the video - No IPD adjustment yet.
90Hz and 120Hz now rely on DSC and not displaying native 2880x2880 resolution.
Think thats all for now - comments welcome.
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I might have been willing to pay to see SmallBaguette’s reaction, when he got to the bit where he points at the lenses, whilst editing the video, and noticed the camera angle. 
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Yeah, I cringed pretty hard haha. I will get a better recording setup so that I can monitor what I am filming. It was definitely amateur hour when I made that haha.
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There’s a hater round every corner lol
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I guess for me…
1. Just Plastic Lenses Right Now…
Well. ok. I kinda would have thought that BY NOW they’d have the lenses nailed down. As they had glass lenses a little while back. Understand the idea of going back to the drawing board. Yet this just shows me they’re not even at a mature level yet with their lenses to have confidence to even send them out to testers yet…
2. No Stand-Alone Still Yet…
So… Again, I’d expect that by now they’d have at least the WiFi6 ready with some test cases for their beta testers to perform…
I’d also would have expected that they could at least by now provide a few sample WiGiG units for testers.
3. Battery Mechanism…
HEADLINE NEWS. This just in!
“Man dies on stream during his product review after suffering an aneurysm when trying to remove battery from charger.” More at 11.
I hope there’s something they can do to improve this…
So, well. Thanks @SmallBaguette for the video.
It’s almost the end of April now, and the current state of the product per latest information and this video doesn’t give me any confidence that they’ll have all features tested, working and matured for a retail release by May or even June.
Given that Pre-Orders can only receive the free DMAS perk if they fully pay for the device by May 31st, makes me a bit concerned that people will plop down all the money for a product still not completely tested and proven.
Being one of the pre-order’ers last year, I still haven’t receive any notice that I’m able to proceed with the full purchase. Not that I’d want to at this point given the current state.
For me this is really disconcerting…
They could have handled the DMAS better from the beginning, like:
“Be one of the first 200 Pre-Order’ers to receive a DMAS audio upgrade.”
Instead, they’re kind of hiding this behind the requirement to pay in FULL for the product.
It’s a bit shady to me, and someone who pre-ordered should have a more liberal timeline in which to purchase the product. i.e. the DMAS is reserved for the pre-order, until at least 1 month after official retail launch.
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I liked the video- you did a very good job on the narration. What part of Ireland are you from? Your accent is not heavy but it sounds closer to Dublin than say, Belfast. I’d like to learn that Dublin accent.
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The real issue of shipping the plastic lenses to beta testers is that it means they aren‘t testing the actual product customers will get eventually, so all of the beta testers finding on an optical level are not entirely conclusive. Even aspects like black levels, brightness, colors could be impacted by straying light within the lenses.
Well, at the end one should only rely on reviews of the product as purchased by others once it really has been launched, not so much by reviews based on units shipped by Pimax to a reviewer for testing purposes.
It is good though that Pimax are taking their time to finalise the product and don‘t start to sell & deliver it in its current state. I hope for them that they stick to this until every advertised spec is either working well & reliably, or is officially withdrawn in highly visible, unambiguous communication to the customers prior to purchase.
It seems the might need a further couple of months which is fine. They just shouldn‘t do any further launch events before actually launching the headset for real if I might give that piece of advice.
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Well, there’s sure a lot I missed here and some uh, interesting discussion. Figured I’d drop by with some of my impressions as a beta tester since not too many people have gotten extended time with the Crystal.
After some delay due to sorting some stuff out I can’t go into, I got my own video up for the Crystal now and gave some extended impressions of it, also tried out a couple things on camera. Some stuff certainly needs work and I can’t go into detail on everything about it due to NDA, but there’s also some pretty good stuff here even in its current state and I see a lot of potential, still have some pretty positive impressions even now but I’ll have to use it for a while before making too hard of an overall judgment, definitely still in the honeymood period of something shiny and new as it’s been so long since I’ve used a new headset. Shame that PR and company politics have been so messy up to this point.
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