However, TikTok would never consider such a thing. 
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Pimax has actually mentioned the 42PPD lenses being more aimed at business use. Immersion is not really a factor in that case. But rather professional applications like 3D editors.
Oh, that’s a really good point I hadn’t considered.
That’s a use case I hadn’t considered either. It seems at odds with Pimax not really supporting laptop GPUs and DisplayPort though. Perhaps they only support very specific laptops for these arcades.
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Hm. I’ve been using my 8KX daily for nearly two years. No issues with durability. If the 12k wasn’t coming along, I’d expect to keep using this HMD until something else demonstrably better for my purposes came along. I don’t see anything like that in the pipeline from other manufacturers other than the 12k. I think the crystal will be excellent, but I don’t know if I can go back to a lower FOV for my flight sims. Valve’s next headset may be great, but all we have to go on are scavenged files that Bradley found and a whole lot of speculation on what they mean. I’m in no hurry to ditch my 8KX. I think lots of folks will still be using their Reverb G2’s and Pimax 5k’s and 8kx’s and Quest 2’s for a while yet. I don’t see anybody else in the market working on a super wide FOV with the clarity of the 12k.
You never know. Something amazing might be waiting just around the corner. It’s a cool time to be in our hobby.
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@Heliosurge Absolutely correct- I don’t see how Pimax can compete with Meta or steam in providing a software store for the Portal. I’ve got a Portal system coming though, and I’m pretty keen to see what it can do as a hand held game device. I may have to go out and buy some old retro games so I won’t feel bad about using an emulator to play them. I really enjoyed some of the Nintendo 64 games back in the day. Also, Pimax may find some amazing software developers for their store too.
The use of pancake indeed necessitates higher brightness values, but the new micro OLED displays are already being designed to allow e.g. 10,000 nits. Obviously the entire package must work well together.
An update by replacing the traditional lenses with pancake lenses only helps a bit - the housing is and will remain bulky. [EDIT: and then you really run into the lack of brightness issue with Crystal’s existing displays not being chosen for use with pancake lenses)
What I would like to wear on my head in say 3 years would rather be the form factor of a HTC XR Elite. The displays weight will be experienced differently if worn 3 cm or 6 cm from your eyes.
So, some of the China beta testers got their units. They are reporting extremely low FoV. To the point it’s suspected Pimax accidentally gave them the 42PPD lenses instead of the 35. They used test HMD and also Risa2000’s tool. TestHMD can be effected a bit by faceshape and we only have hard results from 1 tester, but they said that other testers are saying the FoV is ultra low too. Risa2000’s tool measure’s what the headset itself reports so no subjectivity. And honestly, the numbers look like they’re 42PPD level.
The FoV here contracts literally every single claim from every single event about the Crystal, especially the vertical FoV which was repeatedly mentioned as being gigantic. Something feels wrong here.
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Good lord.
Well, I hope they ship the 35ppd lenses asap.
Pretty amateurish.
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Update, they used Risa2000’s tool on the 42PPD preset and go this. DO NOTE, apparently the 42PPD is not finalized so take this with a grain of salt. But when coupled with the above 35PPD results, we can reasonable assume that the 35PPD mode has a rendered max of around 103/103.
Which is uh, wow. Very disappointing coming off of CES. Like, holy hell. That’s incredibly small. I was expecting 110-120 or so based on the CES claims. But this is sad.
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Why did they not get both sets of lenses? Or do Chinese customers not get both?
Someone mentioned this might have been a roadshow headset, not a retail one, so that might explain it also. Still, a bit worrying.
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IPD 69, below that it should be a few degrees more. But in the single digits.
The diagonal field of view is interesting. 120 speak for the larger, almost square picture, as in the CES reports.
@SmallBaguette - There are readings for both lenses.
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Those numbers are far lower than the demo folks noted at CES. Something must be off somewhere in the hardware. Or could it be a firmware glitch? Well, that’s why it’s being tested.
We get ours in a couple or three weeks I believe.
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It should be noted that we got no “hard numbers” from CES attendees. Only subjective impressions.
I could believe that most people would not notice a couple degree difference. The Index has 108/109 and the Crystal at 103/103 would be like, 95% of the FoV of the Index. That’s small enough people could easily miss it. Especially with the aspheric lenses. Some people claimed that the Varjo “felt” like it had more FoV than it truly did because of the lenses being almost 100% a sweetspot.
It’s lower than expected, but don’t think it’s too out of the realm of possibility, unfortunately.
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The Risa value is certainly correct from a technical point of view. But the subjective FOV can be completely different as the distance from the eye to the lens varies. It’s entirely possible that when set up correctly it looks like 109 degrees, which is what the index would match.
Well, if 103° are made to look like 109°, then that is an incorrect projection, with an unnaturally magnified virtual world, so let’s hope not… :7
There is of course the “feeling” of relative FOV, between headsets with different edge-to-edge clarity, but that’s another factor all of its own, which one suspect has inflated one or two tester impressions of new devices in the past…
We’ll see in time, but these numbers look like something I, for one, might reasonably have expected - pretty standard ranges…
If there is one thing we have learned, as VR users, it is to take numbers off specs sheets, and fair visitor testimonials, with a few oceans worth of salt… :7
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Just like in any other HMD with mask franken or whatever mod. Everything irrelevant and adjustable via software.
No, the lens should keep the degrees fairly constant at different eye relief distances; A room seen through a keyhole does not grow and shrink when you move closer or farther from the keyhole - you just occlude less or more of it.
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Which brings us back to the subjective FOV, which does not affect the actual space in any way. 
ONE MORE update, since I forgot to clarify something. We know that the 42PPD lenses showcased a “large” and “small” FoV option in the software in their local dimming video on youtube.
Now, while it’s not in the video, Kevin stated on Discord a few months back that there would be selectable FoV options for the Crystal at 35PPD as well here
Now, it should be noted this message came before the local dimming video showed a lack of 2 options at 35PPD, take that however you will.
If you wish to keep staying high on the copium/hopium, given Pimax’s history of some mix ups, there might be a non-zero chance that the tester units had firmware which was set to whatever is “small” for 35PPD. It could perhaps be like how the Varjo originally had something like 98? Horizontal FoV, but then later got bumped up to about 108(A whole 10 degrees!) somehow by firmware updates and changed distortion profiles. But that seems kind of suspect to me, given how the vast majority of impressions from the roadshow were and the lack of options in the videos which’ve been showcased so far.
Take this information however you want.
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Something seems off. Every single user feedback ive seen says Crystal fov is bigger than the Aeros. Index users were saying they were similar. Pimax owners were saying it’s like Pimax Small fov.
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That’s just the software though. From what the tester said to Omni, they said they only got 1 set of lenses and it appears to be the 42PPD ones.
It could be that the FOV seemed much larger to folks due to the edge to edge clarity, I know that’s how I have found it in the past. The same FOV on pancake or aspheric lenses feels bigger than fresnel.
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