So another company advertises their headset with exchangeable lenses too, just like Pimax? And these are explicitly addressed as offering different PPD like Pimax does, too? Which company is this? I wasn’t aware of a competing company applying this concept.
For you it might not be, but generally Pimax obviously has been looking at the Aero as the main competition. I do agree that the Aero is overpriced to me and has what I consider design flaws like e.g. the lack of an attached audio option and…
…the vertical FoV, which to use Sebastian’s words, reminds you of a letter slot in the door. Cagey, too narrow vertically. I suppose you lost your calibration slightly after having experienced an apparently horribly configured XTAL…
Good point I did try the aero literally right after that poorly setup XTAL so I guess anything would have looked better ha. The Crystal vertical FOV is definitely very nice imo.
As for the other headset with interchangable lenses, I was referring to the XTAL. I don’t think the lenses are actually interchangable though, I think it’s moreso that you can choose which lenses your unit comes with.
Ah my wording was confusing. I think they are definitely competitors in the market, I meant it as the phrase “there’s no competition” as in one being clearly better.
Btw, I asked about refresh rate. Currently 90hz and 120hz is supported. No 75hz right now but it is coming (along with 160hz). I would assume 75hz is not going to be a particularly difficult feature to add.
Just a heads up I probably won’t be asking any more questions or such, going to various talks and meetings and need to leave earlier tomorrow than I originally thought so that probably concludes my thoughts and impressions entirely (at least until I get my own in hand!). Hope the long meandering posts were insightful in someway, even as unconcise as they were haha.
Yeah they can apparently do custom fit lenses
Might actually try that. BTW xtal vertical fov is higher than the aero. Talk to the vrengineers today I am sure they’re willing to help you setup the xtal correctly. Also ask them why auto ipd is not working almost can’t believe they would go to a demo with a broken unit
You go out of your way to characterize your highly subjective assertions as “the truth” when you are merely speculating. A “long way to go” is entirely speculation. You are *clearly inappropriate to maintain a list of Crystal functionality.
Saying Pimax have ‘a way to go’ before retail units are ready to ship is in no way false nor ‘terribly misleading’.
‘A way to go’ is definitely an appropriate description for the duration of a few months that could reasonably be expected (Controllers, lens distance, appropriate cable, software [Standalone, Storefront, Wireless WiGig, Wireless 6E, Lighthouse plate, MR plate] + Chinese New Year] until ‘ready to ship’, particularly when there are still many customers that expect a Q4 22 shipment that was hands down denied by SweViver and Josh.
Please refrain from censoring your customers, as annoying as you might personally perceive them.
He has a long history of this sort of thing. 16 people flagged him over 50 times. Fortunately he is among a tiny few engaged in this sort of thing.
As for his speculation yeah it’s wrong and terribly misleading on countless occasions and is the reigning champ for that.
I assume he is addressing (with slightly dramatic words) the discrepancy between the announcement of the Crystal being ready to ship to customers in China and be open for orders world wide by November and delivery done by Xmas 2022 on the one hand:
and the fact that the roadshow demoed the Crystal in a not yet ready for delivery shape. While the displays left a very good impression and lenses and build quality were generally fine, assuming the fix mentioned on the lenses does remove the reported issues, the demo’s lacked prominent features of the Crystal eco system in wireless, stand-alone, mixed reality, lighthouse. And the controllers seem to require a bit of further consideration too. Considering the above announcement was made just fairly recently it is surprising that these major features were not yet in a state to demo. And in our experience with Pimax, which is not always valued to be brought up by us but has served well to manage expectations nevertheless, this means that these areas still need some further attention and should not be expected to be ready for release in the coming 1-2 months (to say it very diplomatically).
The Crystal seems to be suitable to become a promising product but as far as we can tell from what we have been shown I do not expect a release in full function in the coming few months.
If of course selling incompletely functional products is an option for Pimax, as has been hinted at with reference to the stand-alone functionality, a release can happen any day. However, this approach is rather uncommon for hardware, unlike the early access model in the video games world, and for a good reason: software can be completely overhauled and still be easily provided to any early access customer. For hardware it would quickly become extremely costly to arrange for shipping and exchange of parts, which probably is the reason no other headset manufacturer is taking this route. Some issue may not be addressable by firmware updates alone.
Your assessment is more balanced but even you have lumped in “mixed reality” and the “lighthouse” sleeves into the base evaluation of functionality.
Stand-alone can be enabled as can the eye tracking and both are included in the hardware. The hardware itself is all there.
Missing items in the current base package are: 1) cable designed to carry more power 2) the updated spacers on the lens (the calibration is already in the current version).
Your speculation on timing is just that - speculation.
The issue with projects involving hard- and software is that until everything functions as it should, it is rarely guaranteed that the remaining issues can be solved in the software part alone. If it’s just a missing polish, that may less risky, but it would seem very optimistic to assume that it’s limited to that.
I do include the MR and lighthouse sleeves in the consideration of the readiness for shipment of the Crystal eco system because these are substantial parts of the value proposition justifiying the substantial price tag of this product. It is a completely different story for some of the users if the Crystal headset works within the lighthouse ecosystem or not; same goes for the MR feature which for some may justify investing another couple of hundreds of dollars above what they would usually see as their upper ceiling on investments into a VR headset. The Crystal was positioned to be this kind of jack of all trades (in the positive sense). To give an example - if Valve had announced they would eventually release a wireless module for the Index, I would have kept mine; so their honesty cost them this customer. If Pimax announce these modules, some users will assume that they are definitely coming and may base their purchase decision on this expectation (which is why the promise of the future roadmap is a serious issue in terms of revenue recognition under GAAP). Having experienced the 5K/8K announcements of optional modules, I know that the wireless module never materialized and thus with Pimax I try to understand the status of all of the features which impact my purchasing decision.
On the timing - of course it is speculative, it is talking about a date in the future. But ask yourself, when did Pimax update the public of the new time-line for the Crystal after the original announcement of it shipping in Q3? Exactly, on the very last day of that quarter. So you will surely forgive us for not waiting until Pimax let us know that things slip.
