I got a chance to try the Oculus Quest yesterday, playing their Apex Construct game. I will give you my first impressions very briefly, if anyone is interested.
From a technical point, and the fact that this headset is standalone, makes it quite an impressive unit. Especially considering the price. Basically a plug and play VR unit that just works. Perfect for beginners, maybe kids and casual gamers. 6DOF works as expected and tracking was better than I imagined. The game ran smooth and without any specific issues.
From a geeky VR enthusiast perspective though, being spoiled with high end hardware such as Pimax, xtal or even the mid-range Samsung Odyssey, I must say there is not much to be impressed about in terms of image quality.
The lenses reminds me a lot about Oculus Go lenses. Thank god there is an IPD adjuster at least, which works. The lenses has a sweet spot that covers maybe 60 percent from the center point. Onwards, it gets progressively blurry and edges were noticeably more blurred out. The FOV is more or less identical to original Rift, or maybe I found it slightly lower, but probably Im just not used to the narrow FOV anymore. I could see some slight god rays but it was on a fully acceptable level.
The panels then. I must say this one disappointed me the most. Once again, it felt almost identical to Oculus Go but the OLED pentile pixel matrix made it look slightly less defined than Go, because of the subpixel arrangement. In other words slightly more SDE than Go. The game Apex Construct was using FFR, and around maybe 30-35 degrees from center on each side, the resolution was noticeably lower. But the center resolution did not convince me. I asked the devs if the game runs in a lower resolution than the headset, but that was not the case. It looked very aliased, or simply low-resolution, even in the center parts, especially at distance. Much more than Apex Construct did on the Samsung Odyssey.
The black levels were good. Pure OLED blacks in the darkest parts of the game. Colors didnt feel more saturated or vivid than on any other headset Im using, but contrasts were good indeed.
Black smear was minimal, but still apparent at times. I did not see any Mura though.
The refreshrate is a problem though. And I dont understand how this could differ so much from, for example, the Pimax 5K XR if I run it at 72Hz. The very bright or white parts just felt flickery. Just like the Oculus Go did as I remember. A noticeable flicker, but only in the brightest parts. Im usually not sensitive to this, so I find this a bit weird.
At times, it also felt like the image was shaking minimally. Maybe because of the tracking or something. I cant really put my finger on this one, but from time to time, the image just didnt feel perfectly stable.
The controllers were totally fine and comfortable, even if they felt a bit small. Probably something you can get used to. Slightly front-heavy also.
One thing that really felt front heavy was the Quest headset itself. It was at least the double weight of a Pimax. Maybe more. I fully understand that the whole computer running everything inside cannot be weightless, but I expected some kind of counter-weight balance provided by the strap, but that was not the case. The strap itself was quite comfortable though, and the integrated sound was indeed impressive.
All in all, its a nice toy while travelling, watching a movie in the bed or just playing some casual game. The perfect VR headset for the mainstream of beginners. But even the less picky PC VR gamer will probably not be impressed. Sure its standalone and wireless. Thats it’s strenght. But if this was a cable-connected PC VR unit, I guess no one would even bother about it. At least if you care about image quality.
Dont take me wrong, I get the hype. I fully understand why it exists. And I ordered one myself…dont ask me why. But I expected more. Maybe I was just unrealistic. But I have a feeling I wont use it much unless I travel. But thats just me, I guess 