i wanted the valve index,but i am not for sure anymore…
I switched to the small field off view today to almost compare it with the valve index,but i dont think i could live with that anymore…
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Isn’t small 120 FOV? Will be interesting to see what the index FOV will turn out to be for most people.
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A hands on with the index was posted on the iracing forum and reposted to reddit
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The post was removed?
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It broke some arcane rule of tardiquette, a link to the source is provided in the comments but can’t be accessed without a login.
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Can someone please copy it to here?
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Official Hands on’s are starting to come in
'Perhaps the best I can do with words right now is to say that the virtual environments seen through the Index just feel more solid and “real.” It was easier to suspend my disbelief about being somewhere else, but I’m curious about whether enthusiasts who don’t have access to all the latest equipment in their testing room will notice a huge leap without being able to do direct A/B testing. But I do, I can, and I did.
And the Index offers a hell of a headset, even leaving aside the technical leap from existing Vive systems. The fit and finish of VR headsets in general is moving forward at a pace that’s hard to comprehend, but the Index is by far the most comfortable VR headset I’ve ever used, and Valve seems to have achieved its stated goal of increasing the length of a comfortable session.
You’ll still need to spend some time adjusting the straps and learning how to put the headset on and take it off, but the headset feels amazing once that work is done. The wider field of view also goes a surprisingly long way to make the experience of wearing the headset feel much less claustrophobic; it feels much more like actually seeing an existing place rather than peering at the world through a set of binoculars.
The built-in headphones also offered the sort of detailed sound and sense of 3D space that makes sense from a system this expensive; it’s yet another detail where the Index feels like a deluxe experience. It stomps the Rift S when it comes to allowing you to hear where things are coming from.’
" These tests (which include typing the majority of this preview with an Index as my “monitor”) have been telling. Valve Index isn’t perfect by any stretch, but it is absolutely the first VR system I can use for long periods of time without feeling “VR swimminess.” Until someone else shows up with a system that exceeds Index’s weaknesses and capitalizes on its best improvements, I do not see myself switching back to another PC VR headset. The Index difference begins with a noticeably boosted field of view (FOV) compared to the competition. VR users in general can expect to have their peripheral vision blacked out to some extent, thanks to inherent limitations from a pair of lenses. The Index is no exception, but Valve promises “20 degrees more” FOV than any existing consumer-grade VR headset on the market—no matter what size of face or pair of glasses you bring into the headset.
If you strap into an Oculus or HTC headset, you can expect a “maximum” FOV of roughly 110 degrees, but that number shrinks if you have bulky glasses or an awkward face fit into the headset. Index, on the other hand, has placed its pair of LCD screens on a mechanical array that does two clever things: it applies a 5-degree “canting” angle to the screens, and it includes an additional FOV-specific slider to let users bring those lenses as close to their cheeks or glasses as is physically comfortable.
Index’s FOV difference is absolutely noticeable for average, no-glasses users. As I noticed at the Index reveal event, the best showcase for this difference comes from widescreen-ratio videos, and I’ve since watched quite a few of those in my Index. I have gotten into the habit of booting into SteamVR’s Virtual Desktop app (which I prefer over SteamVR’s built-in desktop-mirror option), loading full 4K-resolution videos, and positioning them to simulate the feeling of sitting in a “perfect” movie theater seat—not too close, not too far. I can do this with the Valve Index and expect to sit roughly two “rows” closer to the video image than I can with the HTC Vive Pro.
Add my large, Seattle-hipster glasses to the mix, and that difference jumps a whole 'nother two rows. Index accommodates glasses in a more comfortable manner than any other consumer-grade VR headset, period.
Those metrics, by the way, simply account for how many visible pixels fill out the peripheral view in VR. Where the Valve Index absolutely trounces the likes of the HTC Vive Pro and Oculus Rift S (let alone the original Vive and Rift) is the peripheral pixel quality .
Rift S arrived earlier this month with an admittedly boosted subpixel resolution and widened “sweet spot” compared to the competition. The latter term speaks to the common issue with VR headsets where peripheral pixels look blurrier or less focused than the center ones, which can be blamed on anything from lens construction to display panel orientation.
Where Rift S subtly improved those factors, however, Index steamrolls the competition. This is most evident when using Index while typing and mousing around a Windows desktop while wearing the headset. When I peripherally peek at a chat interface and a Twitch video stream while typing in a central window, the resulting peripheral pixels are still admittedly a tad blurry, but not as much as with last-gen headsets, and peripheral smearing doesn’t begin until the roughly 105-degree point on Index. On the Vive Pro, that peripheral smearing starts at roughly the 80-degree point and is more severe.
There’s also the matter of subpixel resolution getting a considerable boost across the entire pair of panels, which probably helps the peripheral view as much as the central stuff. Valve is absolutely right: it has engineered the crap out of the “screen door” effect of visible pixel separation, especially compared to the otherwise stunning Vive Pro. Look at a giant white field of pixels on HTC’s OLED headsets (like you’d see in an average desktop webpage), and you’ll see tons of black “crackling” between each tiny white pixel. This effect is forgivable enough within brief or high-action VR activities, but it’s a pain to deal with at length while VR-desktopping.
Look at the same Windows desktop content on Index, and you’ll still notice pixelation , where the VR headset must correct for aliasing. This high-res headset doesn’t make the sheer issue of pixelation somehow disappear. But thanks to Index’s richly engineered LCD panels, you honestly won’t notice a screen door .
I’m not sure that I have a font big enough or italics angled enough for this sentence: Valve’s sales pitch of long-term VR comfort within Index is 100% legitimate. Every aforementioned design tweak and system element comes together to make the Index a system I can seriously use for long periods without feeling major vision fatigue or post-VR dizziness."
" That said, there are benefits to being plugged in. Keep in mind, these are just our early impressions , but my early impression was “Holy [Redacted].”
It’s all about the field-of-view. 110 degrees has been the standard since the original Oculus Rift dev kit back in 2013. We’ve seen experiments with higher FOVs (like the bulky Pimax 5K Plus) but none with the appeal of the Rift and Vive, and thus we’ve all gotten used to the feeling of viewing VR through a periscope. Reviewing the Rift S, I even noted that it felt like the FOV was more closed off than [the first-gen Rift]. The Valve Index jumps from 110 degrees to 130ish degrees and it is (heh) eye-opening . I didn’t notice the difference so much horizontally, but vertically it was like removing blinders. Did you know you can usually see the ceiling and floor while staring straight ahead? Subconsciously, I’d gotten used to not being able to in VR, grown accustomed to moving my entire head to look up or down. The Valve Index makes that unnecessary.
A 20 degree improvement doesn’t sound like much perhaps, but already it’s made switching back to the Rift S/Quest/Vive/Vive Pro feel claustrophobic. It looks crisp, too. On paper the Vive Pro and Index have the same 1440x1600 resolution per eye, for a total of 2880x1600. The Index’s RGB LCD display has more subpixels than the Vive Pro’s AMOLED display though. For the layperson: We think of the pixel as being the base unit for displays, but like an atom it can be subdivided into smaller components, or subpixels. These are the actual colored bands of light that, in combination, allow a pixel to reproduce the full spectrum.
All you really need to know is that RGB LCD screens have a subpixel arrangement that makes fine details look cleaner and more consistent. That’s important when you’re right up next to the screen, as you are in a VR headset. AMOLED screens have more vivid colors and richer shadows, but RGB LCD gives you a cleaner-looking image at the same resolution, which is arguably more beneficial in the long run. Note that the Oculus Rift S also pivoted to RGB LCD and thus looks similarly crisp, but the Index’s higher resolution and larger FOV take it a step further. And there’s more , if you can believe it. Years ago Oculus claimed a 120Hz refresh rate would be “ideal” for virtual reality, but most headsets have targeted 90Hz (or less) to aid performance on lower-end machines. Not the Valve Index. It defaults to 120Hz, with an “experimental” 144Hz mode for high-end machines.
It makes minimal impact on how games are played, but the subconscious difference is enormous—or at least it was in my case. When I first donned the Valve Index I noticed how smooth and snappy the hand-tracking felt, only to realize it was due to the increased frame rate. The difference was especially noticeable because I was coming from the Oculus Rift S and Oculus Quest, which run at 80Hz and 72Hz respectively, but even compared to the 90Hz Vive Pro the Index feels fluid.
I am admittedly sensitive to frame rate and use a 144Hz monitor at home, so your mileage may vary. I was impressed though"
Tested “Preview”, mentions pimax
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… Ignorance is bliss… 
Sounds like a solid device though… 
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Yeah I thought that was funny.
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nice, like the 5K and 8K aren’t consumer grade yet aparently…the media shunning of Pimax continues.
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If it was the ars reviewer, he already ignored Pimax in the preview. I would not read much into the reviews from Polygon, The Verge or Ars.
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So when it comes to pimax spontaneously disintegrating, cables that die if you breathe a bit hard in their direction, no working audio, spending 50% of time getting it to work, no controllers, no LHs, no usable face foam, no customer communication etc etc etc ‘It’s an enthusiast device! It’s a kickstarter!’
But then when no one considers them an option for consumers people get upset and want to pretend it’s a consumer device.
This is no way a consumer device yet. Yes it could be. But it isn’t.
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Seems like a really decent headset. Really too bad they didn’t upgrade the resolution, I’m pretty certain that it will look blurry in the distance, simply due to resolution
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I think we still need a hmd without so high a resolution so that games which must have high fps do well. But then I want another with max res for games that can handle it. Best of both worlds may require 2 hmds. Time to lock up the wallet.
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Well I agree, so I just thought, let’s then pre-order the damn thing 
But delivery for the kit is now 30 september!! WTF … By then the HTC Cosmos should almost be out, which HOPEFULLY does feature OLED RGB 4k resolution. I think I will just skip the Index then, although it does seem to be a nice HMD.
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Right on point. Until then, we will see more headsets for sure
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2019 is certainly shaping up to be a good year for VR headsets but not so good on my wallet…
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Thats for sure. This is the year of VR
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We have a lot new products this year, is quite good .
I think, maybe 2021(exact) will like this year too.
Then VR(or MR) will finally go popular.
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Anton, developer of H3VR has done a “first impressions” video too…
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