HTC Vive Cosmos (2019)

huxley

UploadVR review                                 Cost and controller weight and battery life seem to be a common bone of contention.
Maybe they should of partnered with Lenonvo

huxley

Ouch another bad review, and from someone who was given the unit from HTC.
Shockingly it has a smaller IPD range than the RiftS. I`m very disappointed that HTC have goofed again.

ArmitageShanks

It’s a poor follow-up to the Vive for sure. But then the Rift S isn’t exactly a great successor to the Rift either. Valve seem to be the only ones bringing something decent to the table this year imo.

huxley

The RiftS is cheap but you get what you pay for and it seems to work well.
The Index is a the premium end of the market, it costs a lot but you get a lot more. For an enthusiast I think its fairly priced.
The Cosmos just doesn't appear to do anything very well and is overpriced. I think this will be the last HTC consumer headset.

thesnowdog

Well regarding the tracking that's going to improve over time I think, but I can't see it matching the tracking of the Rift S because HTC simply don't have anywhere near the same resources for their Machine Learning.

I don't think the battery life is that much of a problem either, you can hot swap the batteries in a few seconds.

The problem I have with it is the price. It's too expensive.

huxley

Reddit R/Vive is a wash with unhappy people. I think this may make people go to the RiftS.

Johnmcl7

I haven't been paying much attention to the new VR headsets as I'm a big fan of the wireless VR on the original Vive and wouldn't use a cable now but I'm curious about the Cosmos now I see it will be wireless compatible.  

AA batteries are a plus to me as that's what I use for my Xbox One controllers and I simply keep a set of Eneloop AA's charged up and it takes a matter of seconds to swap batteries over.  Long term it also means I don't need to worry about a proprietary internal battery degrading over time plus I wouldn't want to use VR controllers attached to USB leads.

It's a shame though you still need to look at the centre of the lens as I find this is one of my main annoyances with the original Vive.  The price seems far too high for what it is so will hopefully come down in time as certainly wouldn't consider it now as the low light tracking issues sound worrying and seems not something that can easily be sorted in software.  That's a total deal breaker for me as I only use the VR system at night in artificial light.

aoaaron

Anyone who isn't a fanboy can clearly see that the only horse in the race of near perfect inside out tracking will be Oculus.  Their software opimtization is downright witch craft. I'm 95% sure most Rift S headsets were actually faulty but they somehow fixed it via firmware updates.

The cosmos will fail in regards to inside out tracking because I firmly believe HTC don't have the commitment not the expertise in software to refine it over time.

I'm sure I wrote about it a couple of months ago.

Valve are the best for pinpoint tracking with external devices, and Oculus are for inside out and it won't change.

My issue with the Index being the premium end of the market is, its the premium in specifications no one asked for. We all wanted (check forum posts prior to Index's announcement of specs) OLED, better contrast/black levels, significantly higher FOV, significantly higher resolution and wireless.

Pending Valve ripping off its loyal customer base of another £250 with some wireless add on in a couple of years, They just didn't deliver enough with the Index. I read literally ZERO posts on both reddit and AV forums asking for higher refresh rate panels. Sure the actual SDE elimination has been nice but we've paid for it, with the lack of any decent black levels and the Index still manages to have some God Rays with them. They gave us resolution and FOV in very small half measures.

I have no problem paying a premium price for premium specs I want. I really feel for £1000 as a bundle, the Index should have nailed the FOV to at least Pimax levels and had wireless functionality. Oh and of course released with at least 3 games which could take advantage of the knuckles and a clear roadmap and committment to further titles.

As an Oculus user, I actually now have too many Oculus first party exclusives I've yet to play.

And still Valve haven't even told us the name of the games they're going to release.

Sunshinewelly

i have read lots of reviews stating that if VR makes you nauseous that the leap to 120htz is massive on reducing it. Linus (love him or hate him) clearly states that 120 htz is noticeable on fast moving games

Nivek TT

The 120 Hz is very noticeable! Though not my thing I've seen a fair amount of sim racers praising the high frame rate of the Index.

No one would ask for it until they have experienced it.

I do recall seeing a huge improvement to comfort when I went from 75 Hz of the DK2 to 90 Hz of the Vive; however, I had accepted that 90 Hz was the optimum as claimed at the time of the Rift / Vive launch by Oculus / HTC / Valve. Turns out there was room for improvement. At the time we were more likely limited by the capabilities of the display, not yet at the point of diminishing returns.

Wonder at what point the returns diminish enough that there isn't any point in increasing the frame rate.