Samsung Gear VR review

Samsung’s Gear VR is the closest thing yet to a consumer VR headset. This ‘Innovators Edition’  is supposedly a device for early adopters, enthusiasts and developers, yet it is a slickly designed product, both in terms of hardware and software. Anyone is free to buy Gear VR online and the company has even launched an app store, called Milk VR, for the device.

Much like Google’s Cardboard VR concept, Gear VR works in tandem with a smartphone. The bad news is there's only one compatible model, Samsung's own Galaxy Note 4; the good news is that it’s an excellent phone and so if you’re interested in VR you won’t be selling yourself short by upgrading to one.

The headset costs £190 on its own, or £220 bundled with a gamepad controller. That would be quite a bit for a device that simply holds a phone to your head, like Cardboard does, but there’s a lot more to Gear VR; as it has built-in head-tracking sensors using technology licensed from market-leader Oculus Rift.

STAGGERING

Everyone we tested the headset on was staggered, sometimes quite literally, by the experience. It’s hugely impressive and genuinely immersive, whether you’re sitting on stage amidst Cirque du Soleil, following a herd of giraffe from a helicopter, exploring a beautiful narrow gully or perched vertiginously above the Las Vegas strip. Based on this alone it looks inevitable that VR will grow rapidly over the next few years.

Oculus’s head-tracking technology is spot on, accurately reproducing your head motions, while the Note 4’s high resolution 2,560x1,440 display is capable of sharp visuals. The OLED screen updates quickly and has excellent image quality. The headset has a small touchpad on the side to let you navigate menus and select content. A micro USB connector lets the phone and headset communicate, plus there’s a light sensor to turn the display off automatically when its not in use.

The headset and phone together provide a respectable 96 degree field of view. The lack of peripheral vision is a bit disconcerting at first, but the head tracking is good enough to make it less of an issue. Our only gripe with the Gear VR is focusing the image. However much we played with the focusing ring on the top of the headset with we couldn’t get the whole image in sharp focus, but rather only the centre section.

Weighing in at 550g with the handset attached, it’s pretty comfortable to wear for short periods of time. Around 100g of that weight is in the straps, which still leaves a significant weight hanging from the front of your face. A warning to the vain; with three straps, this VR headset will mess up your hair pretty quick.

It takes quite a while to find a position on your head that’s both comfortable and keeps everything onscreen as crisp as possible. Once you get it comfortable there's little need to take it off, as you can use the Note 4's camera to passthrough a windowed view of the world at 60fps, so you can grab a drink or snack without a problem. The straps are easy to remove if you want, giving you a more social device that can be handed about for quick goes. Used like this the Gear VR really comes into its own, with everyone desperate to have another go.

VIRTUAL WORLDS

The Gear VR comes with a 16GB micro SD card with some VR content preloaded onto it, including photos, videos and games. VR content takes up quite a bit of space, so having a separate memory card to pop in your phone for VR makes a lot of sense.

360 degree panoramic photos may not be the most exciting VR content by they are still the most effective and varied - you can easily find such images online and load them onto your phone. The sense of presence is powerful, and we couldn’t get enough of this kind of virtual tourism. The resolution of such photos is way in advance of any game or video content we’ve seen, and their stillness gives you a chance to appreciate that detail. VR experiences based around still images also work well, letting you navigate through environments by moving from one fixed point to another.

Most of the video available looked very compressed. Some clips were of a good standard but many simply weren’t taken from high enough resolution sources to truly convince. The Note 4’s hardware is certainly capable of playing high-quality video, but attempting to stream video from the Milk VR store was a disastrous-looking mess. Downloads are better quality but Samsung needs to find more good content, and quickly, if it’s going to hold people’s attention. But then this headset was always intended to drum up interest rather than fulfilling it.

The Oculus Cinema app lets you watch 3D movie trailers while seated in a choice of virtual movie theatres. You can also watch your own movies this way, be they 3D or not. At present there’s no simple way to watch 3D content directly from YouTube on the headset. However, YouTube has recently announced that it plans to add support for 360 degree movies to the service, so we should then see better compatibility between the service and this device soon.

There’s a reasonable range of games available, though most are of the simple look and shoot variety. There’s not much support for the optional game controller, presumably as developers don’t want to further divide a small pool of users. If you’re looking to play games on a VR headset we highly recommend you try out Oculus Rift instead.

A VIRTUAL FUTURE?

We’ve resisted comparing Samsung’s Gear VR against its step-sibling, the Oculus Rift DK2 (which uses the display from last year's Galaxy Note 3). Oculus is undoubtedly the trailblazer in VR, and now that the company is owned by Facebook it has the financial muscle to break into the mainstream. However, the Development Kit 2 headset costs $350 (plus shipping from the US and VAT) and really isn’t a consumer product.

The DK2 has to be hooked up to a PC in order to work, as it’s a VR display rather than a standalone device. Anyone who’s happy to tinker with applications and games will have a whale of a time with DK2 - just take a look on Youtube to see what you can get up. That said, a more advanced development version, Crescent Bay, has already been demoed and a consumer device should hopefully launch sometime this year, so we’d wait a few months if you can.

The Samsung Gear VR is one of those bits of kit that make us glad to be technology journalists. It’s immense fun when it simply lands on your desk, but few should consider actually buying one. It’s a fantastic novelty, but the current content means it’s not a lot more than that. That said, if you own a Galaxy Note 4 and like the idea of VR then it’s a tempting treat. However this is a fast-moving area and the Gear VR could quickly be left behind once a consumer headset from Oculus itself is launched later this year or next year.