That's only compared to Cardboard though. Gear VR locks the phone in place, so there's no calibration step. Gear VR also has a focus wheel, which while not perfect, does let you hand it to a friend who can adjust it to their vision. Not as good as just putting glasses inside, but glasses come in lots of sizes, and I'm sceptical of claims to be glasses-friendly, which so far haven't proven to be the case (Vive, Rift, and Gear are far from it).
Re:Daydream – Google VR
by soylentcola on Tuesday October 04, 2016 @01:40PM
(#12637475)
Plus isn't the GearVR limited to specific Samsung phones? The Daydream headset seems more like a nicer version of cardboard in that it's a "dumb" headset and the phone does all the work.
Ordered a Pixel to upgrade my Nexus 5 but not buying the headset so I guess I'll find out when I plop it into my Cardboard headset to test it out.
Daydream is limited to specific Daydream certified phones.
But most significantly, the auto calibration and focusing. (Currently, if you have a VR headset and want to use it with a phone, you have to go through a painstaking process of making sure the phone is in the dead center. Sometimes even when you have centered it, it can get a little bit off if you shake the phone really hard or whatever... and then you get headheaches if it's not properly aligned). This is a pretty big deal in my view.
Other than that, the whole integrated environment and the new joystick-like interface thing is a pretty big deal too.