Google’s new phone-based headset is a comfortable, affordable way to immerse yourself in virtual reality.
Google really wants to make virtual reality A Thing — even with regular nongaming folk — and the company hopes that its new affordable, smartphone-based VR headset, Daydream View, will do just that.
Daydream View, which begins shipping on Nov. 10 for $80, is a fabric-covered virtual reality headset that requires a Daydream View–ready smartphone. Right now, the only Daydream-compatible devices are the Pixel and Pixel XL, the Google-branded Android smartphones launched in October.
I’ve spent nearly a week with a Daydream View review unit and a Pixel running Daydream software. After visiting virtual museums, pseudo-skydiving, exploring far-flung planets, and hunting demon overlords, I think that the View is a great introduction to VR and what it’s capable of, but its success is contingent on whether or not more content will come to it.
While Daydream is not nearly as immersive as premium hardware like the HTC Vive or Oculus Rift, the headset goes beyond what other phone-based VR experiences can offer, thanks to one killer feature: its handheld controller, with which one can tilt, swivel, and move around in their virtual world.
It’s a good start, but like other VR experiences, it’s lonely in Daydreamlandia. There isn’t a ton of stuff available yet, so it gets boring fast.
BuzzFeed News; Google
Google is no stranger to phone-based, alternative-material VR headsets.
View is not the company’s first VR product — that’s Cardboard, a $15 viewer made quite literally of cardboard — but it is their first VR hardware that’s built to last and runs its own platform, Daydream.
Daydream View elevates the Cardboard experience in many ways. It’s more comfortable, it doesn’t need to be held up with your hands, and, most importantly, it has a controller that makes the platform infinitely more interactive.
But View is also limiting in other ways. Cardboard is compatible with both iOS and Android, while View requires the Daydream app, which is only compatible with devices running Android 7.0 and up.
Nicole Nguyen / BuzzFeed News
Quelle: <a href="Daydream View Is A Lovely – But Lonely – Way To Entertain Yourself“>BuzzFeed
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