During September’s Oculus Connect 2 keynote, Samsung’s Peter Koo announced the consumer edition of its Gear VR headset The device is a collaboration between Samsung and Oculus, and Koo made the object of this partnership clearer than ever, stating that the new version of the Gear VR aims to take virtual reality mainstream.” To that end, the device will launch at the potentially market-disrupting price of $100.
These sites have different user profiles that specify what content the user would like to share and view. For example Twitter lends itself to cause and action. Every day, we are inspired by stories of people using Twitter to help make the world a better place in unexpected ways” (Twitter” 2013). Similarly, Facebook promotes in its mission statement that its role is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected” (Facebook” 2013).
That said, once I started really playing around with the content, I found myself casting those display quibbles aside. Viewing 360-degree video of an ocean landscape was wonderfully serene and peaceful, and I also enjoyed watching episodes of Doctor Who on Netflix as if I were in movie theater. Playing games was especially delightful: Shooting at incoming drones in EVE:Gunjack and flying around on a jetpack in Omega Agent was fun and engaging. Being able to look around you to home in on enemy targets feels a lot more interactive than just waggling a thumbstick.
There were a few specific instances that sent me reeling, though. The worst was playing something called Dreadhalls , a horror game originally designed for the DK1 and ported over to Gear VR. It’s a first-person game, one that requires a controller to walk your character around. I’m not sure if it’s residual motion blur that comes from the game, the inherent trippiness of seeing your virtual body run without any physiological response, or the lack of head-tracking, which makes leaning and moving around in real life a more disorienting experience. Either way that game gave me instant and severe vertigo when I tried sprinting away from some monsters. I had to tear the headset right off.
Hello, pdconner. The only way to get the Oculus store is from the actual headset. Once you initially plug it in, it will immediately download the necessary programs etc…You can download right from the gear or even after you disconnect from the gear. Just open the app on your phone (it will then be installed already), and browse and download what you wish. I have one and love it! Enjoy mate!
All is not perfect though as the low light performance on the main camera and the VGA front facing camera can be a deal breaker for some, and the battery isn’t very good either. To be fair, the battery performance actually isn’t much worse than competing MediaTek quad core phones with similar battery capacities in this price range. Those that offer better battery life are equipped with a TN panel which doesn’t look as good and a MTK6589M which is noticeably slower for gaming. On the other hand, it’s clear that the MTK6582M consumes more power than the MTK6589M.
The Samsung Gear VR Giveaway! 