Heres a gif I made from @mixedrealityTV pimax review. I removed any lighting and color differences between the two headsets so you can clearly see the sharpness vs screen door effect. I tried to pick a spot from both images that were least distorted.
So like I suspected similar to “laser percision Inkjet” printer vs actual laser print.
I think it still makes it a hard decision. Just looking at the teeth in the 2nd picture you can make out individual pixels on the 5k+ but you can’t on the 8k. At the same time it looks like you can’t achieve sharp edges on the 8k.
Zoomed images will also amplify blurriness. Zoomed out to what your eye sees might not look as bad.
I capture from sweviver video and post on 8k vr group.
In other words, built-in antialiasing!
One thing we did’t consider maybe their is some variation between the 8k headsets given to the testers. the captures made by Sébastien show less annoying differences except for the text chart which is almost to bad for the 8k to be true
It’s funny, but yet not untrue. I liked the natural, smooth, unpixilated looks of the 8k. It’s very different from everything we’re used to with 1st gen headsets. Didn’t miss sharpness while playing.
@TheSwanCollective
I tried to take a photo of my monitor screen with phone earlier. Photo showed things and pattern, mura which I don’t perceive when I look at the monitor.
I’m leaning towards the 8k because of reduced SDE, I’m sure even tho the photo showed SDE in 8k is similar to 5k but in the reality when we look through the lens it’s not like the screenshot (is this also your experience when you tried the 8k?)
What I’m am interested is according to sweviver pitool 1.5 and SS 0.5 makes it close to clarity of 5k, but will reducing fov from large to normal allow good enough performance on 1080ti?
Oh I was absolutely serious. I hate aliasing and would even turn down other settings to be able to run with something like 4x MSAA.
I wonder how the 8k performs in that regard. Especially since most sims feature a horizon, a dashboard, HUD or something that is bound to have horizontal lines, jaggies are likely to emerge - and the diagonal pixel arrangement might help with reducing that effect.
Still, I’m torn between the choice of 5k or 8k. I have an irrational attraction to the 8k, despite it looking softer. I guess I hate SDE and lower pixel counts.
This is very helpful. It starts to make sense finally. Because of the rotated grid used in the 8K you will never achive as sharp letters. It also explains why the reviewers find more detail in the 8K image nevertheless. A normal picture does not rely on vertical lines only like we see that in letters wich is why the whole image itself does look quite good. At least that is my interpretation of things right now.
Positive sideeffect: It looks like a bit of AA was applied on the 8K.
Now we got to the bottom of it all 
Yes, this is absolutely my experience. The 5K+ was like … ‘oh, so this is it? I know this look from my oculus go. Thought the sde was less… hmmm…’
Then switching to the 8K the first time I was like ‘AH, there we go :)’
Yep that sde on the 5k is baaad. 8k looks way better. However the 5k text looks much better. Look at the bottom tooth you can clearly see the jagged edge on the 5k.
@TheSwanCollective
thanks for the reply, I was beginning to feel the photos don’t truly represent what we perceive (eg, sweviver through out the review had mention 8k always had more detail but less clarity (less clarity as in more smoothed out look maybe?).
I have tried my note 9 on gearvr (note 9 has 2960x1440 resoution) and its a great experience compared to vive in terms of SDE and clarity, SDE is reduced to the point where its not distracting but definitely noticeable but if this is close to what oculus go is like, and close to what 5k+ is like, I have to say I will also need a 8k to feel its the next step up.
Although text looks better in the 5K+, text is also ok in the 8K, just different. So unless you demand absolute clarity the 8K would be fine too. Just prepare your GPU, otherwise you have no choice but to go for the less demanding headset. But if your wallet can support it, the 8K is better.
only thing for me is finding out if PiTool 1.5 SS 0.5 with fov normal (not large) can be powered by a 1080ti.
i can settle for a slight reduced fov for a bit of performance gain and less SDE, and wait until the next big GPU performance gain to drop.
The top gif confirms for me again that there is more chromatic effect present on the 8K.
But also realize this is zoomed in and the effect isn’t really noticeable when you wear the headset. It’s also more an effect of the through the lens capture with a mobile phone
Maybe it’s something to do with the pixel matrix that makes photographing it difficult. Even with the very old pictures we have of 5K and 8K shot through the lens, we can see chromatic effects on the 8K but not the 5K. Interesting to look back at these as it shows the original 5K has the same pixel matrix as the 5K+.
http://community.openmr.ai/t/8k-5k-4k-sde-comparison/3941/2?u=burstingtops
First comment noticed this, and now Sweviver says in his livestream he needs to angle the camera a bit for the 8K shots to come through clear. Maybe this is all chasing ghosts.