Credit: https://www.reddit.com/r/Pimax/comments/1rwb815/pimax_micro_oled_first_day/
Considering I already knew the SMAS was going to be a disappointment, everything else is perfect so far. Box was intact and ipd motors are working. This thing shipped from the US via freight forwarder, processed through another country and finally shipped to me over 18 days. I was expecting the worst.
Coming from Vive Pro 2 and a Tobii 5, I was expecting issues with software and drivers, absolutely none. I clean installed steamVR and unistalled the tobii software before installing pimax play and everything is working out of the box.
Ive got a lucky head shape for VR I think, the Vives have all fit like they were made for me, index was a good fit too. I can always get my eyes basically scraping the lenses. At first I thought the PCS was really bad, but I figured out you need push and angle it against your face first then adjust the top strap and back a few times until it stays seated where you’re holding it, there was still some light bleed from my cheeks but a bit more adjusting and wearing and it went away. I feel I could do with a couple of mm shaved off the face pad though to get my eyes closer.
Edit: after a couple of 6 or more hour sessions, feeling the squeeze needed to get a stable fit and FOV a bit. It’s not bad, but will be ordering the pads when the vouchers come.
As for the upgrade from VP2, that headset got a lot of flack over the years because of the fresnel lenses, but honestly with fixed foveated rendering hidden by the edge blur and a 5090 to crank up the steamvr res, the clarity of the gauges in DCS and MSFS are maybe not worth a 1500 usd upgrade if you can live with a little bit less perfection.
Having said that, the edge to edge clarity, DFR and general performance are definitely worth the upgrade if you really want a crystal clear image. It’s not the jump I was expecting, but having the actual pixels to render to instead of supersampling and squeezing less pixels makes an amazing difference. And oh, the OLEDs, I missed them since the old Vives, they are so worth it, single most immersive thing for scaring the crap out of you in Five Nights at Freddies. Probably the first headset I would be happy to watch a movie in to be honest.
With the VP2 I would set steamVR to 100% at about 4200 pixels or so, and would struggle to get a consistent 90 fps without compromises. With exactly the same setup, no changes to games, I’m getting better performance (at least visually smoother) on high setting in pimax play with a much clearer image. I haven’t even messed with settings yet, or needed to. It just runs nicely.
But F..k me, who gave the green light on SMAS, especially at this price point? Did nobody ever try the vive headphones or the index and think, maybe we should just copy these? Seriously fire the person who said the SMAS were a good idea, they must be tone deaf. I was a bit disappointed that the DMAS weren’t in the box, or the lighthouse faceplate. But I’m happy there’s a 3.5mm jack to use.
As for the faceplate, ive always used lighthouses, so was really hoping it would be in there, but to be honest, not a single glitch or issue with the head tracking so far. The controllers are tracking well, but I’ve noticed delicate movements are a no go, if you’re used to the finesse of lighthouse tracking with something like Vermillion, you’ll appreciate the difference. I found in iron rebellion that the vibrations were shaking the crap out of the cross hair, I had the same issue with the knuckles but wasnt half as bad. Turning down the haptics helps a lot.
People say this headset is more for simmers, because of the cable and weight etc. Again coming from HTC, it’s basically the same, maybe a bit lighter. I never had an issue with room scale VR with that and if you can tolerate a cable, then no reason why PCS is any different. EXCEPT someone decided to make the cable almost 2 metres shorter! Really!? Basically telling people it is made for simmers only. It’s doable if you don’t mind rotating your PC 180 degrees and staring at the beautiful backside of it and risk ripping out all the cables when you get carried away.
For the lenses, basically what other people have said, slight yellowing when the image is really bright or white, not noticeable in game at all to me so far. I did notice the the IPD needs to be spot on to really get rid of it though when it is visible, if it’s more or less than what youre eyes are, you see a lot more of it either on the outer edges or inner. It’s worth getting the IPD set right. Distortion is fine for me, I’m keeping the resolution high though. I have a feeling the biggest problems with distortion are people running low resolutions, it was a known thing on VP2 that running 150% res was the sweet spot for distortion, 100% is perfectly fine, but it got worse the lower you pushed it. Probably the same here? (just learnt that it’s more about pixels being stretched than distortion being corrected, less pixels + distortion profile = blur and more obvious areas of distortion)
Edit: for the distortion, after trying more things, I can see where the complaints are coming from. It’s as if the image moves slightly in the opposite direction to what your head is doing, really the centre of your view is moving towards the opposite edge to which your head is turning, but that edge is slower, so it kind of squeezes as you look away, but stretches to where your head is going. It’s very subtle, but it’s there. You need to be in the right scene with a slow movement to have an effect, but when its there, it’s hard to unsee for a while. You get used to it quickly though and it’s a non-issue in faster, less angular scenes. Still some work could be done on the distortion profile.
Glares a non issue, I had an OG Vive and Vive Pro, both oled. You want to see glare, go and try those! Same as others have said, see a bit in the menus, but even then it’s tiny. Nothing in game.
Overall, apart from the noise those things on the side make (are they even speakers) and the short cable, for me I think weve almost made it to where we wanted VR headsets to be for the last 10 years. It’s not perfect, but if it’s the screens and lenses that are priority, this is it, and I imagine the dream air too. But considering the quality of the Vive Pro 2 except for the fresnel lenses and software, and that being 1200 usd (8 or 900 for the headset), 6ish years ago when it was cutting edge, I honestly think the price is way to high for what you’re getting here, especially considering it basically doesn’t ship with a useable sound system (you don’t need to be an audiophile to hate this).
It’s worth it for me, because to me there’s currently no other choice for what I specifically want, and I use it a lot. The visuals are pretty much perfection. The overall experience has been really positive. Definitely keeping it.
As for the customer support, I’ve actually had a lot of contact since I preordered, mostly questions, but especially with the shipping and just today asking about the vouchers, le mans game, the DMAS and the faceplate. Always responsive, if not immediately then same next day, no issues at all really.
