Pimax Portal Disscusion

General discussion
83

Well, reading your post didn’t make me much happier :wink:

Thisis indeed the impression many will have, save for the die hard fan boys. You didn’t manage to get the two new products you are advertising since up to 1,5 years released in good shape, just had to announce that the Crystal will be released without some features working leaving customers to wonder if it will ever perform as advertised and priced - and the 12K is “at approx. 70%” which clearly indicates it’s nowhere near a release.

And amidst the outfall of your message of substantial delays you merrily announce a flurry of new products.

From a company of their experience and definitely not being your average “out of the garage Kickstarter” show, this is rather poor execution.

Sigh.

They did the same with the 12K, and look how that is going. But okay, who cares, as long as nobody puts their money on the line before knowing what the product really if capable of, it’s fine, right.

The issue is, this is hardly true for the Crystal, where nobody has seen a proper hands-on (actually - not even any) yet and you are asked to pre-order and in any case forfeit the roughly 30$ (?).

And for the 12K - what about those who were lured into the trade-in program? Finally the Portal: that will take the route of a Kickstarter, which means you are at their mercy completely.

The truly mind-boggling thing here is that they have some serious potential, but imho drop the ball in various areas unnecessarily.

It somehow doesn’t really make any sense what they are doing, time and again - unless we underestimate the Chinese market and their approach is tolerated and successful with their domestic customer base and the results from an overall point of view do make sense. Looking at the Western market in isolation, I am afraid it doesn’t add up.

3 Likes
84
85

This was my immediate take on it. And then the timing confirmed. It’s robbing Peter to pay Paul. They’ll use the the Kickstarter money to fund Crystal marketing and production.

1 Like
86

Wow, that’s one hell of a statement from not just a forum member but the actual COO of Pimax. Way to treat your ‚Pimaxians‘.

I haven’t seen anyone commenting positively on the Portal announcement; that might in fact be the case in spite of Portal being a genius product that will blaze the way to new frontiers; it might be due to not meeting the expectations of your target audience which you set yourself via Frontier 21 and the Crystal announcement; it might be due to your target audience not knowing that they are, in fact, not your target audience anymore; it might be down to the many buyers of Vision series HMDs that did so mainly expecting a successful trade in for a 12K in Q4 22.

But to think and actually write down that this forum is populated by critics whose intention is to make Pimax‘s life more difficult is a managerial disaster that shows that Pimax has in fact changed, but not for the better.

I expect Pimax to refund anyone‘s purchase of a Vision series HMD as long as no 12K launch date can be set.

Then Pimax is free to do their thing without continuing to leave a bad impression with users such as @Sargon who have been immense supporters of the ‚new Pimax‘ and actually gave them the benefit of the doubt.

5 Likes
87

Don’t forget the incentive to buy 8kx’s around the time of the Aero release so you can trade it in for full price for a 12k “soon.” Now that product is nowhere in sight.

Just one hustle after hustle.

3 Likes
88

That’s partially true. The usual people are certainly speaking and being hyperbolic about it. But I think there are more people raising what I think are legitimate concerns, too.

I’ve previously had a pretty positive outlook on the 12K, Crystal, and the direction that Pimax is going as a company. But I am concerned about issues I see with the Portal and what seems like a significant direction shift for the company.

If Pimax’s direction hasn’t actually changed, then the presentation may have sent an unintended message to your audience. That message is that Pimax is moving away from its focus on VR headsets like the Crystal and 12K. And that erodes confidence in the future of those headsets, especially the 12K.

It may be worthwhile to address those concerns.

5 Likes
89

Lol we can say the same about Pimax. It’s the same few Pimax employees that remain in denial. The same few that will defend Pimax to the bitter end. The same few that say yes yes yes when they should be saying no no no.

There’s no middle man between Robin Wang and Sweviver. Pimax can’t do wrong. When we say eye strain, Pimax say set up. When we say janky, Pimax says Beta. When we say competition, Pimax says explorers, pioneers, trail blazers. When we say business and profit, Pimax says investors and kickstarters. The list goes on and on, for 7 years and we’re still here with the same denial, kickstarters, bad product launches while the competition gets stronger.

2 Likes
90

Portal should of been a 8kX mkii with new lenses, cable, upgraded audio, QLED 4k panels for PCVR only at £800 and released now. That is what we ask for, that is what we would of bought in droves. That is what would of put Pimax above Index.

91

When we say distortion, they say ‘you have bad eyes’. Yeah the list is long indeed. But oh well, that’s Pimax being Pimax and won’t change, at least not without new employees taking over current positions, I strongly believe that, just look at @anon57422158 kicking at his own customers. Nothing has changed over the years.

Pimax has been somewhat successful, even though they’re REALLY bad at business strategy, because there simply has been 0 competition for them, no one else has been offering wide FoV at an affordable price point. But with this ‘portal’ thing, they’re directly taking on Valve with its Steamdeck. If I’d be interested in a handheld, I’d definitely buy a Steamdeck. Why would I want a Pimax handheld? It’s an ARM processor so it won’t even run steamdeck. Or do they really think they can create a successful alternative to the Steam community?

But honestly that’s not even the big problem here, the big problem is the complete disconnect between high-end VR and a handheld.

3 Likes
92

why should they when the only suitable competitor costs 8000? xD

93

I sold my 5k+ to buy the Index. To me Valve is a direct competitor to Pimax.

If you look at the Focus 3 it’s been on sale for ages offers 95% Crystal does and Crystal hasn’t launched yet. Is HTC not a competitor to Pimax?

Pico4 I own does 95% the Crystal does, cost 1 quarter of the price had s great launch and good reviews. Crystal hasn’t launched yet. Competition?

Crystal has no competition because it hasn’t launched yet in the same way Apple hasn’t launched Index2 hasn’t launched, PSVR2 hadn’t launched.

When Crystal launches you can bet it will be compared to the Pico4 or the Quest2 Pro and people will ask what is the best value headset for me.

My point is everything has a value marker and the lower the product price the more product sales you get. Pimax has to convince people their products are better value than others. The value can be a combination of cost, specs, store, build quality, comfort, longevity etc.

Index and Pico 4 for me have been that valued proposition but I’m hoping the 12k will be too. It won’t be though if in 12 months an Index 2 comes along at £1k and does 95% of 12k at half the price.

94

Yes and really no. Valve does not have any WFoV hmds. So if your looking for a Direct WFoV hmd with Steam capabilty(extra cost add on) your buying as mentioned an Xtal Hmd like there original 5k model or the 8k model at an extremely high cost.

The Index is good for what it is though we all agree it should have been a 4k device like the Reverb.

Only maybe for Standalone mode. Otherwise it will be compared to the Varjo Aero and such that is more the competitor on release due to targetting higher visual fidelity with more included like a full package for considerably less price.

2 Likes
95

For who? Consumers? Enterprise? Business?

If you want highest res you go VR-3
If you want to go wide you go 8KX
If you go cheap you can go Quest or Pico4
If you go enterprise you can go Focus 3 Quest 2
If you want to go Value you can go Index or G2.
If you want to go PCVR you can go anywhere.

Where does Crystal fit because if there is no competition then Crystal blows them all away.

96

I think you mean Aero. Well, yes and no. The Aero is a very well built headset. The lenses are extremely sharp and make your eyes completely relaxed. However it does suffer from distortion. If Pimax can match the Varjo quality AND fix the distortion AND offer a lower price point, then it might be a great success. However personally I’m still very skeptical about that. Maybe I can join the demo in Florida, I’m honestly very interested to see how it stacks up against the Aero.

Sweviver said they’d bring an Aero to the roadshows for direct comparison. I think that’s an awesome idea. If they really do that, at least it shows that they’re confident themselves that they have the better product. I’d be surprised, but again, who knows …

3 Likes
97

The Products your mentioning is budget products. These are not Prosumer priducts like the Varjo Aero. The Crystal will share many features that are a part of Quest//Pico bit is not really targetted to be direct competitors.

Essentially you will get a headset that will be directly comparable to the Varjo Aero that comes as a complete vr solution with Audio as pluses at a considerably lower entry price point. To boot it will be sjopping eith swappable lenses and also have Stand alone capabilities.

Now I know your just being Atmos lol

2 Likes
98

Actually this morning I was thinking: among all the headsets that I’ve owned, which one was really the best? Which one really hit the nail, felt like it was the best engineered? I came to the conclusion that it was the Index. It’ just such a great and well engineered device. But yeah, really too bad that they didn’t up the resolution. It’s just so outdated right now, I could never go back, at this point in time. But still, the combination of panels and lens design really made the most convincing impression that the virtual world was real.

I’m happy-ish with my XTAL 3 as my current daily driver, but it has several flaws and I would not even think of it as THE best engineered device at all and I’m not even taking into account the absurd price point.

2 Likes
99

Very much agreed. I was disappointed to see LG bail on Releasing the Ultragear as at time it had a lot of potential.

The Xtsl is really cool save the price and did demonstrate that the Eyestrain issue on pimac is not isolated as can’t think of his name atm bought an Xtal with hopes it would give the Eyestrain free experience. The eyestrain issue is interesting on the WFoV hmds it will be interesting to see how the 12k makes out with the new lenses.

2 Likes
100

Yeah. Actually the XTAL 3 in many ways resembles the Pimax 8kX. Obviously they struggle with the same problems that wide FoV adds to the already complex VR technology table. The XTAL for example has a similar option to adjust the horizontal offsets and I find myself messing with that over and over, just like I had with the 8kX, in the hope to find that optimal combination, that just never seems to happen and I end up with some (luckily quite light but still persistent) eye strain all of the times.

I guess it’s going to be really difficult to create a wide FoV headset that has 0 distortion and has no eye strain at all.

2 Likes
101

We’ll I was thinking XR-3 not VR-3.

Aero needs rapid evolution.

Index2 needs to be here early next year and It would funny if there was a Apple pairing.

102

You mean the Deckard? Still no announcement from Valve last I heard. As long as the Index is selling as Valve has demonstrated they are not in any hurry to release a new hesdset.