The Index thread (please keep to subject)

Looks fantastic but I can't see it selling that much unfortunately due to Valve's greedy price gouging. It'll sell reasonably well through the launch and the launch window but those sales will soon dry up. I'm REALLY pissed off with Valve and their pricing. I could have afforded to buy one (if I hadn't already bought the Rift S) but I'm refusing to pay £920 for a headset that's only 1600p and only has a small increase in FOV. For that sort of money I expect to get a headset with the resolution and FOV of the Pimax. If I'm going to be paying a high-end premium price for a headset I'm going to want high-end premium specs for the thing.

Always learning  <3


Lesson 2  :D

New Index article: https://uploadvr.com/valve-index-review/

Quote: "The difference in price between Rift S and Index is vast, but so is the experience. I’ll have to end this, then, by turning the $600 question around on you — how much time are you going to spend in VR and how important is it to you that time be spent in a headset offering the most comfort and highest fidelity available in 2019?"

It's coming:

RuneSR2 said:

New Index article: https://uploadvr.com/valve-index-review/

Quote: " highest fidelity available in 2019?"

 :o 

2019 aint over yet pal...I think the author meant, "highest fidelity so far this year".

snowdog said:

Looks fantastic but I can't see it selling that much unfortunately due to Valve's greedy price gouging. It'll sell reasonably well through the launch and the launch window but those sales will soon dry up. I'm REALLY pissed off with Valve and their pricing. I could have afforded to buy one (if I hadn't already bought the Rift S) but I'm refusing to pay £920 for a headset that's only 1600p and only has a small increase in FOV. For that sort of money I expect to get a headset with the resolution and FOV of the Pimax. If I'm going to be paying a high-end premium price for a headset I'm going to want high-end premium specs for the thing.

Was Oculus price gouging when they came out with the CV1 Rift price that high? I paid over $900 for my 3 sensor CV1 and over $1000 when you add in all the cable extensions and powered hubs, and the mounts. The Index comes with mounts and pretty much everything you need in the box except extension cables.

New tech normally comes in at a premium price and then falls. This is basically competing with the Vive Pro and is $400 cheaper. 

The Index appears to be a quality made item. (FedEx still hasnt' arrived with mine!) I originally guessed $899 as the price it would come in at based on the specs and the build quality and the fact that a high end headset is a niche item. I personally wasn't going to let $100 of value deter me from getting a quality headset.

GabeN said that the next objective is to get the price down so if you don't like the current price just wait. I could see this headset settling at $799 once the initial early adopter taxing is completed. 

I'm starting to question these peoples eye sight. I keep seeing no SDE but maybe there's a confusion on the term? I get that there's no traditional black line like looking through a screen but I can still see the gaps of the pixels quite easily in the shots I've seen. Even on the O+ which is championed for the low SDE...I still see it all over the place if I look for it. The difference with the O+ is I don't see it most of the time unless I'm looking for it and with the Rift CV1 I have to always try not to see it. 

pyroth309 said:

snowdog said:

Looks fantastic but I can't see it selling that much unfortunately due to Valve's greedy price gouging. It'll sell reasonably well through the launch and the launch window but those sales will soon dry up. I'm REALLY pissed off with Valve and their pricing. I could have afforded to buy one (if I hadn't already bought the Rift S) but I'm refusing to pay £920 for a headset that's only 1600p and only has a small increase in FOV. For that sort of money I expect to get a headset with the resolution and FOV of the Pimax. If I'm going to be paying a high-end premium price for a headset I'm going to want high-end premium specs for the thing.

Was Oculus price gouging when they came out with the CV1 Rift price that high? I paid over $900 for my 3 sensor CV1 and over $1000 when you add in all the cable extensions and powered hubs, and the mounts. The Index comes with mounts and pretty much everything you need in the box except extension cables.

New tech normally comes in at a premium price and then falls. This is basically competing with the Vive Pro and is $400 cheaper. 

The Index appears to be a quality made item. (FedEx still hasnt' arrived with mine!) I originally guessed $899 as the price it would come in at based on the specs and the build quality and the fact that a high end headset is a niche item. I personally wasn't going to let $100 of value deter me from getting a quality headset.

GabeN said that the next objective is to get the price down so if you don't like the current price just wait. I could see this headset settling at $799 once the initial early adopter taxing is completed. 

No. Oculus weren't price gouging, they just had an engineer as their COO instead of a businessman. This is also why the component shortage was a problem. Oculus sold the Rift and Touch controllers at cost when they launched, this is well documented.

Hans Hartmann sorted that component shortage out within a few weeks of him getting the job and managed to cut the price of both the Rift and Touch controllers by $100 each not too long after that.

The BIG difference is that there's absolutely no denying that Valve are price gouging. The 2.0 base stations are cheaper than the 1.0 ones to make, those 2.0 Lighthouse base stations cost $60 plus shipping to make, but they're selling them for MORE than the 1.0 base stations sold by HTC.

The price of the Rift S is also over the top, but I don't mind them making probably $100 profit on each one sold because they haven't made a penny on hardware sales apart from probably the Rifts made and sold during the last 6 months or so when they sold them for $399. But even then they cleared stock at the price of $349 towards the end so were probably selling at cost again.

Like I've said, I would have got an Index instead of a Rift S if it wasn't for the piss taking price of the full bundle. I could have afforded to get one but did not do so out of principle.

If I'm going to be spending almost a thousand pounds on a VR headset it needs to be a top of the range one in terms of specs like the Reverb or Pimax. And at 1600p and a 20 degree increase in FOV it certainly isn't top of the range.

Got my Index in. My quick impression - 

Aperture Hand lab was great albeit very short but it made me laugh. Finger tracking is cool but mine is not perfect and glitches out sometimes but works well enough. Supposedly it learns the more you use it and there's some kind of calibration but I'm not concerned with it at this point. It works just sometimes my middle finger doesn't come all the way down and I have to reach farther down. The squeeze motion is the best part of this controller and I wasn't ready for how good that feels in VR. Other than that, controllers feel good and are fairly comfortable. The sticks dont' feel natural being where they are to my hands. I almost wish they were flipped with the buttons but I'll get used to it. Also in Beat Saber, i found it more comfortable to just loosen the straps and grab the knuckles like drum sticks but at least I have that option. With them strapped on, it was a bit awkward hitting some of the blocks but I may just need to use it more. 

Visuals are good. I can see the SDE/RGB stripe arrangement easily but it's pretty small and not distracting so people saying there's no SDE should go get their eyes checked because it's definitely there and easily visible. Samsung Odyssey+ has less but this is a clearer image so yea pick your poison. Sweet Spot doesn't seem that large as I can get blur if it's not seated right. I'm also definitely seeing some god rays, similar to what I get on O+ I'd say. They don't blast you in the eye but they're there. FoV is not that noticeable either on the horizontal. I can tell it's a little wider but nothing to go crazy over yet. Vertical FoV is definitely more noticeable.

Colorwise... yea Beat saber doesn't pop like it does with the OLED. I think it still looks very good though and is acceptable. The Blacks so far look good but obviously are definitely not as dark or rich as O+ but they're not gray either like the Pimax. They're just a lighter black. Played a little bit of Elite Dangerous and it's acceptable to me. My pilots suit and all were very dark and I didn't go all that  far but things looked good enough. 

144hz... Yea it feels smooth as hell lol. Played some Beat Saber in the mode and everything is just so fast and there's an increased presence. 

The Comfort of this headset is great, the material is a lot softer than it looked to me. It's about as soft as an old broken in T-shirt lol. Fit and all is good for me, no issues. Nice and comfy. 

Something weird I noticed with SteamVR with this thing is that 100% resolution setting is actually 2016x2240 resolution. I will have to do some tinkering to find my performance limits. 

Audio is good, and I'm not ready to say if it's better than the CV1 or not but I'd say it's in that ballpark from what i've heard so far. It has some pros and cons but I need more time with it. It's definitely better than O+. I wish I could turn it just a little bit louder but there might be a setting or something I can mess with. I'll continue to tinker. 

Tracking... yea it's pretty much flawless. Anywhere in the room, any direction, any movement and is super steady and super responsive. Has me very excited. Definitely never experienced tracking this good before. 

I love the long cable it came with and the packaging was great. For now, my overall impressions of it are positive but I'll need a couple of days to find out what if anything is annoying about it. 

Overall visually it's not much better than O+. More sharpness, bigger sweet spot, not as colorful, not as dark of blacks but it destroys the O+ pretty much everywhere else. Comfort, Tracking, FoV, controllers, refresh rate, etc etc. 

All in all I'm pleased so far but we shall see how it goes over the next few days.