THE BEYOND: A Massive Leap For VR Headsets

when you hear the words VR headset I bet the usual thought is something like this a brick that hangs off the front of your head which is fine and all it works but it doesn't have to be that way in fact I don't think it should be that way and after 6 months of usage just to make sure that I'm sure I can say that I'm properly converted today we are finally doing the final review of the big screen Beyond no longer just a prototype a lot has changed under the hood and while it is far from perfect and there's a lot of room to grow man I got a sweet sweet taste of what the future VR probably should be and I can't get enough of [Music] it so for the past 6 months or so I've been daily driving a couple different prototype units of the Beyond in total logging around 1,000 hours between all the versions that I've tested but this is the final production unit there's lots of changes here and they've actually fixed my and most people's biggest gripe with it but I think this thing needs a bit of an introduction because it's kind of unlike anything we've seen in a VR headset before so what exactly is the big screen Beyond well it's about as basic of a VR headset as you can possibly imagine that is if you can even call it a VR headset it's way closer to a set of VR goggles and it doesn't have any fancy bells and whistles there's no onboard processing like a Quest 2 no batteries or ey tracking or mixed reality it's just just a VR headset specialized to give the best VR experience that it can which is exactly why the Beyond is so tiny at 1027 G it's about a quarter of the weight of the Quest 2 and about a sth of the weight of the index it's so small in fact that it fits inside of most other VR headsets eye boxes which if you have absolutely no clue how big that is here's a banana for scale but onto the other details before we get into the specifics the Beyond is a native steam VR headset the downside here is that you have to buy controllers and base stations and set them up the positive though is that the tracking quality is fantastic all while being legitimately plug-and-play there's no other run times like Oculus needed here just steam VR and a few cables but there's one more really important thing before we move on every single Beyond is custom made for each individual user now we'll talk about whether this is worth it in a moment but it is something that no other VR head set has ever done basically you take a one-time face scan using an iPhone unfortunately it does have to be an iPhone I know it's annoying but it's a requirement to get the millimeter Precision face scan which is then used to make the custom face gasket made out of this gel-like material the headset will then literally fit your face like a glove it doesn't matter what face shape you have and the same goes for each user's ipd or the distance between your pupils the ipd is built into the headset so there's no slider or adjustment if your ipd is 67 like mine you'll get a headset with an ipd of 67 and all this means that while you'll get a crazy custom fit sharing the Beyond is just not possible to some that's a deal breaker but realistically for me at least 99% of the time I'm the only one using my headset but I have ran into the 1% of situations where it has become a problem because once you use the Beyond you are probably going to come across situations where you're going to want to share it it's a weird Paradox or maybe a curse you'll have moments where you experience something amazing or a certain scene looks incredibly realistic that it's jaw-dropping and you'll want to show someone but the very thing that made that experience so amazing is the same reason why you can't show anyone else which perfectly brings us to the specifics of the Beyond so let's just start with the absolute best parts of this headset before we get into my nitpicks and some of the true negatives of the Beyond inside are two 2560 x 2560 micro Ola displays capable of 75 to 90 HZ refresh rate and straight up the Beyond displays are some of the best I've ever seen in a VR headset period And I also have to say that after my experience with the Beyond I'm convinced that micro oleds need to become the standard for VR within the next 5 years they just have so many benefits over other display types for VR purposes 8,000 times faster pixel response time compared to LCD no mirror or hazy visual artifacts like OLED displays but they still have a really amazing contrast ratio and color range Black is Black leading to Shadows looking significantly more realistic and environments especially ones that have any sort of Shadows look amazing and from Half-Life Alex to Crazy VR chat worlds to vertigo 2 everything just looks better and I wish everyone could see this sort of contrast ratio in VR it's a different world from LCDs like there are times I legitimately get lost in VR because it's realistically dark and uh just a word of advice on that topic do not play any horror games with the Beyond if you get scared easily it's one thing playing something scary with an LCD headset where everything's pretty gray and well lit it's a whole different experience being an actual crippling Darkness where you are you which brings us onto the brightness of these displays the Beyond doesn't get very bright at its standard brightness actually it's dimmer than most other VR headsets but because of the custom face gasket there is absolutely zero light leak meaning you cannot see anything outside of the virtual now this alone makes everything way more immersive since you're sort of forced to be sucked into VR there's no peeking at reality through a nose Gap loud but there's another pretty big benefit for this headset because the only light your eyes are receiving are from the displays there's no other light source so even though they're dimmer than most headsets they end up being bright enough that when I switch between complete darkness and for example ghost of Tor to using night vision goggles it feels like opening up light mode Discord at 3:00 a.m. and I'll also say that you can turn up the brightness actually quite a bit but if you're prone to motion sickness turning up the brightness does increase persistence a sort of motion blur like effect which can trigger motion sickness I personally bounce between 100 and 150% depending on how I'm feeling that day but some people prefer going all the way down to 50% it's just totally dependent on what you like and how much persistence you think you can handle another side thing that I love about the Beyond is that it has without a doubt the best microphone that has ever been put on a VR headset and uh to prove it this entire video was recorded using it boom mic drop and to give some comparisons this is what my normal mic sounds like and this is what the quest mic sounds like and I got to be real I don't even know why I have a $1,000 mic setup anymore this thing's mic slaps and I don't know why microphones like this aren't prioritized in more VR headsets yeah I'm looking at you HTC but of course the other main positive of the Beyond is obviously the size weight and comfort and I think that's obvious but it really is an even bigger deal for VR than it seems physically look if you've been into VR at all for the past few years you like me are probably used to just putting on a half pound toaster on your face for who knows how long you get used to it after a while but once you move away from that form factor and that whole idea it's not just about the immediate benefit of a lighter weight headset in something this small the displays are just physically closer to your eyes mix that with the headset not being as long either so it just doesn't wiggle around as you wiggle around on almost every headset if you shake your head side to side violently that it bounces all over the place and while you may not notice it super heavy because that's the only thing you've ever seen a headset like this just keeps everything way clear way more often while you're moving moving and really you don't realize how much this affects just your general VR experience until it just doesn't do it anymore there's also significantly less neck strain there's no hot spot from weight sitting on your cheeks I'm adjusting the headset way less and I'm using VR way more look for all the hassle of an iPhone 3D scan and the terrible terrible curse of never being able to show anybody how good this thing looks on the Inside Man the Comfort Clarity and overall experience is like I'm using a headset from the future or at least what I'd hope headsets are like in the future but of course then you crash back down to earth and realize it's still 2023 and while there's a lot of good here there's still a lot that needs Improvement and I think the biggest one has to be the lenses these pancake lenses aren't Terrible by any means and they made a lot of improvements over the previous versions but they're certainly not perfect in super high contrast scenes say white text on a completely black background there will will be a slight glare on those bright objects it's not a huge deal breaker and it's not that bad but I got to mention it it's something that I don't want to see in a version two if it's possible but I think the more distracting thing I noticed more and more over time especially as I came back to using the Beyond from using the quest Pro for about a month is that the Beyond just simply does not have perfect edge to edge Clarity there's a very very slight ring of distortion around the very edge of the lenses this isn't something that you'll notice when you're looking straight forward but if you turn your head and look to the far Edge well it's there meaning you'll just be moving your head around a lot more with the Beyond rather than using your eyes to look around and there's also a slight issue with the Beyond's Sweet Spot the headset is Tiny the lenses are tiny and so that sweet spot where your eyes lenses and displays align perfectly is also kind of small sometimes I have to take 20 or 30 seconds to get it in the right spot and I think this problem is actually exacerbated by the soft strap that's included I personally don't think the soft strap is that bad it's definitely usable and I also don't mind the fact that there's no built-in audio I've just been using airpods Pro with this and it's a freaking awesome tiny little combo but just for the rigidity sake and also for this sweet spot I am eagerly anticipating the upcoming hard audio strap that's coming later this year but I just haven't had a chance to try it so here's the review using this and of course I think the biggest problem I and a lot of people have with the Beyond which is just kind of unavoidable given the form factor is the field of view now I want to preface this with saying that it has gotten a lot better over the past few months they did some black magic and the fov increased by about 10% between the last prototype and this version which means I now get a field of view of around 101° on a good day which is slightly better than the Quest 2 and only slightly worse than the index of course your field of view is entirely subjective if you have a face pad that's way thicker than mine you'll probably get a lower field of view but for me I actually don't mind giving up some field of view compared to the index or Quest Pro and that's only because everything else is so much better than those headsets in fact I have chosen to not only use the Beyond but I keep coming back to it every time I try and get away from it and every time I do it kind of feels like coming home it reminds me of whenever I used to use the quest and then come back to the index I kind of have that that but with every headset coming back to the Beyond now and at the end of the day I think the Beyond is really just all about compromises right now and it's not a bad compromise but if you think of a VR headset as having a skill graph where you only have a certain number of points you can assign something like the Quest 2 or three they are true jack of all trades they're decent at everything but they're not the best in any one single thing whereas the Beyond just put all of its skill points into two or three sections yeah it's entirely incapable of some things that the quest 3 can do but the Beyond absolutely sweeps the floor regarding comfort and pcvr usage and of course I could wish for a lot of things for the Beyond like I wish it had eye tracking and hand tracking and I wish it was Wireless which may actually be happening by the way or I can wish that it had passed through or was camera tracked and had an xr2 Gen 2 and it run other games other than a PC but the exclusion of all of those things is exactly what makes the Beyond feel so razor focused and it's exactly what big screen set out to do if steam VR usage is your onion well this is a chef's knife yeah I can cut an onion with the Swiss army knife but if I had the choice I'd pick a chef's knife any day ah but now this is the hard part would I recommend people go out and spend ,000 on the Beyond well if you are a current Steam VR user like you already have Bas stations and Knuckles and you're looking to upgrade your Vive or index or even Vive Pro then yes I would absolutely recommend the Beyond as an upgrade it'll slot right into your setup you're not going to really lose that much maybe a few degrees field of view but you'll get a lot out of it and I do think that you'll be enjoying this headset for a long time also depending on the headset that you're upgrading from this may have better durability I literally threw my Beyond in a backpack through all of Japan and uh well it's still work fine and on the other side if you're not a current steam VR user but you're looking for probably the best PC VR headset out there that doesn't have ey tracking we'll talk about the ones that do in a different video then well it's all up to your budget if you want to throw around $1,500 at a VR headset for Bas stations and controllers and the headset then yeah it's good but no this is not the best value for your money if you're going for Value the Beyond is just not it the Quest 2 3 Pro Pico four they all do the majority of the Beyond's job in pcvr but also do a lot more on top of that basically this does offer some of the best VR money can buy right now but most other headsets still get you most of the way there for a lot cheaper it's really just a matter of do you want the best displays and the best Comfort there is if that's you and you know you're going to use steam VR then well looks like it's time for you to sell a kidney my friend otherwise if you don't fit into those categories and you don't have money to blow then just totally pass on it Beyond any sort of recommendations though my real conclusions are that I love the Beyond it really boils down to three main things that I think it does better than anything else out there the form factor the micro oleds and of course the ease of use it's just plug and playay it's so nice I really hope that every manufacturer is looking at the Beyond right now and wondering how they can get their headsets to be this small it's just a real GameChanger and it's also funny because if you go this small you have to use micro oleds so that's a double positive and so while the Beyond today is a very Niche pcvr Enthusiast headset that I would not recommend to everyone I truly hope that the DNA of the Beyond spreads across the VR industry because in my opinion this thing is doing something very very right and I'm also pretty proud of it because it shows that while pcvr may not get all the exclusive games that Quest has and it'll probably never have the same amount of players as mobile VR there is still a lot of really cool Innovation happening for the space and that's not going to go anywhere and it makes me happy that this headset regardless of whether you buy it or not is good for VR as a whole and it's good for me because it's the headset that makes me actually want to get into VR and you know what that's kind of invaluable okay so I hope you all enjoyed what do you guys think about the Beyond are you going to cop it or not and also don't worry I will be doing a video on the vario Arrow it's now the same price as the Beyond and it's also an incredible headset but it is targeted towards different types of people that want different things so I will be revisiting it and comparing both that to the Beyond and the pimax Crystal as well anyways thank you so much to my patreon supporters especially my Omas I couldn't do any of this without you guys and don't forget to like this video if you loved it subscribe if you want more of this and hit that freaking Bell if you just can't live without it much love thrill out o

Channel: ThrillSeeker

Views: 354,734

Keywords: vr, virtual reality, quest 3, beyond, bigscreen beyond, valve index, thrillseeker, tuesday newsday, quest 2, quest, meta quest, oculus quest, VR games, VR headset, Best VR headset, Best VR games, ar, augmented reality

Id: ZCXmv27o3AU

Length: 16min 33sec (993 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 07 2023