Oculus Announces Six Week Sale of $399 Rift + Touch Bundle

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• slapdash - Wednesday, July 19, 2017 - link

  I've had all 3 Psvr vive and now rift. Rift is the best one hands down. I've gone from being annoyed with Gen 1 VR to actively loving it.
  
  Most of the BS you read about oculus is based on the past. Rift NOW works sublimely, looks better, feels better, and has better quality software. And also plays steam VR stuff too. Win/Win (for half the price!).
  
  No offence but you do sound like a noob asking about 'needs room'. Neither Vive nor Rift absolutely NEED large rooms or roomscale, though many of the games will. But 2m x 1.5x can cover it (an average room playspace) and BOTH can do larger. Vive can go larger more easily but by that point most people can't use that space as too big.
  
  I had Vive set up in my 15 x 10 (feet) room and now have rift doing similar. Rift works just as well basically but FEELS so much nicer to use, it's very slick, the controls are awesome compared to the terrible vive wands with limited buttons and clunky feel.
  
  I've had PSVR too - avoid it - the tracking is terrible. I sold vive/psvr as wasn't happy with either. Rift cost me less than both and is twice as good as both combined.

• slapdash - Wednesday, July 19, 2017 - link

  Oh and graphically, the rift is so much better with SDE and Clarity that it makes the Vive look more like my old DK2 (lots of pixelation and screen door). Rift shocked me with how much sharper/higher res it looks even though it's technically the same res as Vive. It's just better thought out how they use the pixels (cram more in the middle where it counts). FOV is very VERY similar in practice and in fact I prefer the FOV shape on Rift. Vive was a weird full circle look when putting it on until tuning it out with the brain, used to annoy me everytime. But rift's FOV is easier to tune out, same with the rift's soft god rays vs the vives concentric ring (lens) highlighting which makes you feel like your eyes are watering and you are looking through a window when they kick in, on rift the god rays are THERE but they are just far less annoying/immersion breaking.
  
  At half the price even at the SAME price I couldn't ever seriously say get a Vive (or PSVR) over rift. Rift is the ONLY gen 1 VR product I've tried that meets my 'bare minimum' of acceptability in all important areas: Screen clarity, sweet spot (focus area), weight, ergonomics, tracking, controllers, software, price... VIVE and PSVR mess up on those areas between them (so Vive has great tracking but horrible ergonomics - PSVR has good ergonomics but woeful tracking etc) RIFT has great 'all round' in all areas ability.
  
  Gen 1 = Rift. Wait for gen 2 if you want something better cos Vive is worse... much much worse.

• rtho782 - Sunday, July 16, 2017 - link

  Everything I've seen says the oculus touch controllers are better than the Vive ones.

• blackcrayon - Monday, July 17, 2017 - link

  They (Touch) are better than the Vive wands for most things. Too bad they didn't originally ship with the Rift! On the other hand, Valve has controllers coming out that will leapfrog Touch. And the Vive's tracking design makes expanding tracking (both area wise and # of devices) much more feasible in general.

• slapdash - Wednesday, July 19, 2017 - link

  Actually no it isn't. I used to think (and talk) like you right up until I bought a rift (on offer) to replace my long sold, and not missed, vive.
  
  The rift is better in EVERY way except for tracking, and the tracking is now fine for most uses (inc roomscale).
  
  I detest the way those who've only had one, not both, talk about the Vive 'being superior', you sound like idiots, sorry.
  
  There is an entire essay to be written about how the Rift is better than the vive but until you try it you'll continue under your delusion.
  
  For everyone else reading, do not believe this guy, he is wrong.
  
  The rift is better in all the following areas (over Vive which I sold as hated wearing it)
  
  SDE
  Screen quality
  Lens Quality
  Black Levels
  Mura (lack of dirty blacks - vive was almost as bad as PSVR for dirty blacks)
  HMD build quality/finish
  Weight
  Size
  Comfort
  built in headphones (and nice ones at that! Hated putting phones on afterwards in Vive and PSVR)
  Ease of putting on/off
  Controllers
  Ease of use (home/software is a bit more fun and solid for VR use vs steam)
  Sweet spot
  God rays (it has god rays but to me they are easier to live with than the Vive's ring rays)
  Movement ease (due to less weight and better design I can move head up down and look at floor/ceiling much better without it moving out of sweet spot)
  Tracking setup - pop the cams down - done. No drilling no gremlins no constant recalibration as I had with vive.
  Packaging/storage - original rift case is LUSH and far higher quality than the foam/cardboard Vive thing (though this may change with new rift all in one bundle)
  Charging of controls - I LOVE just popping a single AA battery into touch, they last ages, far longer than the Vive wands did, and then I can just pop a recharged battery in (got 8 back ups) and continue, no waiting for wands to charge via usb! (also those battery covers are a beautiful slick design... magnetised to aid refitting they almost put themselves back on! :) )
  General polish of all the main supported software (the oculus stuff and home, the new games, the freebies like Robo recall - better on rift with touch than hacked on vive with revive)
  The cable - lighter, thinner and less annoying than Vive's original cable
  The shape of the FOV - The Shape? Yes! on Vive It's like looking through a pure circle at first, I always found it offputting and little too diver's masky for my tastes (even if it's technically a bit larger than rift), on rift it has a typical oblong/soft rectangle shape which lets me forget about it more easily. I always assumed FOV 'shape' would be in Vive's favour having read about the rift but no, rift I just forget about the FOV just like I forget about the god rays far easier than I could in Vive.
  oh and... now... THE PRICE! HALF THE PRICE FGS! :)
  
  the tl;dr of this is essentially: The vive is a pain to use, the ergonomics are a joke and even with the DAS the audio quality and comfort are STILL not as good as rift. Meanwhile rift at half price is a beautiful product. Super comfy, much better controls, much better software (properly mapped to touch not hacked through revive which never felt as good), much better price, much easier to use, much more fun to use, looks better (graphically) thanks to less SDE and higher pixel density in the area where you look most.
  
  I really dreaded putting the vive on for VR and it felt unready (esp for the price) to be sold as a consumer product. Rift on the other hand has blown me away with how polished, refined and all round BETTER it is than Vive. And that's not just the looks or controllers or externals, but the actual VR is better because it's often smoother, looks sharper, has better/smoother uniformity of light/shade, better blacks etc.
  
  The guy above is another vive only joker, I've had both + PSVR and the ONLY one that remains is Rift and it's clearly above the other two in all ways (except Vive's extremely robust tracking but even that has downsides/gremlins and is overkill for most rooms inc mine).

• slapdash - Wednesday, July 19, 2017 - link

  BTW you really are uninformed.
  
  1. The add on strap for Vive is STILL less comfy than rift (i've tried it!) and the headphones on the Vive one are nowhere near as good sounding NOR as ergonomic as rift.
  
  2. It doesn't fit like PSVR at all! I've had PSVR and neither rift nor vive (with new strap) fit like PSVR. Furthermore, while PSVR is very good ergonomically (the head mount is a very good system) it too has issues of comfort when wearing for an hour or more, namely the sides dig in and the plastic aroudn the head starts to make your head ache (no flex). It's great by having zero pressure on your face but in reality I now find RIFT the comfiest of all 3, I often forget i'm even wearing it as the head part (rubberised rigid strap) is extremely comfy, it just melts away. The vive even with new strap and esp without, was so uncomfy it's ridiculous. Furthermore you couldn't even look around properly as if you look at the ground it rides up (then the poor sweet spot and ring rays mean you lose focus + get glares). On rift you can look everywhere and it stays put, it's VERY light compared to Vive, esp the vive's super heavy front weight.
  
  The add on strap is a band-aid for a very poor original, it looks monsterous (ugly) too and in no way is it as good as the svelte, comfy and designed from the start to be part of the system - Rift system.
  
  The only place you could say Vive has more comfort is if you wear large glasses there's a little more room inside vive to get them in, I don't wear glasses so don't care. Rift is absolutely awesome next to Vive, from controllers, to screens, to comfort, to software and now to price.
  
  Please try n spin yer way out of that, it will only show how biased you are.
  
  Or maybe actually go buy/try the rift and wake up.

• slapdash - Wednesday, July 19, 2017 - link

  lastly - have fun buying vive for double the price THEN adding another 100 to even ATTEMPT to get close to what the rift feels like in use, out of the box, for just $399.
  
  A fool and his money...

• slapdash - Wednesday, July 19, 2017 - link

  I agree 100%, I've had both Vive and Rift. I almost lost faith in gen 1 entirely after Vive, then PSVR (owned and sold both). I picked up rift (previously avoided cos facebook mainly) at this price as was too good to refuse and was simlar price to my old DK2 rift but with controls too ! :) I expected much of the same problems that annoyed me in vive but was willing to take it for half the price, man I was surprised to find MOST of those problems don't even exist on Rift! And now VR has gone from a clunky, ill thought chore to use to a slick, pleasurable, comfy experience in the Rift that I can wear for literally hours without any discomfort or desire to leave VR. I couldn't stand more than an hour in Vive due to bad design and bad SDE.
  
  Rift looks loads better than Vive too (even at same res) because of how the screen and lenses are, it's more like a gen 1.5 next to the Vive which graphically (screens) felt more like a small upgrade from my dk2.

• Mugur - Wednesday, July 12, 2017 - link

  Good price, if you can find it. On Amazon UK the offer is 399 GBP. A bit more than the 399 USD...

• valinor89 - Wednesday, July 12, 2017 - link

  399GBP is 450€ wich is what the bundle costs in the official web store, wich is 514$ for you north americans.
  Not cheap by any means.