My interested in VR started when I walked past a local electronics store and noticed the Samsung Gear VR headset on display. When I put it on I was blown away! But being in the Apple ecosystem I didn’t have a Samsung smartphone, and the idea of buying one just for this purpose was surplus to requirements. Also, the idea of buying a VR headset that has cables connected to a PC or Playstation has never appealed to me. So instead, I opted to use my iPhone 6s in a rather cheap headset - even though I was fully aware this wasn’t the best VR experience available. Even still, I found the VR experience reasonably impressive, or so I thought.
Then along comes the Oculus Go.
Finally… a VR headset that is self-contained, comfortable to wear, and doesn’t require cable connections to any fancy graphic cards and PCs. This ticked all the boxes and was what I’d been waiting for! So after reading a number of product reviews, I decided to get it. I tried to kept my expectations low (even though I was excited inside!) as this sometimes doesn’t help me when I’m eagerly awaiting for a snazzy new product to arrive. My main wish, however, was that I wanted it to be a noticeable step up from my iPhone VR experience.
So when it arrived I excitedly unboxed it and set it up. I decided to give myself a few days to use it, as a fair assessment, before writing this review.
My first impressions is that it is solidly built and well made. It feels very comfortable to put on. The weight of the headset is about right, as expected. Of course, it would be nice if it was lighter, but it’s comfortable enough to wear. After turning it on and seeing the display screen for the first time I immediate thought a number of things. The resolution is good, although didn’t appear quite as sharp as I anticipated, but more on that later. The sense of emersion, however, what a real improvement! For the first time, I actually felt like I was there… rather than feeling like a distant spectator with narrow vision as per my smartphone-based system. This is because it has a wide field of view of approx 100 degrees (although not published) vs 60 degrees with my smartphone-based headset. Combined with the 72Hz refresh rate which adds to the clarity of movement this also undoubtedly contributes to the sense of emersion.
The Oculus Go comes with it’s own controller. I initially thought having to use a controller would detract from the VR experience, but I was wrong. It makes menu selection, system navigation and video scrubbing, etc, so much easier than the “move your head to the selection on the screen, and wait to confirm” concept. And using it throughout the VR experience feels quite natural, and surprisingly didn't require any learning curve to use it.
Now, on the resolution side of things. When I read the specs on the Oculus Go has a screen resolution of 2560 x 1440 (1280 x 1440 per eye) I was excited! Comparing this to the screen resolution of 1334 x 750 (667 x 750 per eye) on my iPhone 6s - I calculated the Oculus Go has 4 times the amount of pixels. So when I first turned on the Oculus Go I was expecting to see a visually crisp sharp 4k display. But it didn’t seem like this. It’s a great image, very clear and detailed, and better than the resolution on my iPhone 6s… but it’s not like watching the display on a 4k television. It’s hard to describe, but the pixel edges are not as crisp as I imagined they would be. Now I do understand resolution is a subjective thing. And there are other factors involved, as in the so-called “screen door” effect which is caused by the distance between the pixel elements. With the built-in optical lenses precisely tuned to allow our eyes to focus on visual content which is physically very close to the display panel, this is a co-incidental effect. (Although the Oculus Go has been reported as having the least noticeable screen-door effect across the range of VR headset devices on the market). But does this detract from my immersive VR experience? Usually no, but it depends on the quality of content being shown. Low resolution picture and video content on the VR headset looks horrible! However, high resolution pictures and 4k video content looks amazing!
The built-in speakers are reasonably good. Before it arrived I did pre-anticipate the built-in speakers would be low quality, but I’m pleasantly surprised with the sound quality. They are suitable for general occasions - but obviously not for privacy! There were a number of occasions I did forget that the sound was leaking to the outside world for all to hear. Slightly embarrassing, to say the least. But of course it is best to plug in a quality set of headphones for optimised sound quality. The downside is that is doesn’t support bluetooth headphones so it won’t connect to my Apple AirPods. I could use a bluetooth audio transmitter with a 3.5mm headphone jack, but it would ideally need to be mounted onto the headset, and can’t guarantee the audio quality it would transmit.
On the con side, the limited amount of onboard memory means it’s very easy to fill up particularly when transferring a number of 4k video files across onto the device, and I’m speaking from experience here. But using a video player that streams content from the PC (over the wifi network) or cloud storage avoids this limitation. The supported software on the Mac that allow file transfers is sometimes buggy, but it works. It’s a real shame that the device doesn’t have a built-in SD card reader.
Also, I find the battery runs down quite quickly, although I have been spending a fair amount of time on it since it arrived. I’m like a boy with a new toy, as they say. I probably get 2.5 hours of play from a full charge, which annoyingly takes the same amount of time to charge it.
I haven’t got too much into the Oculus Store software yet, but there seems to be a reasonable amount of apps and content available. And no doubt the number of apps will grow over time.
All in all - I love it! Which is why I give it a 5 star rating, otherwise it would be a more accurate 4.5 stars (if this was possible to do on Amazon). The pure simplicity of switching it on and it’s ready to go… no cables and no smartphone to worry about, and the share experience of emersion it gives - it’s totally worth it in my opinion.
The main question I had - is the Oculus Go a definite improvement over from my previous smartphone-based VR experience? Most definitely yes! But even more so, it’s vastly superior!
Now that I've experienced VR this good, there's no turning back! (unless you're watching a 360 degree video of course!)
Important Note: As mentioned in the Oculus Go care page it’s important to keep the lenses away from direct sunlight when the device is not in use as it can cause sun damage on the inside screen panel. You can cover it accordingly, but what I do is place the card that tells you where to download the app over the lenses. It’s provided in the original box and fits perfectly over the lenses. I nearly threw it away. So glad I didn’t.
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Amazing package for only $199
Ok, I got this not really expecting much, but I saw some reviews on reddit and a few other sites explaining how good it is for media. After a few days with the unit, here are my thoughts.- It is really comfy, especially if you have a larger head or wear glasses, even more comfortable than the Vive or the Rift!- The glasses insert isn't needed for YOUR glasses LOL. So many reviewers get this wrong. You have the option to order lenses for $79 in your prescription. If you order these, you'd use the lens spacer with THOSE! Not your personal glasses!- These are so comfy that you can easily sleep with them on- They remember where you left off, so if you are watching media on the web, Hulu, Netflix, Plex, Youtube, Vimeo or whatever, you just throw them back on and they resume where you left off. Great if you travel or if you need a break and you're in a depressing environment- The 3D Audio is SUPURB. Everything, even non-optimize content sounds incredible. Your ASMR Youtube videos will never feel more alive. When you move your head left or right, the audio adapts and changes as if the person is really there. I would recommend this for ASMR alone lol!- Lastly, VR/3D/60FPS/Binaural/4k-content has never been so amazing. For $199 you can be fully immersed in almost any reality you can imagine. Combined with the audio and the decent field of view, you are definitely in for a real treat. Combine it with (Brain(dot)fm) for mediation audio and prepare to be in a trance of wonder and excitement!- Setup was a breeze! Hats off to whoever designed this. Very in-depth pictures and videos for every step of the setup process made things quick and simple. I ran into some pairing issues with the remote because it was updating during the setup process, but the app has been updated since then.CONS:- Battery life sucks. Don't expect to get more than 1.5-2.5 hours out of this thing at the most. Depending on what you're doing, it can also get hot as well. If it gets too hot, you can't charge it and use it at the same time. Oculus also advises against charging it and using it at the same time. It seems to be ok for basic media consumption, but for gaming, I'd make sure to use it on the battery only. Some people are also building battery units for this thing.....yah....that's how bad the battery life is lol!- Storage. If you plan to keep this thing, definitely save the extra cash and spring for the 64GB version. When this thing hits 2GB of free storage or below, everything starts crashing and slowing down to a crawl. There's also no easy way to see how much storage you have, so be careful if you can only afford the 32GB version. It becomes truly limited when it approaches the capacity limit and you're trying to do something.- There are NO google apps for this thing. Sure, the browser works GREAT, but if you want the super high quality YouTube app with its easy login and ability to manage your queue from your phone, think again. Google wants nothing to do with the Oculus platform, so everything google related (Maps, Youtube, Search, Chrome, etc) will all need to be from the web.- Password mangement is a joke. If you have good password practices, be prepared to type in your super crazy complicated long login with a stupid virtual keyboard. Thankfully this is a one time thing, but FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PLEASE DEVELOP AN MOBILE OCULUS KEYBOARD lol!- The browser and video player are really good and really bad. Example, if you queue up a 360 YouTube video for a friend, take the headset off, then put it on your friend, it will EXIT the video and force your friend to learn the complex interface on the fly vs simply just leaving where you left off with the 360 video maximized in 360 view
Top reviews from the United States
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Top reviews from other countries
Ali M
Very nice and comfortable
Reviewed in Canada on July 5, 2020Size: 64GBConfiguration: SingleVerified Purchase
E®N
Great product!!!
Reviewed in Canada on March 26, 2019Size: 32GBConfiguration: SingleVerified Purchase
André Castillo ✔️
Buena resoluición, portable, hermoso y cómodo
Reviewed in Mexico on August 16, 2018Size: 64GBConfiguration: SingleVerified Purchase
Aristoteles
Bien
Reviewed in Mexico on October 16, 2018Size: 32GBConfiguration: SingleVerified Purchase
Ljupco Nikodinovski
Great headset - depends on what you already have.
Reviewed in India on October 11, 2018Size: 64GBConfiguration: SingleVerified Purchase
