HP Reverb G2 - The Hype is real

[Balmung]

I could not find a Tweet about the HP Reverb G2, so i create this one.

First, 4K though the lens video with Elite Dangerous:

MRTV has exclusivity videos about this new headset, that is coming in September if you pre-order it right now (~599 Euro). I already pre-ordered.

And here is a preview, he has a pre production sample.

This headset is a dream when it comes to image quality, they made all better than in the G1. Awesome Sweetspot, impressive Colors, bright display, good black level (all on a RGB Matrix LCD near OLED quality), the 114° FoV is this time really 114°, no Mura, no seeing the edge of the display on the outer side (like G1). Sounds too good to be true. And than you get the Audio solution from the Valve Index on top of that, better VR Controllers that looks more like the Oculus Touch and 2 side cameras for better WMR tracking. And the micro is as good as the Valve Index one, not as bad as the Oculus one. And it has a manual slider for IPD from 60-68mm.

Yes, I am a bit hyped.

From Europe you can pre-order it for example here, they send to many countries:

HP Reverb G2 (Rev. 2) incl. Controller

› Resolution: 4320 x 2160 Px › Field of View: 114° › HD-certified VALVE On-Ear Speaker› incl. 2 Wireless Motion Controllers

bestware.com

US/World: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1271440/HP_Reverb_G2/

Don't forget to retweet and like that Tweet, we need a 4K video!

 

[LutzBY]

This headset is a dream when it comes to image quality, they made all better than in the G1. Awesome Sweetspot, impressive Colors, bright display, good black level (all on a RGB Matrix LCD near OLED quality), the 114° FoV is this time really 114°, no Mora, no seeing the edge of the display on the outer side (like G1). Sounds too good to be true.

All that pre-release talk is nonsence. I dont trust MRTV in particular and "through the lenses" videos in general.
But on paper this looks really promising, except controllers, which is okay, but supposedly worse then 2nd gen oculus touch.

 

[Kyokushin]

Through the lens from G1

Source: https://youtu.be/LtU6f_9BN9M

Source: https://youtu.be/fa5AaI-0pxE


It seems do not have noticable difference in comparison to G2.
But surely the G2 is the best headset on the market at now.

 

[Balmung]

You can see the smaller Sweetspot on the G1, also the colors do not look that good. Hard to say something about the black levels.

All that pre-release talk is nonsence. I dont trust MRTV in particular and "through the lenses" videos in general.
But on paper this looks really promising, except controllers, which is okay, but supposedly worse then 2nd gen oculus touch.

The controller is really a big question, MRTV could not test it because that two he had from the pre-production model did not work (missing drivers?). He tested the tracking with the old G1 controllers. So we do not know how good the buttons, triggers and sticks are. But the build quality looked good so far.

I know what you mean about MRTV, he has something on himself that i also do not like that much and he also overdo it often with his "Hype", but i can handle that and on the other side... if he would lying on the important things, his channel would be dead soon. All what he do there is only something worth when you could trust him and i am sure he knows this. The only thing is you should not take his "that is awesome" like phrasing too serious.

We will see how good the G2 is at the end, if i do not like it than i could take it back. We have here in Germany a 2 week right of return on online bought products without a reason (without a problem as long the product shows no heavy usage). But the G1 was from the concept no bad idea and the G2 seems to make all better now. And also HP should know, that the G2 should be a rounder product than the G1 and that Valve helped on the G2 calms me down.

In an hour comes a new video up with a Image comparison with Rift S and Valve Index.

Edit: here it is, a Elite Dangerous video is coming soon.

 

[aXeL]

Except for the sweetspot it doesn't appear different to my G1 'verb. Really need a side by side review of old and new

 

[LutzBY]

You can see the smaller Sweetspot on the G1, also the colors do not look that good. Hard to say something about the black levels.


The controller is really a big question, MRTV could not test it because that two he had from the pre-production model did not work (missing drivers?). He tested the tracking with the old G1 controllers. So we do not know how good the buttons, triggers and sticks are. But the build quality looked good so far.

I know what you mean about MRTV, he has something on himself that i also do not like that much and he also overdo it often with his "Hype", but i can handle that and on the other side... if he would lying on the important things, his channel would be dead soon. All what he do there is only something worth when you could trust him and i am sure he knows this. The only thing is you should not take his "that is awesome" like phrasing too serious.

We will see how good the G2 is at the end, if i do not like it than i could take it back. We have here in Germany a 2 week right of return on online bought products without a reason (without a problem as long the product shows no heavy usage). But the G1 was from the concept no bad idea and the G2 seems to make all better now. And also HP should know, that the G2 should be a rounder product than the G1 and that Valve helped on the G2 calms me down.

In an hour comes a new video up with a Image comparison with Rift S and Valve Index.

Edit: here it is, a Elite Dangerous video is coming soon.

Road to VR praised G2 for its clarity too. It is good on paper (almost twice PPI of Rift S, which is already decent). Two major drawbacks that i can see - questionable conrollers and its tracking and FOV. Why anyone except pimax ignore that? And while its will be distributed through HP channels and would be available in most major countries, we still not be getting it.
And MRTV reminds me of "corrupt" sweviver, partially because of him im stuck with pimax 5k+) And unfortunately we cant return or replace "complex electronic products" in my country. So im kinda sensitive for what YT "exclusive hand ons" is feeding us.

 

[Kyokushin]

Except for the sweetspot it doesn't appear different to my G1 'verb. Really need a side by side review of old and new

And even sweetspot seems not be higher than in G1. The perception of sweetspot depend of IPD.
If someone have 63 (as me) then on G1 have large sweetspot. So the large sweetsport perception partially depend from mechanical IPD adjustment (same as FOV).

 

[VR StarLightPL]

I dont trust MRTV in particular and "through the lenses" videos in general.

As someone who tried doing through the lens videos, one with a prosumer DSLR and the other with a smartphone, I say all TTL videos are rubbish

Through the lens from G1
It seems do not have noticable difference in comparison to G2.

Ah yes, we did it back to back then, here's one for the Index:

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEaWmJT9TfA

It's wiggly because my phone couldn't fit in the Index well and I was too afraid to scratch the lenses

FOV. Why anyone except pimax ignore that?

Because wider FOV means canted screens, distortions and parallel projection and requires implementation on game's side or will cost you dearly in performance (fps) because the headset software needs to compensate. Accomodating for canted screens is something for example Frontier never bothered to do. Index's canted screens are pushing it to the limit you can fit without requiring excessive perspective correction.

Also FOV is the key selling point of Pimax, it's normal that they will toot that horn to oblivion.

 

[Kyokushin]

As someone who tried doing through the lens videos, one with a prosumer DSLR and the other with a smartphone, I say all TTL videos are rubbish

Mine is done by gayphone xs

 

[VR StarLightPL]

In an hour comes a new video up with a Image comparison with Rift S and Valve Index.

Also: as someone who has the Index and did through the lenses vid I can tell that the "screendoor effect" (black dots everywhere) he's demonstrating on the video are the artifacts of lenses between the camera and Valve's lenses. It never looks that bad in the headset itself. What does look bad and isn't shown much on this video are glare and godrays, which is a tradeoff for wide clear FOV. Compromises, compromises...

Mine is done by gayphone xs

Yeah it's smaller form factor really helps, meanwhile my Oneplus "brick" barely fitted into the headset, I was filming this on a very weird angle.

 

[aXeL]

Road to VR praised G2 for its clarity too. It is good on paper (almost twice PPI of Rift S, which is already decent). Two major drawbacks that i can see - questionable conrollers and its tracking and FOV. Why anyone except pimax ignore that? And while its will be distributed through HP channels and would be available in most major countries, we still not be getting it.
And MRTV reminds me of "corrupt" sweviver, partially because of him im stuck with pimax 5k+) And unfortunately we cant return or replace "complex electronic products" in my country. So im kinda sensitive for what YT "exclusive hand ons" is feeding us.

FOV: HP didn't ignore it. They already commented that they had to make a decision on FOV and PPI. Based on market feedback ( and having worked on product development with HP - they're pretty hot on market feedback ) they decided to keep PPI as the priority between those two variables. Personally, I'd like more FOV too but apparently we're not in the majority.

Availability in Countries: HP weren't selling the G1 in the UK when I bought mine so I bought it from Amazon US - no issues with shipping or delivery.

 

[Franc Kaos]

Personally, I'd like more FOV too but apparently we're not in the majority.

Here too, whilst I really like the colours on the G2 (and the clarity at the beginning of the vid was freaking awesome), a wider FOV wins every time for me, plus Elite was the only game where I needed to read text and the Index was such a massive boost from the Rift CV1 that I still think it's the best one on the market (for me).
And I know he kind'a brushed over system specs but the Rift S can be driven by a far less powerful PC than I'm betting the G2 requires for all that ocular goodness.

 

[VR StarLightPL]

And I know he kind'a brushed over system specs but the Rift S can be driven by a far less powerful PC than I'm betting the G2 requires for all that ocular goodness.

Actually @Kyokushin which has G1.5 variant says that, counter-intuitively the Reverb requirements aren't that much higher. That's because panel resolution is higher and you don't have to crank up supersampling to try to make up for it. As far as I know he is sporting a GTX 1080Ti. In games like Elite Dangerous which has large text it doesn't really matter, all you notice is that text is a bit more blurry on the Index, but in things like flight sims portrayed on this MRTV video, clarity wins anyday. That said, I wouldn't like to downgrade to inside-out tracking and hacking around for knuckles support so I'm waiting for the next gen SteamVR. That comparison vid shows that Index still has a passable resolution, so I myself can safely ignore the Reverb for now.

 

[VR andysonofbob]

How do these high def HMD sweet spots compare to the Rift S? I am always blown away by it. I can play racers and can see the gear up indicators on the wheel looking forward, something I could never do with CV1.
I think I would really miss that.
I would like a bit high definition though... and more FOV (just feel less claustrophobic even if you aren't looking at the sides)
So massive sweetspot, large fov and higher def please! Same performance as Rift S. Same price as well.
Oh and decent headphones too... please?
Did I say same price and performance?

 

[Balmung]

In 6 hours this video goes live:

 

[VR StarLightPL]

In 6 hours this video goes live:

I really hope 4k is available here later (when YT processes it), because at 1080p it was frankly horrible.

 

[Space Dandy]

Looks much better than the rift s if you ask me!

Also did I read/hear right that the G2 can use the lighthouse system for tracking?

 

[CMDR Dizzy]

What's with the huge glow on the yellows in the different headsets ?

 

[Balmung]

Looks much better than the rift s if you ask me!

Also did I read/hear right that the G2 can use the lighthouse system for tracking?

Not really, but you could use the Valve Index controller / HTC Vive Trackers with the G2 in a mixed setup:

 

[Balmung]

I really hope 4k is available here later (when YT processes it), because at 1080p it was frankly horrible.

Problem is: the most compression algorithm have problems with really dark video footage. But know it is available also in 4K, but even there you could see the compression artifacts on the darker parts...