Can someone tell me how big of an impact to the eyes this transition is? I am reluctant to buy it because I am not sure if I am going to like the change if it's a huge difference.
The immersion of virtually being in a pilots seat created by having 3d view and 360 look around rather than looking at a small screen rendering the ships dashboard at arms length totally makes it worth the small sacrifice in visual acuity IMHO going from screen to VR. Sure, theres some ghings that will be better on screen than VR, like some text is a bit blurry, so you lean in to make it more legible, though in a CV1 sniping with rails it a challenge, however, the CV1 is a good gateway to VR, some folk find it nauseates them with "sim-sickness" others find the headsets claustrophobic, etc, so getting a CV1 lets you try it out cheap, and you won't lose much money jogging on the headset if it isn't for you.
The CV1 is the easiest headset in the world to set up, but for similar money you can get much better headsets from the Windows Mixed Reality offerings, these are higher resolution, but require a bit if a faff to set up, which I'll explain. Hook in a WMR headset to windows 10, it downloads the WMR home thingy automatically, you then install steam VR through Steam, and WMR for Steam VR plug in, then install Elite through Steam, and launch in Steam VR mode. it's bit of a kerfuffle, but PM me if you need advice or hit the VR sub forum. I'd recommend you try some of the WMR headsets from somewhere that deals in used tech but accepts returns like CEX in the UK. The reson for that recommendation is so you can try one and say VR is for you but you found the speakers lacking, you could look for one with better speakers or a headphone jack, or if you found the headset uncomfortable, you could try one with a different design of mounting.