The Oculus GO is Facebooks newest VR Headset, released this year. Compared to current generation headsets, there are a lot of differences. The first thing to note is that the Oculus GO classifies as Mobile VR, where as other known popular headsets such as the Oculus Rift & HTC Vive are fullfledged VR.
This is mainly due to the Oculus GO having what is called 3 DOF (Degrees of freedom), where as the other ones we just mentioned have 6 DOF. To expand on this a little more, with the Oculus GO, you can look around in any directions, but you can’t actually move through virtual space. Your real-life movements won’t work in Virtual Reality at all, where as it does with high end devices.
Unfortunately, this makes gaming feel like a massive downgrade, with most experiences not being anywhere near as enjoyable as real VR. You don’t get to experience the thrill of Superhot, play
almost perfect ping pong or just get working hand tracking. With these negative points, there also some positives.
Firstly, the screen. Current generation headsets are approaching two years old, and it’s clear that the technology has advanced a lot since then. In this $200 device, you’re going to get a much better picture than the Oculus Rift or HTC Vive. The resolution is higher and the SDE has been minimized to the point where it’s almost invisible. SDE stands for screen door effect and is exactly what it sounds like.
With current VR, you feel like you are looking through a ‘screen door’. The lines that separate the pixels in the headsets is clearly visible and takes away from the immersion. Watching movies in the Vive doesn’t feel great, as the SDE is just hard to ignore. Where as on the GO, the picture is as clear as I’ve ever seen. You can’t forget how simple it is to place the headset on and off with its wireless technology and motion detection.
Using the Oculus GO also offers a much more polished experience. Instead of having to just use an application like Virtual Desktop to watch Netflix, it instead has its own app. You sit on a sofa, choose your movie and the lights go dark. I’ve never had such as immersive movie watching experience in VR. Some much-needed apps such as Google Earth are yet to hit the App Store. It’s unknown whether they ever will. Until then, you can use Google Earth on the Oculus GO using workarounds.
