Tested: Oculus Rift Review

It’s finally here! We’ve been testing the consumer version of the Oculus Rift for the past week, and share our thoughts and impressions of the final hardware and launch software. Norm and Jeremy discuss the most frequently asked questions about the ergonomics, display, screen door effect, tracking range, and how gamepad virtual reality games hold up. The new age of VR begins!

Shot by Joey Fameli, edited by Norman Chan

Comments (22)

22 thoughts on “Tested: Oculus Rift Review

  1. Very, very happy with the CV1 after waiting since 2012. Oculus delivered fantastically. So much fun.

    Very, very irritated with the OVRservice that is installed and monitors all and sends info constantly (every view seconds) to Facebook servers from the moment you boot up the PC whether you start or quit Oculus Home or not. As the privacy agreement is entirely unrestricted this needs to be clarified in more detail. There is no reason for opening up to your PC to Facebook particularly if you don’t connect your Rift. After killing the OVRservice the shop, download and games still work so it seems mostly unrelated to actually using the CV1 .

  2. Cant wait for the vive review, I am have a very tough time weighing the pros and cons of both systems

    I love the games on the Rift, but the Vive has touch.

    I love the head set on the RIft but the VIve has room scale and chaperon.

    This is going to be a very very tough choice.

  3. did you notice the “god rays”/smearing during the cv1 demos at gdc? the description from ppl who had tried it never seemed to mention it.

  4. Dang. I was really hoping that they were going to design it in such a way that the lenses would be easily replaceable for prescription lenses. As someone with glasses (and no contact lenses). Hopefully since I don’t have the worst prescriptions I might just be able to play it without glasses. Or it might be time to get new smaller glasses.

    It would be interesting to see what kinds of 3rd party apps come available in the near future for Oculus. Chaperone systems or extra tracking on controllers would be nice to haves.

  5. “The cable is about 11 feet…” What kind of feet? How big are the persons feet? Please use an understandable system when measuring, or at least add “..or about 3.3 meters” when you say talk about distance. You do have an international audience you know.

  6. On the same flip of the coin the international audience should know the unit of measurement being used and be able to easily find a website to convert it. In this age of information seeing something as simple as a different unit of measurement should be a roadblock for nobody.

  7. any chance you can invite Bonnie Burton back so she can do something inappropriate with googly eyes on these things? (what does she call it… #vandaleyes… )

  8. Thanks for the info NegativeNothing, couldn’t find it on teespring though. Cool vid by the way guys!

  9. Thanks for the review. As one of my trusted sources if reviews, I’m wondering if you guys have checked out Virtual Desktop yet? It looks amazing and would love to hear your take.

  10. How hard is to google “11 feet to meter”? I know it’s a pain since I’m from Europe but I’m just glad I can watch and read the US based TESTED website as it is way better than anything my regional media hopes to produce. Even if they don’t have the “common sense” to use the metric system when reviewing products I still love it and appreciate the good work. 🙂

  11. What do you guys think of the terms of service? Over at kotaku they wrote up a pretty critical piece on it. Do you think the Vive’s will be that all encompassing?

  12. What do you guys think of the terms of service? Over at kotaku they wrote up a pretty critical piece on it. Do you think the Vive’s will be that all encompassing?

    I second that. I would like to hear you guys discuss the Oculus terms of service.
    Another article: http://gizmodo.com/there-are-some-super-shady-things-in-oculus-rifts-terms-1768678169
    not only references their claim of right to use anything you create but also “Information about your physical movements and dimensions when you use a virtual reality headset.”

  13. Yes, I am naturally a big fan myself. Even without the use of the metric system.;) Tested is by far the best tech website in the world imho. With the years of original content, awesome personalities and incredible VR content. Keep up the good work.

    Yes of course we metrics now how to find out what 11 feet are in meters! I just thought it might be a nice touch to not have to open another tab and look up “11 feet to meters” in the middle of the video. When I think about it, I think they normally use both systems. I am sure it was a slip this time. And only a friendly reminder from me.

  14. Thanks for the reply, The USA is a bit odd with the measurement systems since we use both so much yet refuse to just go all in with metric. In my line of work I generally use a lot of international documents so metric is always there. Didn’t mean to gang up on you there in the reply. Take care.

  15.   Just an idea, but would it be possible/advisable to invert and mount the camera in the top corner of a room (like the lighthouse) to maximize the tracking area?

  16. Thinking on improving the CV1: first would be to get some sort of eye-screen distance adjustment ( my glasses are getting unconfortably squeezed unto my nose. and the other is to increase brightness of the OLED panels which would need be done in software and is probably challenging.

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