Review: Samsung Gear VR virtual reality headset

Samsung Gear VR review: verdict

In light of the limitations outlined above, it's understandable that Samsung has tagged the epithet "Innovator's Edition" onto the end of the Gear VR's name. This is obviously an early adopter device, and isn't ready yet for mass-market consumption. The mere fact that it can only be used with one type of smartphone will see to that anyway, alongside the fact that the content is still in its infancy, much of it feeling like demo material rather than properly polished commercial software.

There are some niggly problems with the hardware as well. The biggest is that it can be difficult to find a position in which both eyes are able to focus on the display. After much trial and error, we found that mounting the goggles higher on our face provided the most satisfactory results, but even then we had problems with lenses fogging after a period of use, which ruined the effect.

It's clearly early days for consumer VR. Even the much-hyped Oculus Rift is still only available as a developer kit, and must be tethered to a PC. The content isn't completely convincing, and the resolution isn't as high as it needs to be to gain consumer approval in a world of Full HD and 4K TVs.

Despite its various limitations, however, we think the Samsung Gear VR is a fabulous piece of kit. It's a truly impressive technical achievement, good enough to convince us that within a couple of generations this sort of device will become mainstream technology. For now, it's a glimpse of the future – but one that, if you're curious, can be bought for a mere $350.

This article originally appeared at pcpro.co.uk