bigscreen beyond first impressions 10-11-23

Very Early Bigscreen Beyond First 1-2 hr Impressions
I pretty much just went to a few different VRChat worlds to test it out.

>Insanely smol, insanely light.

>The weight, or rather the lack of weight, is super nice compared to Index

>Colors are a lot more vibrant and saturated compared to index. True blacks, vivid colors, etc. All the stuff everyone else has already said, micro-OLED looks great.

>When you're moving down a dark hallway (like pic related: https://files.catbox.moe/sz2dq9.png) it feels like your FoV is limitless because of the true blacks/darkness. Very immersive. Didn't think I'd give a shit about the true blacks but it definitely does make some experiences really nice.

>The resolution in 75hz mode is absolutely ridiculous, it looks like how VRChat looks on desktop on my 4k monitor. Super sharp and detailed. It felt like the same resolution jump to me going from CV1 & OG Vive to Index, and now Index to Bigscreen.

>I didnt think I would notice the visual difference between 75hz and 90hz but I definitely do, 75hz is insanely sharp but 90hz I could notice things arent as sharp. 90hz mode still sharper than index, but it didn't give me the same wow factor or feel like the resolution jump I was previously describing as it did in 75hz.

>There's more ghosting when you move your head in 75hz mode compared to 90hz mode though obviously, so not sure which tradeoff I prefer more yet but I'm really leaning towards 75hz because that native resolution is beautiful, and my eyes have already been trained for low FPS movement and crap like that after playing VRChat since 2018.

>I immediately noticed the FoV difference from index when I first put it on and loaded into the SteamVR home but I stopped paying attention to it pretty quickly, it's a decrease but I would say a pretty minor one because aside from that initial moment of "oh, this FoV is smaller" when I put it on, it didn't really bother me that much after.

>Face cushion has a nice squishy feel but it's kinda weird, takes some getting used to how it feels on your face, at first I wasn't sure if I liked it but I started getting more used to it by the end of sessions. Still not completely sure of it though, might try to get another if they're cheap since apparently they plan on offering replacements/additional cushions. This cushion feels like it's too close to my eyelids, like I feel like I can feel my bottom eyelashes touching the cushion sometimes which is annoying.

>Soft strap & top strap are OK. I'll start off by saying it's definitely comfortable, but I'm not a huge fan of how you adjust it and it took awhile for me to adjust the tightness of both straps until the headset felt even and comfortable. I don't like the cable holder, it constantly slides around the strap and I can see it breaking after a few years wear & tear since it's plastic. I really wish they went with the vertical top strap instead as well. Pretty sure people are already 3D printing stuff for that so there might be third party straps in the future that will be better. Also maybe the official audio strap will be better than these soft straps.

>The glare is somewhat noticeable but I think if you're used to the Index glare by now you will be used to the glare in this pretty quickly. It wasn't a major focus for me. I haven't tried QPro so I can't compare the glare between those two.

>Random note, AFK detection in VRC takes awhile to kick in for some reason when you take the headset off

>Now for the big negative, the sweet spot. That sweet spot is super sweet but it's also pretty damn small and the blurring around the edges on the lenses takes some getting used to after coming from Index. With the Index everything is a bit blurry but generally you can move your eyeballs around and most stuff stays in focus. With the Beyond, the middle of the screen is god tier resolution, but if you move your eyeball to look anywhere else you're going to see lots of blur, lots of chromatic aberration.

>My eyes felt like they were constantly readjusting as I had to kinda retrain them to look just in the center because the edges are not very nice to look at. I don't think you'd really want eye tracking on this headset even if people were able to do it since if you try to look anywhere but dead center, it's just blurriness and chromatic aberration. Also shoutout to that one guy who kept saying only fresnel lenses have a sweet spot and pancake lenses have edge-to-edge clarity, this headset couldn't prove you more wrong.

>It's not a very bright headset by default. it helps that there's no light leak cause of the faceplate but I personally turned up the default brightness from 100 to 125 and then later 110 with the included app (which works well and is installed via Steam, you only need it to change brightness and refresh rate basically. you can also set fan speeds and change the RGB light on the headset to whatever color you want). I settled on around 110 being good enough for me since apparently higher brightness can make people sick due to persistence or something? I dunno, I didn't feel sick at all during my session but I didn't really want to crank it up to 150 brightness to test that out.