Lenovo G0A20001WW Explorer Mixed Reality Headset

Until the Mixed Reality headsets came out, the only options you really had were buying a $400 Oculus or $600 Vive, and they essentially held a duopoly on the market, refusing to reduce pricing. Thanks to the magic of the free market, the mixed reality headsets have quickly become an affordable entry-level headset as the prices have begun hitting $200 on Amazon (1/2 the price of Oculus, 1/3 the price of a Vive). For a fraction of the price, you'll be receiving the bulk of the "virtual reality experience" The Lenovo headset specifically is the best Mixed Reality offering available, besides the much more expensive Odyssey. It offers 110 degree field of vision, whereas the other headsets are just at 100. The Oculus and Rift offer 120 and 145 respectively. I believe all the Mixed Reality headsets besides the Odyssey offer 2880x1440 resolution (better than the Vive and tied with Oculus) with 90hz refresh rate. While comfort is a personal metric, I find this headset to have a very comfortable fit to it. Another reason I chose this headset is that people reported that it works great for people with glasses, and I can confirm that they do. In summary, you get a resolution on par or better than the industry leaders and you compromise on your fov with this headset for a fraction of the cost, and for what it's worth, I've had no trouble with 110 fov. It's pretty negligible The real compromise of this headset isn't the fov at all really, it's the tracking. The Mixed Reality headsets use two internal cameras to track your controllers and the results are functional but leave a lot to be desired. If you raise your hands above your head, it'll lose track. If you drop your hands all the way to the ground, it *can* lose track. If you throw your hands behind your body, it'll lose track. When you use this headset in practice, you'll observe that it calculates the trajectory of your movements and do a good job of guessing where you threw your hands. You can swing your hands behind your body in fluid motions and it'll figure it out, but you have to move them back in front of the cameras or your hands will wonk out on you until you do return them. In essence, there's a bit of an art to moving your arms fluidly that you'll want to learn but on the whole, it is functional.This is the real compromise of the headset, and it's up to you if you're willing to spend a lot more money on headsets that don't have this issue. There is an upside to this flaw. Because the tracking is all done internally, this headset is very easy to setup. You don't have to spend hundreds of dollars on "lightposts" either, sensors that you place around your room to externally track your movements.You also don't need 4 4.0 USB ports to manage your headset alongside a massive amount of batteries to power the whole operation. You just plug the Lenovo into your hdmi and USB, and you're good to go in basically 10 minutes of installation. The controllers themselves use 2 AA batteries, so 4 between the both of them, and you may want to invest in rechargeable batteries if you intend to use this a lot as it'll save you money in the long run. I went with EBL 8 Bay AA AAA Battery Charger with AA 2800mAh (4 Pack) and AAA 1100mAh (4 Pack) Ni-MH Rechargeable Batteries for a battery charger and purchased 8 additional batteries EBL 8 Pack High Capacity 2800mAh AA Ni-MH Rechargeable Batteries, Battery Case Included which brought me up to 12 rechargeable alongside the 4 AA that come with the charger station. It's a totally optional move, but I digress. The quick plug and play functionality of this headset also makes the Mixed Reality headsets far more portable. Finally, Grab Steam VR for Mixed Reality to play Steam VR games, many of which are free. That just about covers everything. The head movement is very fluid all around and the bulk of your hand movements are going to be in front of you where the tracking is great, and the whole thing feels very fluid. The prices on Amazon seem to fluctuate pretty dramatically so you should know that they've hit $200. The Acer is supposed to also be a great option but has 100 fov instead of 110 namely. Hopefully you can grab a pair when the prices go low!

Okay, so Amazon says 4 stars is "I like it" and 5 stars is "I love it." I wanted to give it 4 stars but I actually do love it. So hey, let's be generous. If you've never owned VR, this is a great kit. The reason I picked it up was it was being sold at a fantastic price and it works well with glasses. I also own the Samsung HMD Odyssey which is an amazing headset and much more polished than the Lenovo. The screens on the Samsung are just gorgeous AMOLED whereas the Lenovo is regular LCD. If I had never owned the Samsung, I think I would like the Lenovo more. Functionally, it's pretty close to the Samsung. The advantages the Lenovo has over other headsets (and I've also tried Rift and Vive) is that it's very light and comfortable to wear. You can pivot the VR part upward so you can see the real world and do things like type on your keyboard without having to take the headset off. Samsung can't do this or the Rift/Vive. And while the Samsung headset is comfortable, you can notice the weight difference especially after playing for awhile. You can also wear glasses with the Lenovo. It's practically impossible with the Samsung. I do wear contacts most of the time so it's not a major issue. But sometimes I want to use VR late at night when I've already taken my contacts out. With the Samsung, some nights I even debated popping open a fresh pair of contacts just to game. The controllers are pretty good. The tracking is good. You can run SteamVR games and Rift games but some games take work because there is no native support for Rift and SteamVR. The SteamVR support is getting better and better. If you look at the reviews when the Windows Mixed Reality headsets came out, they're somewhat deceiving in that SteamVR support was poor in the beginning, but it's improved. And there are more and more games being natively supported as well. Just like Vive can use Oculus games through workarounds, the same workarounds allow WMR headsets to work. A great benefit of WMR headsets is that they're super portable. I bring the headset in a box with a laptop to a friend's place or to work and you just play games. In fact, my Surface Pro 2017 with Core i7 8 GB RAM and 256 GB storage is sufficient for some great games like Space Pirate Trainer. No extensive room setup needed like with the Vive. If you have the money and don't wear glasses much, get the Samsung. It's so nice as a VR headset. But on a budget, I think the Lenovo is fantastic.

EDIT: The cable developed a short after about 3 months of use, Sent it to lenovo for repair(You pay for shipping yourself), And after receiving it, support claiming they never got it for about two weeks, And spending another 4 weeks "in progress" without an update I am question if I will ever get it back. So if you want a 4 month VR trail run at the cost of 260 bucks then this product is for you. It's a pretty good headset overall. Very comfortable and no real issues with long term use. I like it overall better then the vive because the resolution is that much better despite the tracking issues below. The following issue might just be a software issue with Windows Mixed reality as a whole. My only compliant is the tracking. While it's good most of the time it has issues with a lot of people in the same room and tends to lose tracking when getting close to the ground such as picking someone up off the floor. It also seems to take it a bit to refind the controllers if it loses track of them.

It arrived and the screen kept blacking out. After some trouble with what seemed like support not taking me seriously I finally got the go ahead for the refund.

It doesn't adjust perfectly on the head, the glasses resolution is ok but not great, and it doesn't integrate with YouTube videos 360 and VR. Limited supported apps.

Works well. Dont have any issues but i did need some adaptors to make it work with my laptop. The ones i found that work are these ones Mini DisplayPort to HDMI 2.0 Adapter https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B00S0BWR2K/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_i_B5jXCbAJJKYH8 USB-C to USB 3.0 https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B01GGKYXVE/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apa_i_L4jXCb66P0P35 Other wise its great.

+++ Verpackung & Versand +++ Die Verpackung wirkt hochwertig und aufgeräumt. Der Versand durch Amazon lief schnell und reibungslos ab. +++ Verarbeitung & Tragekomfort +++ Das Headset macht einen hochwertigen Eindruck, die Controller könnten etwas ergonomischer sein. Durch das geringe Gewicht kann man das Headset lange tragen, ohne das es unbequem wird. Die Oculus Rift z.B. wurde mir nach einer Stunde schon zu unbequem. Der Mechanismus zum hochklappen der Front ist praktisch, jedoch etwas schwergängig. +++ Einrichtung +++ Die Einrichtung über die Windows Mixed Reality Software ging einfach und schnell. Nach wenigen Minuten konnte ich bereits durch mein virtuelles Wohnzimmer laufen. Hier ist unbedingt darauf zu achten das man das Headset direkt in einen USB 3.0 (oder höher) anschließt, oder einen aktiven HUB verwendet, da die Brille über USB seinen Strom bezieht. Der Betrieb an einem passiven USB Hub nicht möglich. Auch habe ich einen neuen Bluetooth Stick benötigt, mein BT 2.0 Stick konnte sich zwar mit den Controllern verbinden, jedoch ist dann die Verbindung/das Tracking immer wieder unterbochen worden. Die Einbindung in Steam könnte besser sein, für die Einrichtung dafür muss die Software "Windows Mixed Reality for SteamVR" in Steam installiert werden (welche sich noch in der Beta befindet). Für den Einstieg kann ich die kostenlose Spielesammlung/Tech Demo "The Lab" empfehlen, welche eindrucksvoll die Möglichkeiten von VR Demonstriert. +++ Technik +++ Von der Bildqualität bin ich - gerade im vergleich zu Rift - positiv überrascht. Das Bild wirkt sehr scharf und man hat kaum einen "Fliegengitter-Effekt". Das Tracking funktionierte auf Anhieb und ist sehr präzise, habe es in mehreren Räumen getestet. Zum Lesen/Arbeiten ist die Auflösung aber leider noch immer nicht hoch genug. +++ Fazit +++ Von mir gibt es eine klare Kaufempfehlung, ich ziehe das Headset auf jedem Fall einer Rift vor. Softwareseitig muss noch was gemacht werden, in Verbindung mit Steam VR musst ich viel rumprobieren/neustarten bis es geklappt hat.

J'ai longtemps hésité avant de franchir le pas et d'acheter un casque VR. Au vu des tarifs surtout et aussi des avis sur les différents casques disponibles. J'ai mis 5 étoiles bien que l'on ne touche pas la perfection mais parce que le rapport qualité / prix est bien là. Les 2 points négatifs sont : en premier la légère présence de ce que certain appelle une "grille" (présente pour tous les casque en fait) qui pourrait faire peur mais qui au bout de quelques heures d'utilisation se fait vraiment oubliée. Notre cerveau doit la faire disparaitre en quelque sorte surtout quant on est pris par ce que l'on regarde ou "vie" dans le casque. Le second point c'est le contenue disponible à ce jour. Il y a pas mal de chose à faire, payantes mais gratuite aussi, mais ça reste un peu trop accès sur les jeux de tirs à la première personne ou des trucs un peu trop simplistes. Les casques WMR offre moins de contenus que certains autres casques (qui coûte le double !!) Les points positifs : Il y en a beaucoup et en premier le côté bluffant de la VR. Se retrouver dans une maison immense dans un lieu enchanteur que l'on peut aménager. On peut vivre dans un garage de 15m² parce qu'avec un casque devant les yeux il se transforme en une villa sur la côte ! Je vous invite à tester apollo 11 car vous marcherez sur la lune avec N. Amstrong et le voyage est incroyable. Avec le portail de Steam pour avez également des environnements très beau et marcher sur Mars à côté du rover Oportunity est une chose à faire. Côté jeux j'ai pas encore vraiment testé ce qui est proposé mais je dispose du jeu simulateur IL*2 et se retrouver dans le cockpit d'un P40 c'est incroyable . On tourne la tête et on voit le bout de son aile, on suit une cible des yeux en virage, etc... incroyable. Bon vous comprenez que je suis conquis et que je ne regrette pas mon achat. Techniquement rien de compliqué, on branche le casque et il est reconnu sans problème. J'ai acheté des rallonges USB3 et HDMI en 3m pour pouvoir me déplacer sans problème car le câble est un peu court. J'ai également acheté un dongle Bluetooth pour les manettes car mon PC n'a pas de carte Bluetooth. Ca fonctionne très bien. Conclusion : je conseille ce produit.