Gear VR Impressions

I didn't care to try VR for a while but then my brother surprised me with a Gear VR.

First of all, anyone with a iPhone or Android phone can use Google Cardboard to experience VR (for relatively little money). You can buy something like this on Amazon.

Samsung has partnered with Oculus to bring the Oculus experience to Samsung devices like the Galaxy S6. While the Galaxy S6 has an amazing display, the VR experience is pixelated. This is counteracted with two OLED displays in the Oculus Rift, allowing a much higher quality experience (also, at a $1500 pricetag). Navigating menus are easy, for now; it may be a hassle when much more content is available.

The 3D aspect of VR is probably still more immersive than any 3D movie I've seen anywhere else, even though it is more pixelated. It is really easy to forget that you are in VR and very comfortable to wear.

One of the cooler features that hasn't been taken advantage of is the camera bypass. This allows the Gear VR to use the camera in the Galaxy S6 to see what's in front of them in real life. Want to see life in standard definition? Here's your chance!

You can bypass the Oculus application from automatically opening when using the Samsung Gear VR by the "Gear VR Service" application. This will allow you to use Google Cardboard applications as well.

One issue of using the Samsung Galaxy S6 as VR is that the device gets hot and may disrupt your usage when it gets to a certain temperature. The phone stops the VR experience when overheating occurs.

Overall, VR is a cool experience but the content is limited (unless you want to watch Netflix in a virtual room, which could be good in bed...). VR is probably beyond novelty at this point, but not too much more at this point. One of the limitations is that VR content is massive; devices need to be able to handle the bandwidth. To give an example, the Jurassic Park times lasts about 3 mins and was a 700 MB.