So I recently got to spend a long time with the consumer beta engineering sample '7' and was able to try many demos and have a good mess about with it...
Screens/Pixels The pixels are pretty much invisible now, when you 'really' focus you can see a fine pattern but only on some colors, on dark blue or green its solid and there is no pixel pattern or 'screen door'. on white you can see a very fine pattern but you CANNOT see the pixels like you can with the dk1 or 2.
The image is VERY uniform, the dark colors feel just as solid as the bright colors and there is no black smear or other screen based artefacts. The screen feels (and looks) higher resolution than the Vive & GearVR. Text is razor sharp. The Vive must be using a different screen or at least an earlier revision because I did notice the pixels more so in it.
A minor caveat here is that due to possibly a bug with the Unity integration or SDK/Unity blacks appeared dark grey. Changing the setting under 'player' from 'gamma' to 'linear' fixed the issue but please be aware if you get to try one and notice this. UE4 demos were flawless, blacks were incredibly deep and whites were even and punchy
Field Of View This is a controversial subject, and field of view is something I am unfortunately badly affected by, the narrower the worse so you will be glad to hear that is was NOT a problem. It's considerably wider than the DK2!!!!!
Now there are a few caveats, first is that the vertical field of view is shorter on the top edge (but not the bottom) and is significantly wider horizontally. and the second is that there seems to be some sort of semi-reflective material inside on the edges which 'blur' out the edges (past the screen, not on it!), you cannot see the edges, this made it VERY hard to get an accurate reading (and is probably why Oculus won't give us a solid number). The usable field of view is definitely wider than the DK2 according to some tests I did. After spending hours with it the viewing area is almost a square landscape (4:3ish?) viewing area, unlike the DK2's portrait viewing area. The field of view was satisfactory for me and I didn't get the claustrophobic feel i did in the DK2. 'black bars' are not an issue here. The upper field of view clip is NOT a problem, but it is something you may notice if you've just taken off a DK2 and put on the CB
I have included a graph of the field of view and viewing area between all of the major headsets I've tried. These are fairly accurate but as stated it is very hard to get an accurate reading on the CB as the edges are not clearly visible so there isn't really a defined "shape" unless you spend several hours looking for it and peeking into the lenses at funny angles
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http://puu.sh/mcw08/2d3660f0c2.png
Basically "It's wider, it's not a problem. Quit worrying about it!" is the general consensus I've come to.
Headset Features & Comfort The headset rests very comfortably on my head, the front faceplate (with the "foam" although it's not foam) can come away and is replaceable and there was no issue with lenses fogging up.
The headset is very light and feels very well built, the "material" seems to be made of some sort of dirt/water retardent and does not get dirty and it does NOT collect dandruff or other dirt.
This version of the consumer beta had a working IPD slider... and... OMG it is an absolute godsend, even if your IPD 'fits' with a standard, some games and experiences do not and this allows a quick 'scale' adjustment so you can get things to feel the right scale for each demo. You honestly don't know what your missing until you try it!
There was no light leak and the old trick of peaking through the nose hole at your keyboard will no longer be possible, the headset sits flush on your face and the only thing you will see is the virtual world.
Lenses/Optics The lenses are very good, there was no major issues and something I did notice was that the image is clear all over the display and not just in the middle. There was no chromatic aberration or other artefacts.
Tracking It works lol. The field of view of the camera is very wide, (greater than 90 degrees!) and has a good range of movement. It did not loose tracking and the camera itself felt well built and solid (the base was quite heavy so it won't tip over if knocked) It works which ever way your facing so standing experiences are now possible.
I could get on the floor and duck under desks etc in VR and never lost tracking, this was amazing!
I didn't measure the cable length but it was much longer than the DK2's cable, I would say 'at least' 10 feet but maybe longer. There was no sync cable, and the headset used 1 usb and the camera used 1, then there was hdmi so the Rift only technically requires 2 usb ports and 1 hdmi, you'll want a third port for the xbox one controller.
Audio I am not really an audiophile by any definition but I was surprised by the built in cans. They go loud and if you think you will be able to hear your friends laughing at you think again, when 'off' you can hear everything but when on and in a demo they seem to block out sound. I don't know what sort of whichcraft was invoked to make that happen but it works very well. The sound quality is far better than expected and they cover a good range. They put my Corsair overhear gaming headset to shame. You will most likely not need to (or be able to afford) a better set of cans that cover such a large range, Voices really come out naturally which is something many speakers or cans don't do well.
Artefacts/issues Alas there are naturally some tradeoffs although not many. I did not notice it much as I have an eye condition where things have lots of glare but I did notice it in some instances, there is quite a bit of what you might describe as glare. White text on a dark background would have a sort of zoom glare around it (think if you've just been crying or have been chopping onions). It's not too distracting and is only noticeable in high contrast scenes.
And that's it, there are no more issues, the headset is better in almost every way! We have a great year coming for VR and if this is the quality of the "first gen" headsets then we have nothing to worry about in terms of quality!
edit: The headsets I've either owned or tried include the Oculus Rift DK1, Oculus Rift HD Prototype, Oculus Rift DK2, HTC Vive (mark 1), Oculus Rift Consumer Beta - Engineering Sample '7' and GearVR (Note 4)
