My G2 arrived. Haven’t really played much with it yet, but I made sure it works!
As my first non-Oculus device, it was all pretty straightforward to get going. Plugged it in, Windows popped up the Mixed Reality portal automatically, downloaded some stuff, it told me when to put the headset on and walked me through the basic controls.
Small hiccup when it told me to pin MS Edge, which wasn’t there (maybe because I run the Chromium version of Edge?) Thankfully pinning any app worked to move past that section of tutorial.
First thing I made sure of was how to get a virtual desktop up. It’s flat and doesn’t curve around you like Oculus/VD does but it’ll suffice I guess. The integration with Cortana/speech recognition is pretty cool.
The controllers, they feel ok, a bit cheap and clunky. The haptics are nowhere near as nice and subtle as the Rift/Quest controllers. I can see why they need two batteries with all those bright flashing lights. :P
Why don’t Oculus have bright flashing lights like that? I guess they use infrared instead of visible spectrum cameras, and benefit from a single battery with good life…
The controller tracking seemed pretty average, in my typical ‘faffing about’ usage pattern at least when not actively playing something, where I have controllers resting on my knees. Already I can see the laser pointers changing position and relying purely on gyro when using desktop or menus. Spoiled by Oculus here, and I guess Lighthouse users would notice this even more.
I ran SteamVR and it automatically prompted me to install the WMR drivers (I gather an update just added this feature). Seems good but I’m going to have to look into the whole controller binding thing since it seems binds are for the older WMR controller style. Also the per-eye resolution is set way too high, maybe they’ll patch that but until then it’s something to be aware of.
I guess there’s no pass-through camera on this? I’m going to miss that.
Oh, and the image quality? Yes, it is really nice and crisp! :) I feel like the sweet spot is super small though and getting a perfect fit is pretty important.
Looking forward to trialing out a few games! :)
