So my Reverb got delivered Monday (Black Fridayy deal at £437) coming from 3 years of using a Rift CV1, here's my initial first impressions after a good few hours each evening:
1 - The bloody thing turned up with a busted Right ear piece which is a PITA, needless to say "Support" was Abysmal as I was thrown around 3 different phone number and not one person could help a long with "this is the number you require" which was actually the first number I rang, truly was atrocious from HP.
But then I was put in touch with the HP VR guy on Reddit who immediately apologised and whose level of customer service was 1000x better, he's since sent me some replacement earpieces which arrive Monday.
2 - The Visuals; It's like looking at a 1080p Monitor....no ****! Clear as day, if you try really really hard you can just make out the "screendoor" pixels stuff but when playing it is not noticeable at all. Night & Day from the Rift CV1....so so good. I can make out the top of the Screen beyond the Lenses if I strain my eyes upwards, plus when looking to all four corners and around the "edge" of the Screen I do see a bit more unwanted areas unlike the Rift, so the lenses could perhaps be a bit bigger to hide this but when playing they're not noticeable.
3 - Weighs slightly less than the Rift, comfort is a little worse as sits on the bridge of my nose a little tighter meaning long stints become uncomfortable, so I may have to "mod" this area with some sponge or something. There's no "nose gap" so light bleed isn't an issue but this makes using a keyboard impossible, I quite liked the CV1 nose gap especially for keyboard usage! Other than that the heavy Lead and 3.5mm headphone Jack are a slight nuisance, again a bit of modding required to make that more comfortable, overall the rest of the HMD straps are fine and good enough.
4 - FOV ever so slightly bigger in my Left Eye but for some reason the Right Eye is roughly the same, which is weird but probably something to do with my low IPD (59mm-60mm). But esentially there's no massive difference over the CV1 so the extra bit is barely noticeable.
5 - The "Blacks" are very dark Greys so Elite Dangerous/Night Racing is a bit odd but something I'll no doubt get used too, the Rift was better with Blacks. It is a bit of a let down though as though first impressions stick and I'll always know "it could be better" in this area.
6 - Tracking; Had a moment where it jumped me to the Roof of the car for some reason but with a quick button press I was back behind the wheel. I also had a strange one the other evening where in 1 session my viewpoint was slowly shifting to the side and I had to Reset VR View a couple of times in a 20min race. You do need a well lit area to play in, so I may invest in a brighter bulb for the room just to be safe, but other than the two above there have been no other Tracking issues at all - overall it's good so far.
7 - ...and this is just as amazing as the Picture Clarity; I was told by some people that you'd need a Rocket Ship of a PC to use this HMD with any Sims and that I'd be running with Low settings even with my new PC (i9-9900k, 2070SUPER, 16gb RAM).
Well those Know-It-Alls could'nt be more wrong, with the SAME Settings as before (HIGH in RF2 with default 100% SS in SteamVR) with 29AI (GT3) at Adelaide my new PC *STILL* Pumps out 90fps at Race Start! I was not expecting this level of performance, it truly was a "WOW....LOOK AT THAT FPS!" moment as I simply could not believe it!~
Any Daytime running and it's the same 90fps, It does drop when the headlights come on and also with a bit of Rain about but I don't have to lower settings that much to get a smooth racing experience.
Elite Dangerous is smooth as silk and the HUDs are clear & crisp and so much easier to read, No Mans Sky (with the controllers, first time I've ever had these so that was fun) was smooth on HIGH Settings but ULTRA was a tad too jumpy. ACC was also a nice surprise, again in open air a rock solid 90fps but a few more drops in traffic (to be expected as it is a 2019 game), a bit of tweaking and it'll be just fine and a Sim I can finally dig my teeth into so I'm looking forward to that.
Flight Sims are also great, no longer are enemy Planes are garbled mess 1km away, they are now clear many kms off in the distance, like Elite I'm able to read the HUDs and Instrument Panels much easier than before.
Conclusion; So yeah Visually it's leaps and bounds above the CV1 and seeing as I paid £549 three years agofor that (without controllers!) it's a huge step up. Performance wise it's simply stunning on my new Rig so I could'nt be more happy about that, just a right bitch bastard about the defective ear piece but that'll be sorted next week fingers crossed. The Reverb is by no means perfect, it has its flaws and unfortunately a friend on Discord has suffered the "Black Screen" after less than a weeks play (latest revision), so it still has it's Issues HP suffered many months ago. But aside from that it's a great upgrade to the CV1 which I briefly went back to (to compare FOV) and the Visuals were like I said...Night & Day and that's worth it alone!