Having owned the headset for a week and returned it, I thought your review was the most accurate representation of my own experience with the Pro 2. Like you, I've got a high-end 3090 powered PC, but was coming from an Oculus Quest 2, and was looking forward to supercharging my VR experience. Unfortunately, this headset most definitely did not do that. As crazy as it sounds, comparing the two headsets side by side for just under a week I actually much prefer the Quest 2, largely for the reasons you mentioned. The heat was downright uncomfortable, and I couldn't play for over an hour due to it. The binocular overlap was maddening, I just couldn't get a decent overall visual image. The screens were stunning, but thanks to the weird distortions and terrible god rays and glare I actually prefered the Quest 2 visuals overall. In fact, apart from the lighthouse tracking I pretty much preferred everything about the Quest 2. It's lighter, more comfortable, doesn't get burning hot, and running at its full render resolution of 5408 x 2736 actually had often had more clarity than the Vive Pro 2. Regarding the FOV, I use VRCover's new minimal foam pad that came out a few weeks ago, and it gives me a solid FOV of 99 V 99 H, which was about 4 higher vertical than Pro 2 and around 10 less. The Pro 2's FOV however isn't a practical FOV as if you try and actually look around with your eyes, peering left or right splits the screen clearly into two lenses, with the drop off in quality on the outer lens making for a dreadful visual degradation. The Quest 2, by contrast has great lenses, with minimal glare and godrays, a much larger sweet spot and edge to edge clarity. Overall, the whole experience just made me appreciate my £399 Quest 2 a whole lot more. Honestly, I wouldn't have kept this is the whole package was under £800, and it feels like a crime for HTC to be legally able to charge that for the headset alone.
However I will gladly pay hundreds of euros more just because then I dont have to install any software made by Facebook on my pc - or have a microphone in my room by the same company.
@@daimonien I have a Facebook account which I use daily so it doesn't bother me. I get that Facebook tracks me to target me with ads, but in all honesty, I'm a willing consumer who likes to buy things, and FB's knowledge of my interests just helps them scout out interesting products for me. Is it a Faustian pact with the devil? Possibly, but do I care? No, not really.
I had an Oculus quest 2 for a very brief period. I thought it was the worst and total piece of garbage I'd ever used. Not only can it not be used on a desktop without an expensive and cumbersome cable or a complicated Wi-Fi setup, Even when using these solutions it didn't compare at all in terms of visual fidelity to my rift S. The Oculus quest 2 looked horrible. It definitely doesn't have anywhere near the same resolution display as the pro 2 by the way. The pro 2 is more than double the resolution of the quest 2. The quest 2 was the biggest disappointment to me I couldn't believe it was actually worse than the rift S I bought years ago. It felt like a downgraded rift S That was more marketable to children since they didn't eat a computer to run it.
@@stonehouseguitars3869 The Quest 2 definitely required some settings tweaking to get right, and higher system specs than the Rift S, which I also owned. On my older system, a 1080Ti, 7700k system without any native USB-C 3.1 ports the Rift S was clearer and much more smoother, with a better framrate so I only used the Quest 2 for standalone. On my more modern Pc with a 3090, 10850k and dedicated USB C 3.1 ports the Quest 2 far exceeded the Rift S visually. It needed to be set up correctly though, the resolution had to be set to its actual render resolution of 5408 x2736 and you needed to edit the encode bitrate and set to 500. Then it really shone. The Vive Pro 2 certainly has a much higher resolution display, and better colours, but it was ruined by the apalling lenses, the worst glare and godrays I've ever seen on a headset and not enough binocular overlap so the two panels are slightly pulled apart resulting in a blurrier image. I ditched the Vive Pro 2 and got a Reverb G2, which again whilst having a slightly lower resolution than the Vive Pro 2, far surpassed it for screen clarity and overall image quality. I'm not really happy with any headsets currently, now the 4090 is soon to be relesed I want to to look to upgrade again and get something with a much higher resolution and better lenses. I've been considering the Varjo Aero, but its reliance on 3 year old base stations and Index controllers which I otherwise don't want or need is a bit negative. I will definitely buy the Meta Cambria although I'm not expecting it be close to visually matching the Aero, I more want it for its other features like pass through mixed reality.
@@kevinbrook7033 I messed around with it for hours, did every possible solution, couldn't get it to look as good as the rift S. Even bought a $200 router and did the virtual desktop which actually had the best results but still not as good as the rift S. Definitely not my system specs, that's not a worry. Plus needing to charge it and everything was just a pain. I often use my VR headset for 4-6hours+. I'm currently looking to upgrade from the rift S but not sure what to get. Leaning towards the vive pro 2 for the resolution and comfort of the headset but honestly just not sure.
so much respect for this, iv been trying to find a review that would help me pick between the index and vive and this helped A LOT!!! you deserve a lot more attention man!
@@Tezla_Insanity Which is a total shame because we are now seeing what could be done with eyetracking. The performance and video bandwidth issues could be solved with foveated rendering, and the lens issues might be corrected using special software like the technology Almalence inc. recently demonstrated for the Vive Pro Eye. They used a special camera mimicking a human eye to capture what the fresnel lens of the Vive Pro looks like at every position and angle it could be looked at. Then using the differences between what the desired picture was and what the camera saw, they trained an AI model that corrects the image based on where you're looking at to increase the sweetspot by quite a bit with the exact same lens.
Thank you very much for your time and effort, I watched a lot of reviews that didn't even mention half the things you just mentioned, and was actually going to pre order, Not anymore I believe in your reviews qauioty and I am subbed to you know.
I agree with other comments, great "real" review on this product. It is now 2022 and was interested in how good the Vive Pro 2 actually is and found your review. You answered many questions I had and one being the optics. I do SIM racing and other sitting games so base station tracking would not be any better than my inside out tracking VR headsets plus it is just extra hardware for me I don't need. Now if I was moving around with hand controllers, that is a different story. I currently have the Rift S and the HP Reverb G2 V2 (which has its optic problems-narrow sweet spot). I am not in any hurry to upgrade to a newer VR headset, but always watching youtube reviews to see how the optics are in each one. My graphics card currently is the RTX-3080TI which I know running games with VR set to 120 hz speeds may not even work as you mention in the review. All my racing games work well with my computer. Thanks again for the review. Take care.
I am glad that I canceled my pre-order when the negative reviews flooded in. It could have been great, but it has way too many problems at too steep a price. I ended up buying a Quest 2, which kind of scratches my wireless itch. I keep going back to my Index more often than not. I wish the Index had a wireless option - it would future proof it a little more until eye tracking is fully mainstream in a few years. I worry lighthouse tracked HMDs are going to fall behind the Quest 2 Pro, PS5 VR, or even DecaGear.
I bet with the eye tracking module that vive is going to release people will make a easy mod to put it on the index so who knows maybe we can keep our indexs for a little longer plus the patients from valve seem like they may end up releasing some wireless module
I recently did a video talking about the near future of Wireless PC VR. Basically Valve has the product ready for release to make the Index wireless. The issue is that WiGig 2 (the wireless standard that it will be using) is awaiting its final certification. Once it gets that, they will be able to release the product.
Wow, i never know about the binocular overlap, and no one is talking about it. OK, I will stick with my OG HTC Vive + Vive wireless. Thanks for the review man🙏
I think people are mistaking some issues with clarity on this HMD with binocular overlap. The whole time using it, I felt it was probably not a good percentage. But it wasn't until the last day until I got the exact measurements. And ya, binocular overlap is incredibly important for VR. And this headset sacrifices way too much of it.
@@SadlyItsBradley that depends alot by the distance your eyes is from the lenses and your eyes shape,ipd etc,for example i dont have a problem with my 6mm i dont see any distortion or whatever,risa2000.github.io/hmdgdb/ tests do show its a little lower but shouldnt be any noticeable huge difference compared to reverb g2 or index not to the extent youre mentioning.
Yup this is the first time I've seen it mentioned for the Vive Pro 2. When I first tried it, I wondered why I was noticing the area where my nose would be so much, an dsomethign was wrong. I then compared with Quest 2 and realised the overlap was very different, and bad on the Pro 2. Was wondering if I was the only one to notice it...
@@BrettPatterson889 thats not overlap,but i do saw it too the first day similar on the g2,after 2 days it was gone on both headsets because my brain adapted to ignore it just like it does with your nose,again thats mostly because of your dpi,the stereo overlap really aint that different compared to index g2 cosmos elite,but then again people do not know what overlap is,you have 14 days to return or 1 month on amazon,play with it some more and 100% try a thin face foam.
Thank you for the comprehensive review! Its interesting to me that Vive is selling this headset as essentially an upgraded screen and lens version of the original Vive Pro. To be honest I'm not sure that those are the features that actually sell headsets, especially given the shortage of graphics cards meaning most people couldn't run this headset at full res even if they wanted to. For over a year people have been saying "yeah the index resolution is old, but the mic and audio are great, its incredibly comfortable, and easy to use with SteamVR." Similar thing for the Quest 2. Some combination of price, ease of use, and quality of life gets people in VR. Until graphics hardware catches up with the ambition of VR displays I kinda think what sells headsets is everything *but* the displays. I see this in the Pimax headsets not selling (great displays, but too expensive + poor audio/mic) and the Reverb G2 underselling despite its great resolution due to its supposedly mediocre tracking. People seem to want VR they can afford, they can run without issue, and that has fun games to play. Display + optics are certainly a part of that, but pretty much any headset that hits 90fps at 1440x1600+ per eye seems to be good enough. For productivity I expect that display and optics are going to be much more significant. High resolution at a lower refresh rate with adaptive brightness makes a ton of sense for hopping between dark theme browsers and small text spreadsheets. The Vive Pro 2's audio seems good enough for a Zoom meeting and Vive wands are good enough to move around your desktop windows. Plus that high aspect ratio FOV would line up perfectly with 2-3 virtual monitors. I'm not saying Vive designed the Vive Pro for business users, but it seems to me that if you asked a bunch of Vive Focus 3 engineers who are well versed in business use cases rather than gaming to refresh the Vive Pro series, you'd end up with something suspiciously close to the Vive Pro 2. Here's to hoping for Index 2 and Decagear
I really REALLY appreciate this long comment. There is not one thing in here I can disagree with. I love the index because it's the best "all-round" VR headset. It has almost no friction. And I never felt the need to add ANY accessories to it. No mics, no special face pads, nothing. As far as whether the strange letterbox design is an effect for it to be useful for business, this may be true. I think we will know more about this when the Vive Focus 3 embargos lift ^^7
Jeez... so if I want to keep using my lighthouse tracking it's best to just get the Valve Index even in 2022? Or what would be the best sim racing headset to get right now for a similar price of around 800 euro/usd. (Vive Pro Eye is 1399 here in the Netherlands/Europe) 🤔
Sorry for saying they ran canted displays, I didn't realize the lenses looked so weird, it might just be how they have designed it. Also a bit disappointed you didn't uncombine the eyes on the FoV section to show the stereo overlap visually, but there was already a lot of image juggling so good job anyway. And oh my I should probably publish the application now, so much pressure!
No worries. It's not a big deal. The final comments on everything still boiled down to the same issues. And ya, I probably should have done the unchecking.. I honestly didn't wanna spend even more time explaining to people what exactly they were looking at. So just went ahead with only focusing on the percentage numbers.
@@SadlyItsBradley also yeah whoa much positive response to an in depth critical review, noice! My main takeaways were: brightness=heat, not enough USB for accessories, low stereo overlap, still garbage microphones 😭 Why HTC... and I hope they send you the Focus 3 lol!
Using a thinner facepad got rid of the Binocular Overlap for me. I swapped in the old Kiwi Design 6mm Face Pad from my OG VIve and it fit the VP2 perfectly. Gives me about 10° more FOV and fixes the binocular overlap issue. Of course YMMV depending on the shape of your head....
I think I’ll stick with my Quest 1, thanks. Awesome review, btw. I’m not interested in high tier VR (my PC isn’t god tier) but the video was really interesting!
I'm so glad I found your channel a few months back, I love the content you put out. I couldn't agree more on most of the points you brought up about the vive pro 2. I'm so jaded on returning the headset right now, coming from a vive pro with GearVR lens mod, the new lenses HTC uses are so trash... it really deturs me from using it, the glare, the reduced Vertical FoV, having to use a different foam pad to achieve desired FoV, all with this costing more than any other headset on the market other than the Pimax 8KX... Sigh.. I wish they did more R&D with this headset before releasing. If they literally just changed the lenses out and a better mic, it would be semi-worth the price.
Thank you so much. Man. This was truly in dpth with everything technical things u show i did not understand. I was buying this thing. I'm glad i watched your video so i could refuse it. Love you !!
I traded my PS5 for a mint vive pro 2 bundle yesterday. Couldn't be happier! Way better than my old quest 2 and HP Reverb G2. The sweet spot is large everything looks super clean and clear. There is glare when in dark areas looking at bright objects but doesn't bother me at all. Speakers are great! Im using the extreme quality 5k at 120hz more like 80hz when playing damanding games. RTX3080 10th gen 7 core 16 thread cpu. Best Vr experience so far the mic does suck but I use my own mic if I need to. I also owned a Odyssey+ oculus rift windows mixed... Now I didn't care for my ps5 only purchased to play the new gow but theres no games that really peak my interest coming out this year for playstation so it was just sitting collecting dust it had to go unfortunately.
This is the video that made me sub. I have both a Vive Pro 1 and a Index. I absolutely love both HMDs for different reasons. I go wireless with my VP1 for 90% of my games and the OLEDs are amazingly immersive IMO. My Index, while its a great HMD, is basically just a VRChat and Beat Saber device. Thought about trading up to the VP2 but after looking over many vidoes, yours is the one that convinced me to just hang on to my VP1 and Index and wait for the next big thing (hoping for Decagear). Only problem is, now you make me want to sell my VP1 and sidegrade to a VP Eye lol. Thanks for your hard work and I look forward to looking at more of your videos.
I'm glad I helped you out. While I use my Vive Pro Eye all the time in Neos VR for example, I personally wouldn't invest in getting one right now. I expect every big VR hardware release next year will include eye tracking capabilities
I got the vive pro 2 coming from the oculus rift. My rift died on me and pretty much only option i had was vive pro 2 because i already had 2.0 light houses for fbt tracking. Index sold out here in Australia and not sure if they gonna sell anymore so pretty much left me with vive pro 2. im happy with it yea mic could be much better but doesnt bother me :D
Solid review. Yeah...if you felt like you were trashing the headset for the whole review...you mostly were :) I understand why though. You gave it it's due where applicable though. It should have been so much more for the money imo. I honestly really wanted to spend my money on this. Then the reviews came out. I have a G2 with index controller tracking. It has it's occasional nuisances. I wanted to be in the same tracking eco system. I'll impatiently wait. Thanks for your videos.
Genuinely, it's easily for me to point out the things that don't make this headset as good as others. I did the same for my Quest 2 review as well, but with that headset: it was 300 dollars. This is an 800 dollars headset, so I am going to be way more critical. haha
@@SadlyItsBradley received it & did everything to like it including thin face foam etc which I bought in preparation , original face foam , every setting possible , my high spec PC ran it no problems the software is good , the headset is plain bad in every way + can’t believe how hot it gets I wonder if one will catch fire attached to someone’s face at some point Have requested a return & forgave my Quest2 which is super in comparison , I do want a stand alone dedicated PCVR headset but I’ll await maybe index 2 out next winter , happy to wait now , quest2 runs well hires & 120hs on my PC in the meantime Thanks for honesty in your review
Thanks for your very in depth review. I was hoping this headset would be more than it is. It's a real shame Valve doesn't buy or license the technology used in those expensive headsets like StarVR or Xtal, for mass production in games vs business applications. MRTV said one of them has basically limitless FOV without the eye strain of Pimax. Just think how incredible that would be.
Maaaaaan I wish i had found this video before pulling the trigger on the pro 2. This was the biggest oopsie ive made in a hot minute, because i had the most abysmal experience with this thing. It is being returned already after too many headaches and this unfixable "distortion" i get when i move my head around. Pretty much everything you mentions I experienced first hand... so if nothing else its nice to know Im not crazy. I was recommended this headset all over the place for people who have used it, and im feeling VERY lied to. Thanks for tearing into this thing. Im just gonna get an index...
I felt like thoughts on the VP2 on reddit were split but youtube was being a little more positive than negative. I had nothing but a negative experience with my VP2. I just submitted for return along with the vive wireless adapter last night. I used the headset tethered for half a week, attempted to go wireless for the other half. The wireless adapter shut off after 30 minutes and kept overheating (I think anyways?). My main complaints were the Glare, Vertical FOV, the HEAT (where is the cooling on this thing?!!), the mic (everyone I talked to was like..."dude what happened to your mic?" (that bad..). No issues with headphones, but they did not sound anywhere near as good as the Index, etc. My LCD felt like it was dim, idk if it was like the LCD's brightness died? Glad you found a way to change the brightness because I could not. There's more complaints, let me not take up the comment sections lol. I'm glad you posted this review. All the people who got their units early from HTC were more "positive" than negative...at least you gave a full honest review. So thank you.
Thank you for giving your account! I think you're the first person in my comments section to write their experience with VP2. And everything you said is exactly what I stated in my review! So omg, I am feeling a sigh of relief. Thanks again. Hopefully we will have a great enthusiast headset soon to satisfy our VR itch
@@SadlyItsBradley I honestly couldn't have put your review in better words if I tried. Seriously thank you lol. Also, agreed. Praying in the next year, there will be something that really gives current headsets a run for their money. You don't sound biased at all in this review. A lot of people do feel the same. Judging by the comments, I can see a bunch of people were thankful for reviews like yours so they knew whether to order or not. I told everyone I ran into who asked while I was using the VP2 in VR Chat, Neos, etc, DO NOT GET THE VP2. A lot of my friends on NEOS already have the VP Eye or VP. No reason to upgrade, if you can even call it an upgrade. More downgrades than upgrades. Anyway, enough of my complaining lol. Thanks again man. I just subbed. I had been watching your videos for a few months now after you popped up in my recommended on day. I'll def be sticking around!
All your banter aside, it’s the best headset on the market. No question. You might want to try wireless as well. I think your head is wrong shape for VP2. I fully disagree with you.
You exaggerate I didnt notice the vertical FOV I had an Index and bought a brand new Pro 2, for me the differences are not worth changing. I should have stuck with the Index I think. Comfort and sound are fine, I dont know what everyone else is on about. The sweet spot is not that small either. I think its the same as the index. Just get whatevere you can thats cheaper but yeah, stick with the knuckles. I appreciate this is an in depth review but if you just played the games and forgot you were wearig a headset.
Valve won't sell me an Index because I live in Norway, and the Facebook account requirement on the Quest 2 is a deal breaker. Is it still such a bad idea?
Will you review the Focus3. I’m intrigued to see how you review it as compared to my use over the past few weeks. Id love to find a way to use vive wands or knuckles with the Focus3 for our specific and industry use
Great video, it was very thorough and answer all my question . Thanks you save a lot money, disappointment and buyer remorse. I like the valve index too , I am going to buy a second one for back up.
thanks for the review, i've been looking at this headset the most to upgrade from my original htc vive, the 2015 one, i think its about time i upgrade so i'm a lil stumped at what to get and the high resolution was a huge selling point for me at least, but i'm thinking maybe i'll wait a bit longer and suffer the low af vive resolution until like steams deckard headset reveal or something, see if anything changes
$300 more than an index, and the only upgrade that is actually better than the index is the resolution, and you might not even be able to run it at that resolution. Maybe if it were more like $400 total it maaaaybe might be worth it, but as it stands now, I don't see this selling much better than the cosmos. (still def better than the cosmos tho) D tier Also big ups Brad! fukkn love ur vids!
@@SadlyItsBradley I want to hear what your experience with stereo overlap is. People say the bad stereo overlap is misinformation, and that it is not an issue. No one else seems to find this to be a problem either, just you. 65% is monocular and the outer parts are unocular which is lower than others. that just means you have more vision thats not in 3D on the outside of your vision, you don't even look around to the sides anyway because it would be blurry so it really doesn't make much of a difference.
Too many compromises? May be you should re-visit your review again. Long time Steam Index user here and I just picked this badboy up from Amazon this past month and I immdeiately asked myself why had I not learned about the VP2 soon enough. I've found no issues whatsoever using it on a lot VR games including the MSFS2020.
omg yes, I alweays cringe whenever I have to pull off my VRcover, because part of the velcro surface comes off with it. And that's on my OG Vive. I can't believe the problem persists in this one. Also I have a piece of bath towel taped over the mic hole. Because like you said. And it's still the same? Wow. That part with Boll's FOV graph and the stereo overlap was actually fascinating! finally, that's a pretty neat model of the ISS back there. Did you put it together yourself?
The velcro sucks so much. It makes me REEE whenever I see it come off with the foam pad. For a company that dominates the VR arcade scene, I cannot believe this product has such an issue with changing out facial interfaces easily. And ya! Its the Lego ISS. I have a few Lego space kits. Love me. Wanna get the new Space Shuttle set when it goes on sale, haha.
Hi, and thank you for your test :) I took the plunge and bought the vp2, received yesterday. I am very disappointed, the image is blurry, in comparison with the index it is day and night. Also my gpu is completely at the pickup (2080S) regardless of the different modes (balanced high etc) nothing affects the framerate and the sharpness are bad. Have you encountered this kind of problem with your headset ? (all my software is up to date, and the headset is well positioned on my head, my ipd is also well adjusted) Thank you in advance
I didn't have this issue. I would ensure you're on the latest drivers. And turn off auto super sample in steam VR settings. If you already have done that for both. I'm sorry, I don't know what may be wrong :(
@@SadlyItsBradley yes I have already checked all that, but thank you :) So you confirm to me that in comparison with the index the image should be sharper? because this is not at all the case, when I go from one to the other I have the impression on the index there to be clear and on the vp2 to wear glasses
Just quick note. The eyetracker is self powered and uses wifi transmission. The headsets usb is not very reliable when it’s wireless, so if you are using the headset with wigig, that’s the best way right now of getting both mouth tracking and eye tracking
@@SadlyItsBradley i'm so sorry, the large box with the droolon f1 must have confused me. as far as I can tell it's powered from the usb on headset, it only worked with cosmos when it was wired, and not wireless. so, yeah, you're right it needs the usb hub and all
Regarding your lost settings when notepad closed, use Notepad++. It automatically saves every change in temporary files. It also highlights syntax such as on your json file at 13:42. And the search (and replace) feature is way way better than notepad as well.
you just saved me money, thank you for the review, I will stick to my old vive pro .... even though I hate goggles feel that vive pro 1 headset gives, was really looking forward to a wider lense damn...... but I do like image quality and contrast that oled lense has on old Vive pro
Nice shirt Brad. It's nice to know your culture goes beyond Yuru Camp. Edit: That section about the fov differences is nice, I appreciate that you compared all those points to multiple other HMDs.
It's so obvious that they just shoehorned in their RnD for the Focus 3 into an old shell. They should have spent some more time making it work well in the Vive Pro 2 fornat. Unfortunate and a bit cash grabby.
23:53 You misunderstand what OpenXR is. OpenXR is just an API. Different vendors will have to implement their own runtimes which exposes this common API.
Oh? My bad. I just knew that Tobii announced that their runtime was being built into OpenXR, so I went off on that. But, I definitely need to get myself more knowledgeable on it
@@SadlyItsBradley Currently it works very similar to something like Vulkan or OpenGL. Games / Engines use it and they are able to run on pretty much any graphics card. Each graphics card manufacturer has to write drivers to support Vulkan / OpenGL. So instead of Nvidia, AMD, Intel, etc making graphics drivers you have Valve, Oculus, Microsoft, etc making VR runtimes. There are ideas about allowing someone like Tobii to be able to add support for their hardware to an arbitrary VR runtime, but this is not part of the standard and not much information about it has been decided.
vr opinions is pure perspective,ipd head shape,eye placement all affect these things that he complains about apart from the mic of course,for example that overlap risa2000.github.io/hmdgdb/ professional tests shows its about 80 degrees for index and reverb g2 is 84 degrees the difference shouldnt even be noticeable like at all specially due to the higher fov,i bought it and use it with 6mm foam i suggest you try it for yourself htc accepts returns easily,honestly there is not better headset at the moment with this fov and image clarity and you get that with a 6mm foam 100%
