Huawei VR 2 Preview – Works with smartphone and PC
Sometimes you are surprised at a trade show like CES. This year it happened to us at the Huawei stand, where, in addition to the usual phones and tablets, there was suddenly a VR headset: the Huawei VR 2. This headset was announced a few months ago, but is officially only for sale in China . That’s why even Huawei employees were surprised when they were told a week ago that the VR 2 would be coming along to CES. Huawei is using the fair to see how it’s received and is considering a release outside of China later this year, at least in the US.
What makes the VR 2 so interesting compared to all those other VR glasses that are already out? That’s the fact that it falls somewhere between a high-end headset, like a Rift or Vive, and cheap Daydream goggles. For a relatively low amount – 2000 Chinese yuan, the equivalent of just over 250 euros – you get glasses with a resolution of no less than 1660×1440 pixels per eye, 90Hz screens and the option to use them with both a PC and a smartphone . This is possible because the VR 2 only uses a single USB-C cable to be connected to a source, instead of separate full-size USB-A and HDMI plugs.
The demo that we were presented with was one in which the VR 2 was linked to a smartphone and we could watch movies in a virtual theater. Even before we started, we immediately noticed how comfortable the VR 2 is. Huawei uses a construction we know from the PSVR and various mixed reality headsets, where the front hangs in front of your face, instead of pressing hard against it. This makes it easy to fold it up in between. Initially we were afraid that a lot of light would leak in as a result, but nothing could be further from the truth. The glasses cover neatly and are fine to adjust. Ergonomically speaking, Huawei has done a very neat job.
Since the virtual movie theater was run from a smartphone, it is difficult to judge the image quality, as the resolution of the virtual videos was clearly below what the displays can show. Nevertheless, we saw from the fine-grained pixel structure and the limited presence of the screen door effect that these are screens with a high resolution. The LCD panels refresh at 90Hz and therefore present a relatively calm image. On paper, OLED panels are superior in terms of image quality, due to their higher contrast, but the quality of the VR 2 was certainly not disappointing.
A feature that makes the VR2 look more like a cheap Daydream headset is the tracking. There are no external sensors and the glasses do not do inside-out tracking, so you have to make do with simple tracking of your head over three axes. So it is not possible to recognize movements from top to bottom and from front to back. This is not necessary purely for viewing media, but it does mean that you are limited to the simpler games.
Because such a tracking system easily gets upset, Huawei supplies a small controller that you can use, among other things, to center the position in the virtual world. That controller also contains a number of buttons, a trackpad and a trigger to navigate through the virtual menus, similar to the controller of the Google Daydream.
Of course, none of this applies if you hang the glasses on a PC and that also seems to us to be the most interesting scenario. The VR2 is compatible with Steam VR, which means that a lot of existing games should work with Huawei’s goggles, as long as they’re happy with the limited tracking. A racing game should work just fine, but games that expect you to move up, down, left, or right are likely to cause problems.
The Huawei VR 2 is certainly not a replacement for good mixed reality glasses, or a Rift or Vive. It does clearly offer more than a Gear VR Daydream headset or the upcoming Oculus Go, in terms of image quality, but certainly also ergonomically. For the time being, it is only for sale in China, but perhaps Huawei will consider a release in the US and Europe after the demo sessions at CES.