Oculus Go

I confess, I've always been a big fan of VR ever since I tested a unit in the mid 90's. Those unit were big, heavy and bulky, the gfx were not that impressive and rather rudimentary 3D vectors. Still, it left my young self very impressed.

Ofcourse, back then, nobody could buy a VR set, the computers needed to power the whole thing were gigantic. In recent years there has been a VR revolution, the Valve Vive series is probably the most advanced unit available, but i still find it rather expensive. Then there are those goggles you need to slide your smartphone in, those are at the bottom level of VR, they are cheap and not very good.

One company, started through crowdfunding, is Oculus (now owned by facebook :( ). The promised an affordable headset. They more or less succeeded in their mission, however with the release of the Oculus Go they had something special. An affordable stand-alone unit.

Now the have released the Oculus Quest, the next step in stand-alone VR. And a lot of people are now dumping their Go for cheap, so if you ever wanted to get your feet wet into VR, this is the time.

Queue my Go 64GB, bought second hand for €100.

All I can say is that for that price it is an unbelievable piece of kit. I can fully recommend it to anybody interested in VR. With the Go you don't get 6DOF, so you will not be able to move your body (only your head), but it is still a good experience. What amazed me the most is the controller, which has very good tracking in VR space, apparently without all the sensors you need with other headsets. You do only get one controller, but so far, for most applications on the GO, I haven't missed a second controller. The display has a great, crisp quality with vibrant colours. Sound works well without headphones, having the benefit you can still hear your surroundings (like screaming wife/kids :P ), but it is possible to connect a headphone if you truly want to immerse yourself in VR environments.

What are the bad points? The Field of View is not that great. As long as you don't move your eyes, this is not a problem, but this is easier said then done (instead of moving your eyes, just turn/move your head). Battery life appears not to be that great, so far I haven't been able to get more then two hours of use out of it. Besides that, I don't have much to complain about.

All in all, if you want to try out VR, a second hand Oculus Go might be the best option yet.