From Mark Spoonauer at Tom's Hardware:
No more wires! You don't need a phone! I still don't care!Oh. I guess not.
Overall, these new headsets feel like a necessary evolution of virtual reality, not the leap forward the category needs for them to become must-have devices. For one, you wouldn't want to be seen in public using either the Go or Solo. Cutting the cord from a geeky headset doesn't cut out the geek part.
Second, virtual reality is still waiting for killer apps, or at least titles and franchises that are household names. Where is the Call of Duty in VR? Or Fortnite? Or Star Wars (no, an add-on to Battlefront on the PSVR doesn't count). To me, it feels like publishers and developers like EA and Epic are forever dragging their feet, waiting for true mass adoption before they commit more resources.
These stand-alone headsets have another issue, and that's the fact that no one under 13 is supposed to use them. This is the same health-related warning that comes with other headsets, because childrens' eyes are still developing. It's hard to indoctrinate the next wave of VR heads when they can’t participate.Spoonauer concludes by noting that he "extensively played with the Gear VR, only to place it in a drawer," so drawerware for the win? Although he did manage to point out something about VR that I had somehow not known already, namely that children under the age of 13 aren't supposed to use them, which nicely undercuts yet another argument that one hears from some VR proponents.
And make no mistake, Spoonauer is a VR proponent -- he's still actively pushing the killer app argument, even though VR is supposed to be its own killer app, and in spite of the fact that it's already got Doom VR, Skyrim VR, Superhot VR, and other high-profile VR titles and popular IPs like Star Trek, none of which have been enough to sell VR. Spoonauer is one of VR's early adopters. And even he doesn't see enough value in these new standalone devices for them to be worth their purchase prices.
VR... still not a thing.