As you might have realized if you read my post on the Oculus Quest 2 and Business Apps, I’m very excited about the possibilities presented by the Oculus Quest 2 😃
So, I was just waiting for my new Oculus Quest 2 to arrive so that I could try it out. It arrived yesterday, but due to how deliveries are handled at our apartment building, I could not get my hands on it till early in the morning today. In fact, I went down at 4:00am in the morning just so that I could get my delivery and start playing around with the Quest 2 😛
For those interested, here’s what it looks like when you open the box:
The Quest 2 device itself is smaller and lighter — that’s the very first thing I noticed. The second thing I noticed was that the controllers now have a much more sculpted look. And though they aren’t that much different in terms of size from the original controllers, they do feel much more comfortable to use.
On to the Quest 2 itself. I had read people complaining about the strap on the Quest 2 and so expected it to be a problem. But my personal experience was that the new set up is much more easier to use 😃
I like how easy the Quest 2 is to put on and to take off and the new strap (and the reduced weight) makes the device much more comfortable — at least for me.
As far as the display goes, that’s where things become a little less straightforward 😛 The display is gorgeous and the screen-door effect, as many have commented, is much less noticeable. However, I couldn’t get things comfortable enough so that I could focus on (and read) text without a lot of fiddling at first.
I don’t know yet if this was just an initial set-up thing, or if I’m going to have to do this every single time I use the device. Only a few more uses will tell me where things stand.
But once I got everything set up, I actually found myself enjoying using the Quest 2 a lot more than I’d done with the original Quest. Now don’t get me wrong — this is purely based the comfort level I felt with each device.
I loved the original Quest, but I couldn’t use it for extended periods of time because it became uncomfortable after some time — I would either get headaches, neck pain, or eye strain. The Quest 2 was so much more comfortable that I kept using it for about an hour or two without even thinking about it. Of course, some of this could be attributed to the whole “new device” excitement — so usage over a couple of days (or weeks) is probably needed to be certain, but the Quest 2 “feels” much more comfortable overall.
Given the faster hardware, it’s no wonder that apps felt snappier, but I was also surprised to note that hand controls actually seemed to work much better than on the original Quest. Since I have not used hand controls on the original in a while, it is possible that this is purely an improvement on the software side — I’ll only know once I go back to the original Quest.
Now that I have two Quests to play with, there are a lot of things I want to try out. For example — I want to see how watching a movie with my wife in VR will work out. Also, which software allows easy collaboration and which doesn’t quite meet the mark.
But details about all that’ll probably have to wait till another post since now I want to get back to my Quest 2 and play around a bit more 😀
