Comment by MetaWhirledPeas
5 hours ago
> Roughly equivalent resolution to Quest 3 and less than Vision Pro. This won't be suitable as a monitor replacement for general desktop use.
The real limiting factor is more likely to be having a large headset on your face for an extended period of time, combined with a battery that isn't meant for all-day use. The resolution is fine. We went decades with low resolution monitors. Just zoom in or bring it closer.
VR does need a lot of resolution when trying to display text.
Can get away with less for games where text is minimized (or very large)
The battery isn't an issue if you're stationary, you can plug it in.
The resolution is a major problem. Old-school monitors used old-school OSes that did rendering suitable for the displays of the time. For example, anti-aliased text was not typically used for a long time. This meant that text on screen was blocky, but sharp. Very readable. You can't do this on a VR headset, because the pixels on your virtual screen don't precisely correspond with the pixels in the headset's displays. It's inevitably scaled and shifted, making it blurry.
There's also the issue that these things have to compete with what's available now. I use my Vision Pro as a monitor replacement sometimes. But it'll never be a full-time replacement, because the modern 4k displays I have are substantially clearer. And that's a headset with ~2x the resolution of this one.
> There's also the issue that these things have to compete with what's available now. [...] But it'll never be a full-time replacement, because the modern 4k displays I have are substantially clearer.
What's available now might vary from person to person. I'm using a normal-sized 1080p monitor, and this desk doesn't have space for a second monitor. That's what a VR headset would have to compete against for me; just having several virtual monitors might be enough of an advantage, even if their resolution is slightly lower.
(Also, I have used old-school VGA CRT monitors; as could be easily seen when switching to a LCD monitor with digital DVI input, text on a VGA CRT was not exactly sharp.)
Whether or not we used to walk to school uphill both ways, that won't make the resolution fine.
To your point, I'd use my Vision Pro plugged in all day if it was half the weight. As it stands, its just too much nonsense when I have an ultrawide. If I were 20 year old me I'd never get a monitor (20 year old me also told his gf iPad 1 would be a good laptop for school, so,)
One problem is that in most settings a real monitor is just a better experience for multiple reasons. And in a tight setting like an airplane where VR monitors might be nice, the touch controls become more problematic. "Pardon me! I was trying to drag my screen around!"
2k X 2k doesn't sound low res it is like full HD, but with twice vertical. My monitor is 1080p.
Never tried VR set, so I don't know if that translates similarly.
Your 2K monitor occupies something like a 20-degree field of view from a normal sitting position/distance. The 2K resolution in a VR headset covers the entire field of view.
So effectively your 1080p monitor has ~6x the pixel density of the VR headset.
The problem is that 2k square is spread across the whole FOV of the headset so when it's replicating a monitor unless it's ridiculously close to your face a lot of those pixels are 'wasted' in comparison to a monitor with similar stats.
Totally true, but unlike a real monitor you can drag a virtual monitor close to your face without changing the focal distance, meaning it's no harder on your eyes. (Although it is harder on your neck.)