 Pimax then. So these guys are actually a pretty new company based out of China, and they are making some very bold claims. So they boast that their VR headset, I've got a prototype of it right here, delivers dramatically better field of view and resolution compared to competing solutions from big name companies like Oculus and HTC. And they actually flew all the way out to my studio here in Vancouver to have me try it. But my BS detector started going off pretty hardcore when I realized that they were calling the 2 4k displays, one for each eye, 8k. That is at best a little misleading. But I mean, I'm already in at work on my Sunday due to some scheduling challenges. So what the hey, why don't we check it out? My weekend trip to the office, by the way, is brought to you by TunnelBear, the simple VPN that makes it easy to privately and securely browse a more open internet. Try TunnelBear for free at the link below. That's tunnelbear.com slash LTT. Well, this bag broke. Okay, I guess we don't get another shot at this then. So right here in my hands, I've got what they're calling, emphasis on their calling because I don't necessarily agree, what they're calling the Pymate Pymate. So I'm gonna go ahead and get my Pymate. I'm gonna go ahead and get my Pymate. I'm gonna go ahead and get my Pymate. So right here in my hands, I've got what they're calling, emphasis on their calling because I don't necessarily agree, what they're calling the Pimax 8K. The resolution that it's running at here is 3840 by 2160 per eye. So in order to achieve that, well, they had to put some pretty different hardware in here. Although there's really not much point The Pymax 8K is actually gonna have one USB 3, this one has a USB 3 and a USB 2, and it's gonna have a single DisplayPort 1.4. This guy's using dual HDMI's and then because we're using a laptop for the demo, an HDMI to mini DisplayPort adapter to drive the displays. While the displays themselves run at 3840 by 2160, the way that we're actually driving this is with two 2560 by 1440 signals that are being upscaled. If you want to run them at native resolution, you are actually gonna need a higher-end product called the Pymax 8KX, and you're gonna need a pretty banging computer because running two displays at 4K is not exactly straightforward, especially if you factor in that they gotta run at 90 Hertz if you want the kind of fluidity that, well, you're gonna want if you are playing games in VR. Now size-wise, this thing is really big. It's like kind of chunky looking, but the good news is that when you're gaming in VR, you're obviously not looking at yourself, so all that really means is that your your wife or your boyfriend or whoever's watching you play VR gets to watch you look like even more of an idiot. But weight-wise, it's actually not bad. You still got that tethered drag, but the distribution of weight is actually pretty solid. I got to give them credit for that. Now tracking is handled with these laser trackers along the outside. Right now, they don't look like anything special, but this is pretty early going, and this is pretty cool. So they're gonna ship, they have a complete kit that ships with lighthouses, but if you already have an HTC Vive, you can actually use your existing HTC lighthouses and just plug and play, and then that's also true of of any Vive controllers. So those are intercompatible with a Pimax headset, whether you go with the 8K, the 8KX, or the lower-end 5K. Now that's not to say that they don't strive to build their own controller, so this is actually a prototype version of their controller. It seems to bear a lot of resemblance to the HTC controller, but check this out. Somebody dropped it at an earlier demo. This whole thing has been fairly well used. So hey, intercompatibility is still pretty cool. The rep was able to run to the store, buy a couple of these, and then bring them over here for the demo. So experience-wise, because it uses the lighthouses, you can do a seated VR experience, or you can do a room-scale VR experience. The maximum distance is about the same as the Vive, so you can do a play area about, well, this big. I think it's a five meter distance between the two lighthouses. Truthfully, I can't say I'm too disappointed that I'm going to be using Vive controllers today. This is a prototype, but they've got a lot of work to do here, so this touchpad has to be matte. There's no way that they can ship it with a glossy surface like this, and the tactility of the buttons. I'll give them credit. It's lighter than the Vive controller. So that's good, but the tactile feel of the buttons has a long way to go, especially this trigger down here. So hopefully these are all things they can get resolved. One bonus, though, is, hey, Type-C charging. So that's good. This is what they're planning to ship, but I would consider this to be kind of the base model, because part of their whole concept is having a modular design for this product. So you could add, like, a Scent module, you could add support for a prescription building module, you could add support for prescription built-in lenses, you could add fricking... What else they got? They're claiming that they can do wireless transmission, though they sure as heck won't be doing that at full resolution. There's a cooling fan module planned, apparently. That would be pretty trippy. Oh, and there it is. It is. It's running. I don't know. They weren't kidding about the field of view. It's all the way from about... I mean, I can't see what I'm doing, but from about here to about here, and then from, like, here to here. And we've got another hilariously, yes, this thing is definitely a prototype, in case you were wondering, revelation here. The controllers are not running wirelessly yet. That will happen. This is only prototype two, I think, out of, like... I think they're gonna do... they're planning four prototypes at least, before they actually deliver this thing. I feel like, fricking, you know... I don't know. I don't watch movies, so I have a hard time doing, like, movie references. Okay, yes, I know I'm mirroring the display. I'm gonna try and get away with it. SteamVR, give me a break here. Okay. So, man, this is gonna be hard to not walk too far. Uh... Okay, I think I need to adjust my inter-pupillary distance here, because this is clearly not correct. Do-do-do-do-do-do-do. It's clear that they have some work to do with respect to making the flat displays appear a little bit more natural as you move your head around. So right now, there's a little bit of waviness as you look from one side to another. There's a little bit of distortion, and it is a little bit motion sickness inducing. But clearly, they're not done yet, and I will say text is incredibly readable compared to anything that I have tried before. Alright, so let's... let's fire up a game, shall we? Why don't we do my first VR game? Space Pirate Trainer. So this is what I initially set up, my first time trying VR, in my computer room upstairs. The night before I had to bring the HTC Vive back to the office for Loop to Do's review, this was the game that I played when I set it up in my office upstairs, so... Oh, wow, I've never seen this enemy before. What the heck? So what, it's like armored until it's like not armored or something? Wait, okay. Oh, come on now. Now I just want the high score on this setup here, so that everybody, whoever does this demo, can know that I was better than them. Alright, so I'm dead. So initial impressions. I'm going to try it again in a minute without that secondary screen running, because I know that that can affect performance, but what I will say right now is that they have got some... they have some motion tracking responsiveness stuff to address, because as someone who can comfortably play VR for over an hour in games like Hollow Point, running around, jumping, I've been in for about five minutes so far, and I'm already feeling nauseated. They're saying that they're planning to ship units early next year. I don't think they're going to hit that target, and if they don't hit that target, I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing, because I would rather that they spend a little bit more time on that. With that said, they're moving in the right direction in some ways. The increased field of view and the increased pixel density makes for a very different experience. I was pretty skeptical about 2560 by 1440 upscaled to 4K, and for text, I don't know what the people talking about, how you could use this at the desktop were talking about. Like, it's clearer, but it's obviously upscaled. So for text, I wouldn't recommend the non-X version, or I'd just get the 5K and run that at 5K natively, but in games, there is virtually no screen door effect. So they're using what they're calling a CLPL display, and I don't remember what the CLP stands for, but the L at the end is liquid. And they're saying that it's competitive with OLED in terms of the pixel response times, so that the smearing that you'll see in the image as you move from side to side, it is not, and I don't know why they would say that. It's a very strange thing to say, because it's common knowledge that an OLED responds instantly, while the best you can do, gray to gray, with an LCD is multiple milliseconds. With that said, it is better than I thought it would be, but right now, it's hard for me to say how much of the motion sickness is from that, and how much of it is from the actual motion delay when I'm moving around or moving my hands. Now, they told me that they haven't validated Space Pirate Trainer, so the next game I'm going to try is one that I've spent a lot of time with, and one that they actually suggested, and that is The Lab. So here in Longbow, definitely enjoying the increased peripheral vision, so like, facing this way, looking at the gate, I can clearly see guys coming down the steps towards the right approach. Also, in a brightly colored scene like this, I'm not noticing any difference in pixel response times to nearly the same degree that I did when I was in Space Pirate Trainer, where everything that you're looking at is brightly colored objects on a black backdrop, which is typically a more difficult scenario. So, I think I've narrowed down where most of the motion sickness is coming from. It seems to be mostly to do with the slight distortion effect of the display, because ultimately you're looking at a flat display through a lens that is stretching it out into your peripheral vision, but it seems to be coming from the way that the image distorts as I move around, particularly when I look up and down. Now, they tell me that the next version is going to have an updated lens, so I'm hoping that they can resolve everything that I'm experiencing today, but like anything that you'd be backing on Kickstarter based on an early prototype, you can't take for granted that anything will be any better than it was when they were initially pitching it. I will say this though, again, the field of view is incredible. Like, I actually feel like I'm standing in a plaza instead of feeling like I'm looking at a three-dimensional plaza that's like through a pair of binoculars in front of me, and that effect is really cool. So impressions wise, guys remember this is based on a pre-production unit, so take it for what it is. Right now they're asking for $4.99 for a Pimax barebones on their Kickstarter campaign. So by barebones, I mean it is just the headset, and they assume that you already own Vive controllers and Vive lighthouses that you'll continue to use. Then, if you want the full package, it's $800 for this one with the whole kit, or $1,000 for the Pimax 8KX, although that one is actually sold out at this time. Right now, even though that is actually quite a bit cheaper than the HTC Vive, the Rift at $400 with sensors and with touch controllers included is a more seamless experience for sure. With that said, now that I've experienced what a next-gen resolution display is like in VR, I would have a very hard time recommending that you buy a current-gen VR experience, because the increased immersion from the wider field of view and the higher pixel density makes an enormous difference. And this was a pretty cool experience, even if I do feel a little nauseated right now. I wish them the best of luck on the next couple of iterations, because I can see they're headed towards something pretty cool here. And on the subject of being headed towards something pretty cool, whether your device is a VR headset or a phone or a computer, iFixit can help you take it from broken back to something cool. They've got thousands of guides for how to take apart and repair your devices, and they've got their award-winning lineup of tools. Who did they win awards from, you might ask? 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