 I love VR. So as soon as I heard we were getting a bigger, badder Vive the sequel, I got really excited, which might be why I am feeling pretty effin' let down right about now. Spoiler alert, not only will I not be spending a thousand Canadian pesos for an upgrade, I don't plan to swap out my original Vive for this Vive Pro that I got for free. Though not for the reasons you might expect. Let's unpack the HTC Vive Pro. After this message from today's video sponsor Thermaltake. Thermaltake's Core P90 tempered glass case is an angled open frame design featuring 5mm thick glass, three-way placement layout options, vertical GPU mounting with a riser cable included and more. Check it out at the link below. So here's everything that comes with it. We've got the headset itself, we've got the new proprietary cable for some reason, we've got a new link box that now has a power button that mostly actually just ended up annoying me, and if you're finding yourself going, like, what the hell? Where are the base stations? Where are the controllers? Then you are not the only one. The community is understandably pretty upset about HTC's decision to sell the Vive Pro only as a standalone headset without other hardware that you will need in order to use it as anything other than a stereo 3D movie theater that you strap to your head. Now the good news is that as HTCPR pointed out to me, if you already have a Vive, the Vive Pro supports both the upcoming SteamVR tracking 2.0 lighthouse sensors that are rumored to enable play spaces of up to a thousand square feet and the original ones, so you can reuse what you have until new controllers and base stations arrive sometime later this year. The bad news is that if you don't already have a Vive, the aforementioned controllers and base stations, ones that you're probably going to want to replace at some point down the road to get the most out of your Vive Pro are going to cost you over $500 to buy after the fact, which is actually $30 more than buying an original Vive, which includes those, a tether cable, a link box, and, oh, by the way, a freaking Vive! What? So this thing better be pretty freaking amazing. Now, one of the biggest differences outwardly is this new mounting system, and this is going to be a bit of a mixed bag for me. My wife likes it a lot better, especially as someone who, anyway, used to wear glasses, because it's just got a single adjustable strap here at the top, and what you can do is you can just put the headset on, pull out these headphone pieces, and lower the whole thing onto your head, then tighten it from the back. It's also got an improvement that's been made to the nose seal down here. It's like a flower petal-inspired design that blocks excess light leakage, and the headphones are now integrated into the headset, and they actually have a pretty wide degree of adjustability, so they sit on your ears pretty nicely just like that. Now, the only problem with all of this is that I find it really uncomfortable. Now, HTC acknowledges that it is heavier and bulkier, but the idea was that it would make up for this with the better, more even distribution of weight around your head, and like I said before, for my wife, it works really well, but most of the games that I play in VR are pretty fast-paced with a lot of side-to-side movement, so I want the lightest possible HMD with a tight fit against my face, and for me, this one, I found I was getting a little bit of side-to-side movement whipping my head in games like Space Pirate Trainer, Audio Shield, and Box VR, especially when following through on a punch or especially on a hook. Not to mention that it leaves a wicked pressure point on my king-size nose, something that right now I don't have a solution for. So it was at this point in my testing that I realized that HTC's use of the ProMoniker to describe this product might be an actual indication of the market that they're targeting with it, and not just a transparent attempt to make their higher-end consumer product sound really, really cool, because if you think about it, a commercial entity, one that stands to make money off of its VR headsets, is less likely to be concerned with little things like a few hundred dollars of extra cost at the outset, the lack of included accessories, and the cheaper packaging. And the beefier build quality of this unit combined with the quicker in-and-out is going to make it a no-brainer for trade shows, VR arcades, and other such endeavors. But I don't run a lot of arcades, so I kind of have to focus on the living room gaming experience for consumers. And for that, like, the big improvement was the move to dual 1440 by 1600 OLED displays, but is that enough of a game changer? Ah, man. I don't know, like, how do I put this gently? Not really, like, it's an improvement. Motion blur? Basically not a thing here, which is fantastic. I mean, VR headsets are a great use case for OLED, since they benefit from those quick response times, and they typically don't get used enough, at least on a static object, to risk burn-in. But the improvement to the screen door effect only puts the Vive Pro subjectively a little better than the Oculus Rift. It's still noticeable, and the resolution, while higher, and while it does improve the readability of text, is still low enough that there are obvious aliasing jaggies everywhere. It's nothing like when I tried the Pimax 8K, though it should be noted that I'm not recommending that thing either. It may boast high resolution and a massive field of view, but the version that I tried anyway was a steaming pile of garbage when it came to tracking latency and lens distortion. Both total non-issues for the Vive Pro. But that's not actually the end of my issues with it. One, HTC doesn't have any plans that they could share with me anyway to offer a lightweight replacement strap, and I don't see an easy way to DIY something more similar to Gen 1. Two, the killer apps, a low-latency wireless adapter using 60 GHz, and those base stations that will allow much larger play areas, they aren't available until sometime later this year. And three, while the built-in headphones are well isolated and sound good enough for like, you know, in-game pew pew pew sound effects, they're a little tinny and soulless for games that let you import your own high quality music files, so some people will find themselves wanting to take them off, which is supported, so that's good, but those same people are probably going to be at least a little ticked off to find out that HTC removed the 3.5mm jack, so that if you want to plug in your own IEMs, you'll actually need a Type-C to 3.5mm adapter. Why? Like, I get that Bluetooth is the future, but for crying out loud, there's already a wire running. So bottom line then, for the target market, the pro market, this is a great choice. All things considered, it's probably the best VR experience that you can get. I mean, that inside-out tracking approach that's used by Windows mixed reality products like the Samsung Odyssey VR really does hurt accuracy, but for anyone else, it really is a bad buy. I would take a Rift or a Vanilla Vive over it in a minute. I didn't even pay for this thing, and I'm still packing it back up, putting it in the warehouse, and patiently waiting for a more consumer-oriented Vive 2 to arrive that hopefully doesn't include any of my issues with this one. Optima's NuForce B3e8 wireless earphones support AAC aptX low-latency technology, providing high-fidelity audio to any device. They're built with a dynamic micro-driver with NuForce's sonic coating, and they feature near-field magnetic induction technology, meaning that there is no need to receive and resend Bluetooth signals or maintain two separate Bluetooth connections between the source and the earpieces. In addition, the left earpiece can be used alone in case you don't want to use both earphones, and both of them are IPX5 water and weather resistant with up to 16 hours of battery life. LED lights on the charging case indicate when the earphones are charging and how many full charges are left, and they include two types of spin-fit ear tips to provide better noise isolation and maximize usability among all users. Finally, they've got a built-in CVC noise-canceling microphone for calls, and a button on the left earpiece to activate Siri and the Google Assistant. The B3e8 is available on Amazon for about $150, so check it out now at the link below. So thanks for watching, guys. If this video sucked or you work for HTC, you know what to do. But if it was awesome, get subscribed, hit that like button, or check out the link to where to buy the stuff we featured in the video description. 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