PlayStation VR PS4 always had a tough road ahead of it. Compared to high-end gaming PCs needed to power the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, the PlayStation 4 is under-powered. The fact that Sony was retrofitting its old 2010-released Move controllers and PlayStation Camera to work with PSVR, which were peripherals that weren’t initially designed for VR, also does not bode well for the platform. After going eyes-on with it over the past few days, I must admit that it’s surprisingly impressive in some areas, but it also has some issues.
One area where PSVR could use improvement is with resolution. The visuals unfortunately look a little blurry. The head-mounted display uses a 5.7-inch 1920x1080-resolution stereoscopic 3D screen. This amounts to a 960x1080 resolution per eye. While 1080p is fine on a TV that’s several feet in front of you, it's a whole different story when the display is magnified in front of your eyes. Fortunately, the OLED panel here does offer deep black levels and is able to produce a rich color gamut. At the base of the display is a black rubber material that rests atop your nose and cheeks. This is used to block out light. While there will likely be some light leakage above the bridge of your nose, it's not enough to hurt the experience.
Poor head-tracking can also lead to VR motion sickness; luckily, that isn’t a problem here. PSVR has nine positional-tracking LEDs on the HMD and features 18 milliseconds of latency, which is low enough to prevent nausea in most people.
The headset itself may look bulky, but it feels really light. Weighing 1.3 pounds, I was surprised to hear that it’s actually heavier than the 1.2-pound Vive, which feels much more uncomfortable to me. It helps that the weight of PSVR is balanced from the front to the back. It can be a little confusing to put on at first, but you simply pull on the backstrap, put it on your head like a baseball cap, and then slide the front display onto your face until it rests against your cheeks. It's got plenty of room for those who wear glasses, too, and it's overall ergonomics makes you wonder why all HMDs don't use this design. It’s something that I felt comfortable using hours on end at a time. It is worth noting that like other VR headsets, the display here does have a sweet spot where things look sharper. It can often take a second or two to adjust for this.
