HP Reverb Virtual Reality Headset

The headset has a very good resolution and worked seamlessly with my Alienware laptop. The only drawback is that it is an open box item not brand new, otherwise everything is fine. Considering the price, it is a good deal.

It took two months for it to arrive and Amazon did not have an estimated date until the day it shipped. But for me, it was worth the wait. I saw the youtube reviews before I ordered and knew it isn't a next generation device, but really wanted the high resolution. I already have the Oculus Rift which is still great and did not want to buy another VR headset if there was no big improvement in resolution. I really liked the first Rift's small headset design and its headstrap and over the ear headphones, which I prefer over those new strap designs that hangs the headset on my forehead or the new integrated speakers. The Reverb's design is surprisingly elegant and similar to the Rift's, together with high resolution and inside out tracking, it was the perfect choice for me. It is a bit pricey, but it is exactly how much Rift cost when it first came out and it's the price today for the high resolution.When I first put it on, the high resolution was immediately amazing to experience. Watching movies is finally something I might consider now with this headset, especially 3D movies. Although I probably still will not want to watch full length movies with this thing on my head, at least this can display HD movies at full resolution. Desktop in VR is now also usable. PC gaming is still the best application for a wired VR headset.Games play wonderfully. Environments in games like Skyrim VR definitely feel more realistic and immersive with the high resolution. Not all Rift games play using Revive, but when they do, it is a treat to be able to play Rift exclusives like the Arktika.1 at a higher resolution than the Rift. The LCD tends to be brighter, but I find turning the brightness in SteamVR down to 90% took it to a level similar to the Rift. The cable is heavier than the Rift's and the controllers are not as comfortable but they haven't bothered me much to be distracting. I get used to the controllers in a game, one time I even forgot I was not using the Rift's controllers.The Reverb is like the VR headset I've always wanted when I bought the original Rift and it has met my expectations. So far I have not noticed any issues with the headset and its construction feels high quality, so I hope it will hold up with time.

I've owned both the Rift and Rift S and heard so much good about t the reverb. The price was what kept me at bay initially, but considering that I love flying in vr - I figured it would pay for itself over time. Once it arrived, I was anxious to get it up and running. I've been very accustomed to the oculus software which is pretty user friendly and requires almost no input to get up and running. This being a windows media device meant I now had to download several different apps and had to physically start each one before using. This was cumbersome to even get sorted out. Eventually I did though and it was now time to sample the hype. I donned the headset and was immediately awkward with how bulky it felt on my head. The cable is very thick and is especially terrible if you plan on using it for sit down games in a racing seat since it's rigidity almost makes it impossible to rest your head without the cable being in the way. The visor itself also felt very square and not intuitive to contouring for your face. All these things aside, I was still hoping the graphics would make up for the inconvenience. Fire up DCS and immediately I notice a superb improvement in clarity.i was initially sold on it....Then I got into the sim itself.I had a huge amount of flickers and artifacts in the helmet and anytime I'd look out the side of the cockpit, there were juttering episodes as though it was bogging down by computer, but my frame rate wasn't physically being impacted, the headset itself was just having issue's processing what was being seen. This happened on both DCS and P3D v4 so it wasn't an anomaly to the sim. My computer is brand new from this last July and is running an I9 processor, with 2tb ssd and a rtx 2070 so I know my computer wasn't struggling. Once I took the headset off, I was shocked at how cross eyed I felt. This was very unsettling and surprising considering I'd never once experienced this kind of eyestrain with either Rift, and no matter what I did to adjust the ipd, this was a constant occurrence, and what's worse is that it didn't matter if I had the headset on for 40 or two minutes. It was almost instant once you put it on and then took it off. This to me was concerning. But not nearly as concerning as the following issues. Many of the load screens in a few games I tested flickered violently. This is beyond a nuisance and I'd have grave concerns for anyone with epileptic sensitivity even remotely trying this headset on for fear of seizure onset. I agreed to give it a few more days to see if some of the issues would adjust or be something I could just get used to.. But things only got worse. For starters, I would have random episodes where I'd see the volume icon pop up on the headset and it would start to raise or lower on its own, followed by MASSIVE stuttering that bordered on vomit inducing. Initially I thought I had hit a key on my keyboard, but after the third time I happened I knew there was something foul going on. I checked all of my audio settings and couldn't determine where the chattering would possibly be coming from. On day three I was 12 minutes in the middle of a flight and out of nowhere the headset just went completely black. I figured maybe it was just stuttering but once I took it off I realized the sim had crashed and the power on the headset had completely shut off. I swapped USB and video ports to make sure I didn't have a bad outlet and it continued to happen. This was the final straw for me. For 700 bucks, I wouldn't tolerate any of these issues by themselves... Much less combined. I boxed it back up and dropped it off for ups to send back. Pulled out my trusty Rift s, and oculus fired right up and I was up and flying in less than three minutes with literally zero issues whatsoever.

So first off, yes, there were plenty of issues with the first batches of these. You'll find those in multiple reviews on multiple websites. But I ordered this a few days ago after it came back in stock, after HP supposedly recalled prior batches, so I'm hoping I don't experience the same and got a flawed one.Most importantly, and HP says this: Make sure your PC meets MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS! And probably go beyond those requirements if you can.Now the good stuff...The resolution is REAL. If you think a Vive Pro or a Valve Index is pretty good, once you try the HP Reverb those headsets will feel like you're back in the 90's. It's no joke. SDE is virtually gone, and you feel like you have a high resolution monitor rather than a headset. The details are just astonishing.Comfort is comparable to a Rift S, which is one of the most comfortable headsets I've tried. Audio is OK, not great, but it provides the option to remove the earphones and use your own headphones if you want.Lightweight, and ergonomic.Tracking probably isn't the best since it only has two cameras, but not a big deal for me since I mainly do racing sims.I'll update this review if I start having the same issues other folks reported, but so far, THIS IS VERSION 2.0 OF VR FOLKS!Note: My review is based on comparison with several other headsets I've owned recently including the Rift S, Samsung Odyssey Plus, and Vive Pro.

The HP Reverb answers the question, "what if you designed a headset where all the effort was focused on resolution?" Indeed the resolution is as fantastic as everyone says, it's like looking at a monitor. No screen door effect, no jaggies. Also I didn't have any of the problems reported by first adopters - I had zero flickering, display dropouts, blue lines, mura, dead pixels, etc. In that regard it was perfect (I received the newer version from Amazon with the cable clip). Unfortunately the rest of the experience is not so impressive...* I have a 68mm IPD and I found the sweet spot to be small, where the display was only clear when looking straight ahead. Ironically I found the clarity worse than my Rift CV1 when looking anywhere except straight ahead. Rift CV1 display resolution is of course much lower, but the clarity across the lenses is much more consistent.* The colors are not very good. Actually when playing games I didn't notice it too much, but when watching videos or looking at photos it looked much worse than my OLED based Rift CV1.* The headphones are passable, but don't sound as good as the Rift CV1. Generally less bass response.* Coming from the Rift CV1, WMR tracking was a disappointment. Just think of all the times when you hold the controllers to your hips or hold them out to your sides - selecting items, using menus, grabbing things without looking, etc. WMR loses tracking in these cases, and it's immersion breaking. With Rift (or Vive) you never have to worry about this.* Some major games just don't work with WMR. Space Junkies and Dance Central crash on startup. I tried various other Oculus titles through Revive with mixed results.* The WMR guardian system is bad. When you hit your border, it draws thin, light grey lines, mostly only in the spot where you're hitting the border. So if you put your hand to the side but look straight ahead, then you don't even know you're hitting the border. Combine this with colorful games like Beat Saber and the border is basically invisible and therefore worthless. By comparison, on Rift CV1 the whole screen lights up in florescent color when a border is hit so it's impossible to miss.I bought the HP Reverb with the idea that resolution was the key factor to better immersion, but I was suprised to later come to the realization that it is the "total package" that creates immersion for me, and resolution isn't nearly as important as lens quality, color accuracy, hand tracking, and software quality/compatibility. In fact I am going back to my Rift CV1, because it is excellent in all areas except resolution, and at least for me, that's a much better experience. The Rift CV1 works so effortlessly that I had taken it for granted, and only after trying the Reverb did I realize this.If you look around at online discussion, it seems that the simulation gamers are the ones who really love the Reverb, because a lot of the concerns I mentioned above aren't so important for that use case (they are sitting in one spot and not using the controllers). So if you're a sim gamer maybe it's easier to live with the drawbacks; however, I am not a sim gamer.

This is a tough review to write because I LOVE this product, but I can't give it more than 2 stars. The resolution is absolutely incredible. I use VR for flight simulator games and had previously used both an Oculus Rift (CV1) and Valve Index.The good:- The jump in resolution provided by the Reverb over both of those other headsets is game-changing for a flight sim.- Head-strap is comfortable (and very similar to the original Rift).- Nose gasket is very comfortable and better at blocking out all light than the other headsets I've used.- Tracking (for a seated simulator) was good 99% of the time. Every once in a while I'd experience a small tracking hiccup, typically while looking far up and/or behind me. It's entirely possible that this was due to my lighting, but compared to the externally-tracked Rift and Index, the Reverb is a very slight downgrade in this area. I can't speak to how well it handles room-scale tracking though.- Over-ear headphones provide fine sound, and were basically indistinguishable from those on the original Rift.The bad:- No mechanical IPD adjustment is tolerable, but not great. My IPD is right on the high edge of the acceptable range, but as a result I think I was seeing more blurring around the edges of the lenses.- Lenses are lower quality than the others. The Rift in particular was good in this area in that I could look around with my eyes and not see any degradation in visual quality across the entire lens. On the Reverb though, there is a beautiful "sweet spot" in the middle, but it's not as good edge-to-edge.- The cable is heavier than either other headset I've used and it can be noticeable even in a seated simulator.- Issues with the cable connector have been cataloged extensively, but essentially what you have is a large connector that hangs just off the back of the headset strap, adding to the "heavy cable" feeling. My headset is of the "V2" variety that includes a plastic clamp to hold that connector together.- Field of view is a small downgrade from Rift/Index. Mechanical IPD adjustment would help by a few degrees, but I did feel a little bit more like I was looking through binoculars with this headset than others.The ugly:As of writing, I'm waiting on my FIFTH Reverb headset, in 8 months, to show up.- Reverb #1 showed up DOA; the screens wouldn't even turn on and the computer wouldn't recognize it. HP support suspected it was the cable, but I was about to move and when the shipment of a new cable was delayed I simply returned it to Amazon.- Reverb #2 was ordered from Amazon after my move was complete and functioned with no issues for about two months. At that point, over the course of roughly a week, the screen for the right eye developed significant mura (patches of darker/lighter pixels) and then started to redden along the edges. HP support was very helpful and shipped a replacement immediately.- Reverb #3, though, showed up with several dead pixels right in the middle of the field of view on the left eye. It was a small enough section that it took a week or two to notice, but as soon as I did it was very irritating, and not something I'd accept from a $600 product. Once again, support was great a sent a replacement.- Reverb #4 worked great for 3-4 months, but suddenly died. Both screens went black while I was using it. Re-seating all the connectors and all the HP troubleshooting was only able to succeed in getting the screens to show a grey/purple static pattern. Once again, support was great and I expect another to show up in a few days.Unfortunately, when my 1 year warranty runs out, I fully expect to be stuck with a $600 headset that will likely die soon. Maybe I've just had terrible luck, and I'm sure the replacements they've been sending me are refurbished so perhaps they already have some hard miles on them, but for now the incredible resolution the Reverb offers is unfortunately outweighed by the terrible quality control. I sincerely hope that these issues are fixed on the Reverb G2, because the main competitors are still trailing significantly in resolution. My recommendation to anyone looking at the Reverb would be to wait a few months for the G2 and cross your fingers that the quality has been brought up to acceptable levels. If not, at least their support is helpful.