Why You Can Trust CNET Samsung Gear VR (Samsung Galaxy S6) review: The best virtual reality you can experience with a phone
Gear VR Innovator Edition is still an amazing experience six months later, but newer tech lies on the horizon. We revisit Samsung and Oculus' creation.
- Nearly 20 years writing about tech, and over a decade reviewing wearable tech, VR, and AR products and apps
There aren't many pieces of technology that literally make people's jaw drop. That make friends say, "let me see that again." That make kids feel like they're in Disneyland. That make moms and dads and grandparents go, "wow, I can't believe this."
Samsung Gear VR (Samsung Galaxy S6)
The Good
The Bad
The Bottom Line
Virtual reality, in its current form, does that. Every time I've showed the Samsung Gear VR to someone over the last six months, it's never failed to impress. In that sense, the device -- a collaboration between Oculus and Samsung -- is a huge success.
Update, March 2017: There's a new and improved Gear VR for 2017, one compatible with more phones and more games. You may want that one instead -- or at least its new controller to go with this headset.
Original review continues:
Slide the Gear VR's stretchy goggles over your face, and you're on Mars. You're flying over icebergs. You're at a circus. You're underwater, swimming with sharks. You're dogfighting in an asteroid belt. You're in your own personal movie theater, surrounded by hundreds of empty seats.
VR amazes people as a technology. As a platform, and a product, the Gear VR in the last half year since its launch has proven to be more of what Samsung and Oculus said it would be all along: an "Innovator's Edition." A collector's item. A novelty.
I'm not saying you shouldn't buy the Samsung Gear VR, which costs $200 and comes in two flavors: one for the Samsung Galaxy Note 4 (which I reviewed back in December 2014), and one for the Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge . I'm saying you should understand that this is a fun toy, an amazing tech demo, and an early adopter's taste of the miracles to come. For that, it's worth it. Just know that even more amazing VR tech is coming down the road fast, with many more options coming available in 2016.
In the meantime, though, the Gear VR and Google Cardboard (which is far more limited, but compatible with a wider range of phones and available for about $20 or less) are really the only two VR products you can buy right now. The Gear VR does a lot more, even if it's impossible to tell how well it will hold up in this ever-changing VR landscape. But wow, it's cool.
What's new?
Since last year's Samsung Gear VR for the Note 4, the Galaxy S6 version is nearly identical. The Gear VR goggles for Galaxy S6 won't work with a Note 4, and the Note 4 version won't fit the S6. The lens placement and click-in dock are differently sized. (One hopes the likely Galaxy Note 5 and/or Galaxy S6 Edge+ will work with one of these versions, but only time will tell.)
The headset's been slightly modified: it's a bit lighter, lacks a clip-on visor in the front (now your phone remains in full view all the time), and a new USB pass-through allows charging while wearing the headset. There's also an internal fan that's designed to help defog the Gear VR while wearing it. It didn't seem to help much.
Additionally, a revamped Oculus app is now available, which works with both devices. Oculus Mobile is a whole ecosystem with an app store. Last year, there were just free and demo apps. Now there are paid ones, too: games and experiences can range from a dollar to 10.
With Gear VR, you mainly interact by moving your head around. An inner accelerometer, gyro and magnetometer in the helmet track head motions and make you feel like you're looking around. The Gear VR can't do more complex body movement or head motion, however: it can't detect if you're walking around, or leaning forward.
A side trackpad controls most interactions, unless you also have a Bluetooth game controller to pair with your phone. The trackpad in the S6-compatible Gear is now recessed so it can found more easily compared to the 2014 Note 4 version. The Gear VR uses the same type of optical technology as before, using magnified lenses to help bend a split stereoscopic display on your phone into an immersive experience that stretches around you. The field of view is still restricted to what you can see through the scuba mask-like goggles: it really does feel like viewing another world while deep-sea diving.
The Gear VR doesn't work while wearing glasses, but a focus dial on top adjusts to allow even people with horrible vision like myself (-9) to see just fine.
VR for your phone, vs. VR for your PC
The coolest part of using Gear VR is that it uses a phone to power everything. It's mobile, wireless and can fit in your backpack. Upcoming console and PC-based virtual-reality rigs like the Oculus Rift , HTC Vive and Project Morpheus all need to be physically tethered with wires to a game console or PC.
Those bigger systems have better graphics and sound, and also allow you to move around: not just your head, but walking or leaning or bending. They also have motion controllers that allow you to feel like you're reaching out and doing things in that space. And, they run a different class of games and apps. Gear VR lacks that right now, but makes up the difference in being portable and still surprisingly immersive.
Interacting in virtual worlds...with a touchpad or controller
Looking around at virtual places is one thing, but doing something in these worlds is another. For now, virtual reality input in Gear VR is limited to what you can do by looking around (some games and experiences let you "select" things by staring at them directly), or using the side-mounted touchpad on the Gear VR goggles to swipe or tap. A raised top button above the touchpad exits to the main menu: it's your "cry uncle" in case you're lost in an app. Press and hold the button, and you get menu options, including a cool camera pass-through that lets you look around through your phone's camera without removing the goggles. Next to this is a volume-controller button (you can listen to Gear VR through your Samsung phone's speakers, or plug in headphones).
Alternately, you can pair an Android-compatible Bluetooth gamepad. Samsung's own Gamepad, sold separately for about $60, feels like a lower-quality mini-game-console controller, and various games tap into some or all of its buttons (Dreadhalls, a creepy dungeon-crawling horror game, needs it: VR Karts Sprint and other console-like games do, too). You don't need to get Samsung's controller: any Bluetooth-ready Android-compatible controller should work (I used an Asus pad that worked, and I liked it even more).
But you can't reach out with your hands or wear VR gloves, or anything like that. Still, using a controller in VR is pretty fun.
Oculus store
The Gear VR doesn't work in the same Oculus ecosystem as the PC-based Oculus Rift: it has a completely different set of apps, available in an Oculus Gear VR hub app that lives on your Samsung Galaxy phone. After seven months, there are over 60 apps available in the Gear VR Oculus store. That means dozens, not hundreds, of ways to play.
Since Oculus started allowing paid apps in the store, the quality of apps has improved. Many apps were really "lite" demos before, and now many are fuller, longer games...that cost money. Some are better than others. Some experiences are little more than bizzarro art trailers. Others are deep arcade games.
Some apps are hubs: video content, mainly. Milk VR, VRSE, im360 and Oculus 360 Videos are doorways to collections of streamable/downloadable 360-degree video clips. (Note that CNET has partnered with im360 to produce at least one VR experience.) These panoramic videos are fun, sometimes amazing, but most lean on the wow factor of being able to see everywhere, trading the hyper-clarity of real HD video for the muddier quality of panoramic video. It's immersion versus crispness. For some videos, immersion is totally worth it.
There are some great games: there's Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, a two-player game that has you defusing a bomb in virtual reality while someone else guides you by reading an online manual. VR Kart Sprint is a basic but cool Mario Kart-like simple racer. There are a handful of shooters, set in asteroid belts, airplane cockpits and the like. Some of the immersive short VR movies, like Cirque du Soleil's Kurios, are amazing. I tried a few virtual meditation apps: I sat on a beach and watched a sun set, and fell asleep at the office. I watched colossal shrimp cooking in a giant pan in a weird learn-to-cook app called Cyber Cook Taster. A handful of video-streaming apps like VRSE, Samsung's Milk VR, im360VR, Oculus 360 Videos, 360Stories offer a lot of short movies to take in. Oculus Cinema is a virtual movie theater, and you can import your own (non-DRM) video files. (YouTube isn't supported yet, alas.) It's enough to keep you busy for a while, and new apps keep trickling in weekly. Some cost money, but a large amount are free.
Gear VR vs. Google Cardboard
You can adopt a far cheaper path to VR by getting Google Cardboard : it's basically a foldable piece of cardboard (or plastic, or metal, since there are several compatible types sold online) that amounts to simple stereoscopic VR. Cardboard works with most phones, even iPhones, and can run any app on the Apple App Store or Google Play that uses VR. Also, Cardboard can be used with YouTube's VR-ready panoramic videos. It's a fantastically fun, cheap experience you need to try out (and at its nearly-free price, you should do it immediately).
The Samsung Gear VR doesn't work with whatever app you can download: it needs to live in the Oculus store. That rules out YouTube for now, and many other fun free apps that your Samsung phone could otherwise play. But, the Samsung Gear VR looks far more impressive than anything else in the mobile VR space. It's the gold standard for audiovisual quality.
Cardboard is a fun, nearly free way to try out VR apps, but it's not nearly as good at reproducing immersive experiences. You need to hold it up to your face with one hand, ruling out using a Bluetooth controller. Most phones don't have the same super-dense Quad HD resolution that Samsung's Note 4 and Galaxy S6 have, so VR ends up looking more pixelated (what's called the "screen door" effect, since you can actually see individual pixels when you're peering at your display through magnifying lenses).
Collector's item, but a really fun one
The Gear VR isn't as advanced as the virtual-reality systems that are arriving next year that will run on game consoles and advanced PCs, but it's also got some really unique advantages: it's totally wireless, really portable, and is only limited by the processing power and battery life of your phone. (Incidentally, using the Gear VR does tend to chew up the Samsung Galaxy S6 battery life, as you might expect, but you'll probably want a VR break before your battery's drained.)
Oculus will continue to evolve its mobile VR platform in the future: probably to be a more versatile headset, one that works with more phones, and more apps. Where the current Gear VR fits into that future is unknown. Since this headset is bonded to a particular phone model, and sized just for it, this isn't an investment in the future. This is a taste of the present, and what VR feels like.
It's a great taste. At times it feels like a little feast. But don't expect Gear VR to do more than what I've described. It's amazing, hypnotic, and compelling, but limited. If you buy one, know it'll probably sit on your shelf one day. But if you're a collector of tech, you'll probably treasure it for being your first real taste of an amazing new world.
If you want a fun toy to show off amazing things to your friends....this is it. Until the Oculus Rift, Project Morpheus and HTC Vive arrive, at least.