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HTC Vive Pro review: Eye-popping VR, with a price that’s a little too real
Is a $799 upgrade price (or $1,099 brand-new) justified for this jump in quality?
With the consumer-level virtual reality "revolution" now two years old, it's about time to start thinking about what the second generation of high-end headsets can improve upon. But HTC’s first true shot at the "next generation" has us thinking less about the improvements and more about the cost.
HTC's Vive Pro, launching this week, comes with a name and a price tag ($799 for an upgrade from the original Vive, or $1,099 for new Vive owners) that suggests a revelatory jump in the VR experience, well beyond what already wowed us in early 2016. But in practice, the Vive Pro feels more like a subtle refinement of existing ideas rather than a true next-generation follow-up.
In short, the new headset smooths out many of the biggest annoyances with the original Vive: there's a more comfortable headstrap, integrated "spatial audio" headphones, and a higher-resolution screen that makes details pop in virtual reality. Those improvements make the Vive Pro quite possibly the best VR headset currently available for general consumer use.
Businesses and location-based entertainment venues likely won't think twice about paying a few hundred dollars more for the top-of-the-line in current VR technology. For the rest of us who have to consider the value of those improvements compared to their cost in actual dollars, the calculus becomes much trickier.
Strap in
The standard headstrap that comes with the Vive Pro will be familiar to anyone who invested $100 in the Deluxe Audio Strap HTC released for the original Vive last year. Both are a huge improvement over the flimsy, ill-fitting, fabric-and-velcro strap that was by far the worst part of the original Vive package.
Like the Deluxe Audio Strap, the Vive Pro's integrated headstrap features a firm, plastic wraparound band that can swivel 90 degrees upward, letting you slide it out of the way to put on the headset more easily (and letting you easily flip the eyepiece up briefly to look around the real world during use). After you slide the strap down, a convenient twisting ratchet on the back of your skull lets you adjust the sizing by about four inches of circumference, ensuring a snug fit around pretty much any skull size. A thick strip of velcro goes over the top of the head, but it feels barely necessary to achieve a comfortable grip.
The Vive Pro is actually a touch heavier than the original Vive with an added Deluxe Audio Strap, but it doesn't feel that way. That's because Vive Pro's new strap rebalances the headset in a way that feels much more comfortable on the skull. Last year's Deluxe Audio Strap didn't quite fix the awkward top-of-head binding position, which always made the original Vive feel too forward-heavy. Thanks to a completely redesigned clasp on the side of the headset, the Vive Pro strap can rotate another 20-25 degrees closer to the neck—and it adds enough back-of-head padding to make that feel comfortable, not constraining.
As a result, the unit's weight finally feels equally distributed between the back and front of the skull. The headset never feels in danger of falling off with fast motion, as it did with the original Vive strap. A redesigned and repositioned connection cable exerts less annoying tug on the top of your head, too—it has been converted to a single cable instead of the last model's three-cable combo—but there's still no getting around the sensation of a wire dangling from the side of your head down to the floor. (We're still waiting for a price and release date for this year's Vive Wireless Adapter, not to mention a sense of how well it will work.)
The Vive Pro also mimics the original Deluxe Audio Strap accessory in adding two drop-down, over-ear headphones on either side of the unit, and these rest on a swiveling slider for proper positioning. The earcups provide strong, directionally appropriate sound without totally blocking out the real world and can be quickly flipped up if you need to hear something unobstructed. (HTC representatives have told Ars that the Vive Pro's earcups include noise-canceling technology, but we didn't notice anything beyond the sensation of our ears being covered.) Buttons on the back of the earcups let you mute the microphone and adjust the computer volume quickly without leaving VR, which is very convenient for switching between games with very different sound profiles.
While one of our reviewers found the earcups fit his head just fine, the other found that they didn't quite fully cover his ears no matter the adjustments. Still, even when sitting less than flush, both testers confirmed high-performing audio, even in the tricky high- and low-end spectrums. That's no small perk for anyone eager to dive into music-heavy VR experiences like Rez and Thumper.
Despite the improvements, though, the Vive Pro still includes some of the same basic design problems of the original. The eyepiece housing (which now allows for additional room for eyeglasses, toggled by an easy button press and slider) still ends up pressed up tightly against the front of your face, creating a thick seal that traps heat and puts significant pressure on the sinuses. Any decently long VR session threatens to turn your face into a sweaty, red mess that can lead to significant steam buildup on the lenses. Worse, the front-of-face foam padding feels decidedly non-Pro. HTC has been showing this off at press events with a custom leather face cushion, and for this price, we wish they'd offered the same option as a consumer default.
The PlayStation VR, which suspends the eyepiece housing just in front of the eyes, remains the comfort champ. But the Vive Pro headstrap also feels a little over-engineered compared to the lighter, thinner, spring-loaded strap on the Oculus Rift, without offering much improvement in terms of overall comfort.
The Vive Pro is definitely a necessary step up from the wholly inadequate band that comes with the original Vive, and it's also a slight step up from the Deluxe Audio Strap HTC has already put out. But the most concrete improvements in the HTC Vive are found internally, not externally.
