Bigscreen Beyond

Hardware

The size is the first thing that impressed me. It's so small and sits remarkably close to the shape of my head. There was almost no discernible weight transfer when moving around. That part felt like a real step forward.

Visuals

The resolution was a big improvement over the Index, but getting the optics into a comfortable position was more difficult. I had some eye strain early on, and I wanted to get the face cushion sorted out before deciding whether it was an IPD issue.

The sweet spot and keeping the lenses clean became things I was thinking about more than I wanted to. The Index had much worse resolution, but I found it easier to get a comfortable image and leave it alone.

Comfort

Being this light is amazing, but lightness doesn't automatically mean comfort. By the second night I knew I would need to modify the face cushion. The pressure and the need for constant adjustments became frustrating.

I sent Bigscreen photos showing where the cushion was putting pressure on my face. They offered to do another face scan and make a replacement faceplate. I was hoping that would solve a lot of the comfort and optical positioning issues.

Tracking

Tracking was generally fine, but I still found myself comparing it to the Index, which felt like it never lost its position. It was frustrating to be thinking about how good the Index still was while holding a brand-new headset.

Performance

My first sessions in VAIL and Ghosts of Tabor were really great, but the experience became inconsistent. SteamVR would become unresponsive and crash. I wasn't sure whether my computer was struggling with the resolution or whether something else was going wrong. I saved logs to try to figure it out.

Ghosts of Tabor on Ultra was getting around 30fps. Dropping to High and 75% resolution made it acceptable. VAIL at Medium settings and full resolution was still very unstable. It was hard to enjoy the hardware when I was spending so much time fighting performance and reliability issues.

Overall

By January 2024, I had temporarily switched back to the Index. It was more comfortable, needed fewer adjustments, had built-in audio, and wasn't giving me performance issues. The resolution was clearly worse, but that wasn't enough to make me keep pushing through the problems with the Beyond.

There is something very compelling about a headset this small and light. I wanted it to work for me. At that point, though, I was still hoping a new faceplate and a more reliable setup would let me enjoy it the way I had expected.

I eventually gave up on the headset due to the small sweet spot, difficult comfort, poor color rendering, and close focal range of the view which made me feel visual discomfort.