HP Reverb G2

Visuals

Resolution is very good, but I was less blown away than I was expecting. It feels 'about right'. I can still see pixels.

Sweet spot was painfully smaller than I was expecting. I have to get the headset on just right to have a clear center image. Blur out to edges felt worse than Quest. IPD adjustment was somewhat useless with the small sweet spot. No god rays.

Comfort

Comfort is good, but I was surprised it was a bit hard to get right. Weight of the headset is great, but the strap didn't fit the back of my head great. No fatigue and no pressure on my face. Rift CV1 had a better strap, but this has a better headset/faceplate.

Software

WMR is not great. I don't intend on using it at all. It's a shame I can't load straight into Steam.

Steam integration wasn't automatic, I had to install a special package on Steam to get it to register. Didn't get any prompt for it, had to look it up online.

Audio

Audio is good and very comfortable with the floating design. The Rift may have sounded a bit better. It felt like it had better lows. Definitely a selling point. Absolutely no complaints here.

One nice thing about WMR is that it switches to headset audio automatically and then Windows returns you to your normal audio settings when you shut it down.

Hardware

Plastics are not great. Oculus build quality is noticeably better.

Cord is pretty thick and heavy. Not terrible but was pulling the shirt up on my back occasionally. Had to re-setup my PC outputs because it needs a dedicated DisplayPort and I only have two. USB-C plug is fine and it comes with an adapter for USB-A. Power cable plugging into the main cable was fine. A bit of a cable mess, but I hid it.

The controllers are heavy. Playing Beat Saber was physically tiring. The controllers are big. They clank together occasionally. Straps are ok. Buttons are not fantastic.

My biggest gripe is that the tracking ring is held to the controller via a hinge design. When I move fast in Beat Saber I can see the tracking ring bend slightly and my sabers appear to have a bit of overflex as a result. Not designed for high action gameplay.

Tracking

It's not great, but it's not terrible either. I was surprised by it in certain ways.

The worst part is when it loses positioning on a controller and the controller shows up floating in space but still has gyro control. I feel like this problem can be fixed in software by not allowing the controller to jump position instantaneously. I'm hoping so.

The tracking is a little worse than the Quest. It was basically fine for Pistol Whip and Half Life: Alyx. It surprised me as being very playable on Beat Saber as well. Just not as good as the Quest. And definitely not as good as a Rift CV1. It feels slightly sluggish, but also oddly predictable.

The biggest issue with tracking when my hands are hanging directly down. Cameras lose sight of the controller and the placement is lost. That's the most frustrating part of the tracking. For the most part, in game, I didn't experience too much trouble.

Performance

It ran on my system. 1080 and i7, 32gig of RAM. Half Life: Alyx seemed like it was lowering quality a bit in order to run well, but Beat Saber and Pistol Whip ran great. Better than on Quest Link or Rift CV1 surprisingly. I definitely need to upgrade my system though so I can take advantage of the resolution and 90hz. Excited to try out Elite: Dangerous and Asgard's Wrath.

Overall

The Reverb G2 is very good. If you want the best Beat Saber headset, don't buy this. I do think this headset shines on games like Half Life: Alyx. I actually felt more immersed than normal and had a lot of fun. This is probably not a mainstream headset. The Index appears to be a more complete package. The Quest 2 is way cheaper and way more polished, but I am stoked I have it.