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- [Dan] After partnering with HTC to produce the Vive
in 2016, Valve has gone solo with its ambitious
new premium VR headset, the Index.
There's absolutely no getting around the fact
that a full zero to Index setup
will cost you $1,000, which is two and a half
times as much as the recently-released Oculus Rift S.
And yet somehow it's still cheaper than the Vive Pro.
But if you have the budget and space
to accommodate it, the Index is very arguably
worth every penny thanks to its excellent
screen and wide field of view, best available
controllers, and reliable tracking.
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Having used Oculus's incredibly convenient
inside-out tracking system on the Rift S
and Quest, it was a drag to go back to setting up
external sensors.
However, the Lighthouse 2.0 base stations
were extremely easy to plop down on perches
in opposite corners of the room and plug into power.
Everything automatically connected and worked
flawlessly on the first attempt.
Plugging into a PC was similarly simple.
There's no obnoxious breakout box.
A single cable cleanly splits at the end
into USB, display port, and AC power.
It was up and running in less than 10 minutes.
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Comfort is one of the big things we're paying for.
And Index delivers in that department as well
as generally high build quality.
The head strap is similar to the Vive Pro
with rigid side pieces that are tightened
and loosened by a ratcheting knob on the back
and a Velcro strap to hold it on the top of the head.
It's a big step up from the original Vive and Oculus Rift.
The wider field of view makes the scuba goggle
effect of most VR headsets almost completely disappear,
immediately setting the Index apart
from every other VR headset I've tried.
The impressive 1140 by 1600 per eye resolution
is equal to the Vive Pro's and greater than
the Rift S's 1280 by 1440.
Naturally there's an IPD slider to adjust
the lens width and two forward-facing cameras
allow for binocular pass-through video.
This LCD screen produces the best VR image
I've ever seen.
It's still not entirely free of god rays
and halos when looking at bright lights
or white text in dark environments,
but it still looks fantastic and the screen door
effect is similar.
But it's not just the picture quality that sets
the Index part.
In the settings you can enable either a 120-hertz
or experimental 144-hertz refresh rate.
120 hertz is a significant upgrade over the usual
90 hertz you'll find in tethered VR headsets
but I found the benefit to be subtle rather than dramatic.
Mostly it's a bit easier on the eyes after a long session.
The built-in headphones are the most comfortable
possible design and then they don't actually
touch your ears at all.
And yet the sound quality and positional 3D audio
is excellent and there's not even much sound bleed.
The part of the headset that actually touches
your face, the gasket, is attached magnetically,
making it extremely easy to pop off.
Only one gasket is included but for another $40
Valve will sell you two more so you can swap
it out if somebody gets it all sweaty and gross.
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The Index controllers are the most forward-looking
part of the package.
And they represent a huge upgrade over the clunky
Vive wands in functionality and comfort.
The big deal is their ability to sense whether
each of your fingers is individually extended
or closed, which it does with a fair but far
from 100% degree of accuracy.
It can even tell if you're just closing
your hand versus squeezing with some force.
And because they're strapped to your hands
you can completely let go and see your in-game
hands fully open.
Actions like throwing virtual objects
are much more intuitive here than with the Oculus
Touch or Vive wand.
They recharge from a USBC port on the bottom
of the handle and the seven-hour battery life
has been good enough that I've never had them
even come close to dying on me mid-session.
I can imagine a lot of uses for the sensors
and finger-tracking tech in these controllers,
a Spiderman game where you close your middle
and ring fingers to shoot webs or a wizard
battle with hand gestures for casting spells
or a tea party simulator.
But none of that exists just yet.
And outside of Valve's hilarious but brief
aperture hand lab or the moon dust tech demos,
early adopters aren't going to have much to use
it for until developers get a chance to implement support.
It's a shame that Valve didn't launch a full
finger-tracking VR game to make the Index
controllers feel more immediately important
right out of the box.
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The new base stations are functionally
very similar to the original, with the main
new feature being that you can connect up
to four of them to cover a huge 10 meter
by 10 meter playable area to go well beyond room scale.
Most home VR users won't be able to make much use
of that though.
The 2.0 base stations are also slightly sleeker
and have a curved front face, giving them
a wider field of view than their predecessors.
That said, if your space is already sufficiently
covered by 1.0 base stations, which is generally
easy to do, their tracking quality doesn't seem
noticeably different from the previous generation.
So there's no need to throw the old ones away.
You're likely better off saving yourself
the $250 and buying the headset
and controllers separately since they're fully
compatible with the old base stations.
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Valve's Index is a premium VR set for enthusiasts.
Those of us who have a powerful PC, the space
to set up external tracking to cover a large area
with reliable and precise motion tracking,
intend to spend hours at a time shut off
from the world in our virtual domains,
and who want to experience the cutting edge
of finger-tracking input devices.
It justifies its high $1,000 price
with a high-quality screen capable of 144-hertz
refresh rates and a noticeably wider field of view,
as well as controllers that strap to your hands
and let you fully open your fingers,
which it can track individually.
It's forward-looking, so early adopters might not
see its full potential for a while.
But even now the Index is arguably the best
way to experience VR.
For more on VR, check out our reviews
of Trover Saves the Universe, Ghost Giant, and Falcon Age.
And for everything else, stick with IGN.
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