Back in October, Microsoft announced that its partners would be introducing a range of virtual reality headsets, which would be powered by Windows Holographic. At the time, those partners included Acer, Dell, HP, and Lenovo, but at WinHEC, another head-mounted display (HMD) was announced by 3Glasses.
At Microsoft"s Partner Showcase at CES 2017 today, I got to take a look at each of these five headsets. All of them were under glass cases, with the exception of the HMD that was made by 3Glasses.
Here are some photos:
| Acer | |
| Dell | |
| HP | |
| Lenovo | |
| 3Glasses | |
And here"s what it looks like when I try to take a selfie of myself while wearing a VR headset that keeps me from seeing the actual camera.
| Idiot CES attendee | |
Of course, while one HMD was out in the open for anyone to try on, it wasn"t actually connected to anything, so I wasn"t able to try out the actual experience.
Also, none of these devices have names yet (or at least Microsoft wasn"t willing to tell me), so for now, we"ll just have to call them "Acer HMD", "Dell HMD", etc. Pricing isn"t available either, and all Microsoft would tell me is that they"ll start at $299, which is what we were told back in October.
Still, the company has promised that these will work with a $500 PC, which means that there"s an $800 entry point. This is pretty impressive, if you consider how much an Oculus Rift or HTC Vive costs, on top of the kind of PC it requires.
Lenovo showed off its HMD earlier at the event, saying that it will cost "less than $400", so it might be safe to assume that it won"t be the most inexpensive of the group. Microsoft did say that devices at different price points will offer different experiences, so you"ll get what you pay for.
Looking in from the outside, the HMDs from Acer, Dell, HP, and Lenovo only seem to have cosmetic differences. The one by 3Glasses was the only one that had additional hardware showing, which is that it offers built-in headphones.
2017 should certainly be an interesting year for Microsoft, as we get to see more and more of its VR and AR ambitions.
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