UPDATE: EB Games has put the HTC VIVE XR Elite up for pre-order. It’ll cost you $2,099 AUD and if you pre-order before February 15th, you’ll get Green Hell VR, Les Mills Body Combat, Unplugged: Air Guitar, Figmin XR and Glimpse. The unit itself launches in Australia on March 1st.
ORIGINAL STORY: HTC has this morning announced the HTC Vive XR Elite which is a standalone VR/AR headset that can either be used on its own or with a gaming PC and will support the majority of games that have been compatible with other Vive VR headsets.
The headset is releasing in March and will cost $2,099 AUD (you can pre-order here) and the specs aren’t super groundbreaking, but it is doing a lot of cool stuff that no other headsets are currently. The Vive XR Elite has the same chip that’s in the Meta Quest 2 (Snapdragon XR) as well as a having a resolution of around 2K pixels per eye, a 110-degree diagonal field of view and a 90Hz refresh rate.
What I really like about this headset is that you can snap the whole back portion of the headset off containing the battery and a lot of the weight and put a glasses attachment on which reduces the weight to a measly 240 grams. Obviously, you’ll then need to plug them into a wall or your computer, but in terms of then using these as a more productive headset, rather than a gaming headset, that sounds a lot more comfortable.
The battery is said to last about two hours, but it’s also hot swappable, with a small battery reserve in the headset itself, so you’ve got a bit of time to hot swap. There’s also full colour pass through as well which is something not many other VR headsets have.
Just like other newer VR headsets, it has four cameras built into the headset to track the two included motion controllers. I also really like the Stepless IPD that lets you finetune how far apart the lenses are (something that’s a little clunky on the Meta Quest 2 in my opinion).
Outside of the core package that includes the headset and two controllers, HTC is releasing two optional accessories, one that enables eye tracking and another one that will allow full face tracking.
It’s certainly set to be a big start to 2023 for VR with both PlayStation VR and this headset launching in the first view months. I’d say that this isn’t a direct competitor to PlayStation VR2 due to its internals not really matching up, but a really cool wireless concept, nonetheless.
The HTC Vive XR Elite is able to be pre-ordered here and includes five free games up until February 15th, but we’re chasing local information too.
