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Rift-S User Reviews - comparing Rift and Rift-S (pros and cons)

RuneSR2
Grand Champion
One of the first new Rift-S owners' review and comparison:


My early impressions of the S from a CV1 owner.


My Rift S came in today and after spending a quick couple of hours with it here are my take aways.

NOTE: I need to spend much more time in the headset but here are my initial thoughts/ramblings.


Optics

WOW, the best part about the Rift S by a long shot. I have a 63 IPD so right on the money and the edge to edge clarity is quite a large jump up from the CV1.

The LED panel does seem a bit of a drop in quality from its younger brother but the clear optics are something else. It’s almost too clear at times as I do see some aliasing.

One concern I have is the refresh rate, not so much if you are hitting 80 but when ASW kicks in it’s not as smooth as when running on CV1. This may be down to early software support? I hope so. But it’s one of my main concerns at this point.

I was able to use my desktop in OH though and comfortably read text. The jump up here is quite remarkable.


Audio

The audio solution is quite frankly crap. A 3/10 at best. I really hope we have some 3rd party options here.


Comfort

It’s fine while the headset is on and you are using it. For me it’s about the same comfort as CV1. One thing I noticed though, you can’t take it off and rest it on your head. I did this frequently with the CV1 so that I can control my pc. It does seem to put a bit of pressure on my forehead, not sure how I’ll go after a long session. I also maybe need to spend more time on how to adjust it for comfort.


Tracking

It’s been flawless so far but I haven’t really spent too much time testing it out. Early signs are good.


Summary

Early signs are positive but I’m already preying for a decent 3rd party strap with good audio, and possibly a redesigned facial mask. I would say Oculus have provided optics, tracking and touch. Lenovo probably looked after the rest.

Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/bqv9e2/my_early_impressions_of_the_s_from_a_cv1_owner/

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD
"Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

180 REPLIES 180

Nij
Heroic Explorer

snowdog said:


Get a Rift S, like I've said earlier the difference between the Rift and the Rift S is night and day. If you already have a Go then you know how good these displays and optics are with regards to clarity.

Do it

You know you want to.

 😄 😄 😄


🙂 Very valid points there mate, I am gonna get one now but hope I don't have the issues that a few people are having on here ie the black screens


Zenbane said:

Dammit!

I'm gonna have to go buy the Rift-S tomorrow, aren't I? FML


Haha me too Zen, just so happens I just got a £400 bonus at work, so looks like I'll be using that now, the Mrs will have to wait for her new dining room table and chairs 😄




Nij said:

Show me the light? 😄



Honestly mate I've had Rift CV1 for over 2 years and I can easily say that this purchase was so worth it!! I'm in love with the Rift S. IMO it's a massive upgrade, everything just looks perfect. It's not CV2 but it's defo an upgraded CV1 and the clarify of the optics and the resolution just make it so worth it for me. Like I honestly can't believe how good my existing games look now.

This has given my VR library a new lease of life! I just tried Robo Recall, Superhot & In Death and all three games looked simply stunning! 

Cheers mate, gonna try and hunt one down tomorrow, good job I'm off work, I'm in the UK and most places are saying out of stock, so either they've sold out or just not had their stock in
Headsets: DK1 Kickstarter edition, DK2, Rift CV!, Oculus Go, Rift S, HP Reverb G2 System: i7-8086K, Gigabyte Z370 AORUS Ultra Gaming, 16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3200MHz, 11GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1080 Ti, 1TB SAMSUNG 970 EVO M.2, Windows 10 Professional 64 Bit

SkScotchegg
Expert Trustee
Guys I've left my original review in place but have updated my score and added this sentence today just due disappointment with Contractors VR and In Death. The tracking is terrible in these games.

===EDIT: I've changed my review score due to poor tracking! - FPS games and Archery games don't work on the Rift S - disappointed.===

I'd give the Rift S 7/10 at the moment due to tracking and audio issues.

If Oculus release headphones add-on for Rift and allow me to use my original sensors I will update my review to 10/10 because visually what you see it's perfect.

If you play sims like racing/flying or you only play arcade games like Robo Recall/Beat Saber/Superhot/Audica then this will work fine and you will love it but don't expect to enjoy Onward/Contractors/In Death etc.

Sorry for bad news guys, I'm gutted too.

I really hope Oculus enable the original RIft CV1 room scale sensors in the software, for me this is the number 1 issue now with this HMD, they need to address this ASAP. This is more important to me then the audio right now.
UK: England - Leeds - - RTX 2080 - Rift CV1 & Rift S - Make love, not war - See you in the Oasis!

Anonymous
Not applicable

snowdog said:

Yup, like I've said before I think a lot of us have been spoilt by how surprisingly great the OG Rift's headphones were. Anyone new to the Rift S won't have a problem with the sound as it is right now let alone after a firmware update improves things.

@TheRealCyber have you still got your Oculus Remote? I haven't been able to get mine working since I got my Rift S. I love that thing! 😞

Apparently the Rift S has no support for the remote. However it does for the X-Box controller, go figure. I have not used the controller in over 2 years, but I used that remote with my original Rift daily.
I do a lot of flight simming and would just leave my Touch controllers in a drawer at times, so the remote was handy then.

cigaremoods
Heroic Explorer
Hello

Now it is very easy to know if his interlocutor has a CV1 or an rift S.
If the sound heard is very bad it is a rift S, if the sound is good it is a CV1.

🙂
Cordialy

MSI Z790 ACE, MSI RTX 4090 SUPRIM X, I7 14700K, Corsair Dominator Platinum DDR5 32 go, 2 x Samsung SSD 980 PRO M.2 PCIe NVMe 2 To

RuneSR2
Grand Champion


Guys I've left my original review in place but have updated my score and added this sentence today just due disappointment with Contractors VR and In Death. The tracking is terrible in these games.

===EDIT: I've changed my review score due to poor tracking! - FPS games and Archery games don't work on the Rift S - disappointed.===

I'd give the Rift S 7/10 at the moment due to tracking and audio issues.

If Oculus release headphones add-on for Rift and allow me to use my original sensors I will update my review to 10/10 because visually what you see it's perfect.

If you play sims like racing/flying or you only play arcade games like Robo Recall/Beat Saber/Superhot/Audica then this will work fine and you will love it but don't expect to enjoy Onward/Contractors/In Death etc.

Sorry for bad news guys, I'm gutted too.

I really hope Oculus enable the original RIft CV1 room scale sensors in the software, for me this is the number 1 issue now with this HMD, they need to address this ASAP. This is more important to me then the audio right now.




But if you take the Rift-S as it is right now - without using other headphones etc., how would you rate Rift-S against the CV1? CV1 may of course have other pros and cons, so maybe the same rating or different? Just curious - I'll ask you in week again - and in a month 😉

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD
"Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

RuneSR2
Grand Champion
Just went through 16 hours of posts on Reddit - here're some more reviews by persons who've been using CV1 previously - but not much new stuff since yesterday:

My impartial Rift S review from a previous CV1 owner

Setup

Seriously simple to set up, went through easy steps to finish. Nice touch (no pun intended) was the controllers are pre-paired so no need for that.. Setting the guardian boundary was extremely good and done by simply drawing on your floor with your laser pointer. Setting the floors level was a great improvement, you get a pattern at a height your headset thinks the floor is at which is wrong, but to set you just move your controller to the floor which moves the floor level in real time, no more setting your height during setup in centimetres. I was set up and in Home at aroud the 10 min mark after going through the "First Contact" experience eyt and have not experienced any issues during operation at all.


Headset
It's slightly heavier than the CV1 with very similar or same build materials. The extra weight however isn't noticable as the halo and headstrap do a great job of distributing the weight in a balanced way, in fact I now prefer the halo but will admit I haven't done a 7 or 8 hour stretch in ED yet. I still get light bleed around the nose but it's a tiny amount compared to CV1 where I used to use it to find drinks and stuff, can't do that now. Most have said its gone so I must have a skinny nose. The business end of the headset fits snuggly on my face and I get a good view inside. My IPD is average at around 62mm - 63mm.
Controllers

They are slighty smaller that the CV1 versions which for me who has small hands isn't a problem, but if you're a bit of a unit with shovel hands I can imagine the thing getting lost in your palms and be slightly awkward for button presses.

They feel lighter and more flimsy than CV1 and have found my thumb pads can partially pull the magnetic battery cover off during play forcing me to adjust grip slightly to allow the cover to snap back into place.. Not a huge deal but a minor annoyance that should be mentioned.


Visuals

Wow - just wow. A huge improvement in sharpness, clarity, SDE and god rays. Its immeadiately noticable even during setup but you get a better feel when you get to Oculus home and start playing. The clarity of text, the sharpness of edges. Colour and brightness are great as are the blacks.

As an ED player I'm happy with the blacks but I am aware that the textures used by FDev are crap. They may start of with black space but the textures overlaid for planets, cockpit and starfields etc all add a lighter hue. I have disabled some textures in the game to give me black space anyway for the most part (instructionon how to do this are in the VR section of FDev forums). So basically what Im saying here is light blacks are really FDevs fault and their textures, not any panel in a HMD. Default HUD colours are now usable which is great. I really am chuffed AF with the better visuals, this alone has made the upgrade (side-grade) worth it for me.


Sound

Yeah its not too shabby but a deffo huge step down from CV1. The surround/directional aspet of the sounds is excellent, I got more of a direction in the real world sense than the CV1 or headphones, it just lacks meat/bass and maybe some extra volume. My Astro A50 wireless headset fits over the halo though if I can be arsed to put it on, but I have buds i'm going to cable tie to the halo so they dangle just where my ers are so I can insert them easily, with the spare cable gathered and tied so they become part of the headsets frame.


I have seen the posts by Nate Mitchel regarding a patch to improve things so I'll eagerly await it's arrival.

All in all I am very happy with my purchase.

If there's anything you wish to ask please do, other-wise thanks for reading.


Grip button on new Touch controllers issue

Made a support ticket with Oculus already and waiting on a reply, but wanted to know if anyone else had this issue with the new Touch Controllers and Rift S.

Played last night for the first time and noticed when I was in Home opening the gift boxes that the boxes where not letting go of my hands even though I wasn’t holding down the grip button. The Right controller was worse than the Left one.

I then played Super Hot and the same deal happened where the hands would not let go of an object that I was holding or the game did register that I threw and object as it would float in the air. I would have to grab and attempt to throw it multiple times which of course affected game play.

I own the CV1 and was used to the old Touch controllers and I know it doesn’t respond like that at all.


Rift S Experience so far

Here are my brief first impressions after messing around in home, a couple rounds of Echo Combat, and Onward

New touch controllers finally have the oculus and menu buttons out of the way and now it’s very difficult to press them on accident. A big plus. Not as easy to feel for the right controller orientation as with CV1 version but that’s only a minor detriment.

Pass through is everything I hoped. 2x Oculus button for passthrough is off by default, and can be found in experimental section. Passthrough in dashboard is off by default as well, but can be enabled and set to last for a certain number of seconds in dashboard.

Optics are an improvement as is headset fit around face/comfort. It shakes a bit when you move your head if it’s even a little loose though and it’s noticeable. I didn’t experience this on CV1. With my 64mm IPD everything looks clear and crisp and I do not notice any god rays and far less SDE.

Tracking worked surprisingly well for Echo Combat. I feel like I can put that concern to rest. I was easily able to grab my ordinance from the shoulder and maneuver through wall grabs and shooting from a mounted wall location nearly behind me with negligible tracking loss, and to an extent that I did not feel disadvantaged.

Tracking was poor in Onward without a rifle stock attachment. To avoid occlusion of the front cameras, you have to hold your rifle out in front if you a significant amount and while not a game breaker it is horribly awkward. Also, every time you go to shoulder your rifle there is that awkward moment where your tracking glitches and you shove your arms further away from you until they snap back in place. Clearer optics for shooting at enemies far down range with a holo are a nice consolation, but this was pretty disappointing.

Sounds is awful. Unacceptably so without headphones. Somebody should honestly lose their job for that move. I am going to buy the PSVR speaker attachments ASAP to hopefully soften the blow of having lost CV1’s excellent audio, but the fact that oculus didn’t have an accessory that was adequate at launch was a big miss here.

The headset to PC tether cord feels heavier and more awkward to maneuver as well. To the extent that when I had to brush it aside at times it would cause the optics to shake visibly in game. The texture it has is less slick, too... it almost feels sticky/high friction which doesn’t help. Still need to suspend it from the ceiling to see if I get relief from that, though. Who knows...

Overall I am relieved with how this turned out. Beat my low expectations by quite a bit on tracking, slightly on optics, and was even worse than my expectations on sound.


The Lenovo S

TLDR - I wish the best of luck to all your tv's out there. Mine is going back in the box.


IMO Oculus really dropped the ball on this HMD. It seems Lenovo had the most design input. Probably went with a lot of "features" because Lenovo had a HMD already setup similar, and it made manufacturing it cheaper and easier.


IPD- I have 68.5. No matter what I do it is blurry. Getting rid of manual adjustments is a big FU to a lot of users.


Headstrap - its comfortable but It doesnt work as well as the original design and the padding on the halo does not appear to be removable. I really miss the old ballcap style


Static/white noise/flashing - this has been a constant since I first installed the HMD. I have redone drivers, reset cables and even tried it on another machine to no avail.


Guardian- I play with only Tv light often, this is how I played with all my Rifts and Vives for years. With the Lenovo design in low light it will try to keep making you go through setup or it will just shift your playspace around far from where you set it up. People will be hitting walls and TV's with this.


Tracking- it gets broken often in many games I play. While its not horrible it can be quite annoying at times and to me not acceptable for a PC connected device. If you play in lower light conditions, forget about it.


There are two things that are better about this HMD than my ol' Rifts. The pass through camera setup since it should have nice finger/hand tracking and that the screen is higher resolution. Everything else is a step backward.



Today it feels like many are starting to notice tracking limitations on the Rift-S compared to the headphones, let's see how it goes tomorrow... 

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD
"Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

Anonymous
Not applicable
Hmm.. so my right Touch controller broke. Well, I didn't knock it on anything, but for some reason the analog stick won't snap back into place (like if you move it in certain directions it stays there). I think this happened from teleporting in Robo Recall. I've contacted support about getting a replacement.
Also, I had the same problems with the grip buttons. Not sure if it is a software or hardware issue, as it is very hard to throw objects in Robo Recall and almost impossible in SUPERHOT. Hopefully they can fix this in a patch.

RuneSR2
Grand Champion


Hmm.. so my right Touch controller broke. Well, I didn't knock it on anything, but for some reason the analog stick won't snap back into place (like if you move it in certain directions it stays there). I think this happened from teleporting in Robo Recall. I've contacted support about getting a replacement.
Also, I had the same problems with the grip buttons. Not sure if it is a software or hardware issue, as it is very hard to throw objects in Robo Recall and almost impossible in SUPERHOT. Hopefully they can fix this in a patch.



It's really good to have you back in here - yes, you've been missed 🙂 You've been here since the dawn of VR ages - was the CV1 launch similar to this, many users experiencing tech issues preventing them from using the CV1? 

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD
"Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

SkScotchegg
Expert Trustee

RuneSR2 said:



Guys I've left my original review in place but have updated my score and added this sentence today just due disappointment with Contractors VR and In Death. The tracking is terrible in these games.

===EDIT: I've changed my review score due to poor tracking! - FPS games and Archery games don't work on the Rift S - disappointed.===

I'd give the Rift S 7/10 at the moment due to tracking and audio issues.

If Oculus release headphones add-on for Rift and allow me to use my original sensors I will update my review to 10/10 because visually what you see it's perfect.

If you play sims like racing/flying or you only play arcade games like Robo Recall/Beat Saber/Superhot/Audica then this will work fine and you will love it but don't expect to enjoy Onward/Contractors/In Death etc.

Sorry for bad news guys, I'm gutted too.

I really hope Oculus enable the original RIft CV1 room scale sensors in the software, for me this is the number 1 issue now with this HMD, they need to address this ASAP. This is more important to me then the audio right now.




But if you take the Rift-S as it is right now - without using other headphones etc., how would you rate Rift-S against the CV1? CV1 may of course have other pros and cons, so maybe the same rating or different? Just curious - I'll ask you in week again - and in a month 😉



I know what you mean, I get where you coming from, I love Oculus products and I really wanted to love this one. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy it and I'm going to keep it because the visual clarity of the optics and resolution is amazing.

Like I said in other post I bought Audica last night and I was like wow!!! This game is amazing and really enjoyed playing it on Rift S, I can't wait to get home tonight and play it some more.

I think my score right now of 7/10 is fair though, because I knock 1 point off for audio (no built in headphones) and 2 points for tracking. If the tracking was as good in Contractors and In Death as it is in Robo Recall and Beat Saber etc then I wouldn't of had an issue but they can't expect us to enjoy it like this, in it's current condition.

Like I said before as well, both of these issues can easily be solved by Oculus as far as I know, a software update for the tracking and sell us an accessory for the headphones, that's it. then I will give it 10/10 for full package, right now the package is definitely not complete, i'm not impressed with inside/out tracking at all.

You asked me how would I rate Rift S to Rift CV1, it could be amazing, the visual difference is amazing and I love what I see, I just don't love what I hear with the audio or what I experience with the tracking.

Constellation tracking FTW!!  😛
UK: England - Leeds - - RTX 2080 - Rift CV1 & Rift S - Make love, not war - See you in the Oasis!

ShocksVR
Superstar
Anyone think the screen on the S feels a lot "smoother" than the OG Rift ?

I expected the S to feel the same or worse since it's only 80hz vs 90hz, but imo the screen looks and feels "smoother".
i7-7700k, Zotac RTX 3080 AMP Holo (10G), QuestPro, Quest 2
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