Samsung Odyssey & Odyssey Plus News

Samsung is one of the few in the world that manufactures great panels, and in some ways Oculus and the others really have to depend on them for the tech. They are big enough to stick around, so glad they are doing this refresh now. Like you said, it’s healthy competition.

For me and the Microsoft Store up in Canada, the SO+ is now all out of stock, so that should prevent the ol credit card accidentally falling out of my wallet for a bit anyway…

1 Like

If any of you do buy this early, be careful you aren’t buying the non + version for 499. As far as I can tell the Odyssey+ is XE800ZBA-HC1US
while the original is: XE800ZAA-HC1US

1 Like

Ok I didn’t last long after figuring this out. I ordered after combing my .edu address and reading about a little trick. I’ll just leave this here in case you were to order it and then cancel said order because you “found it cheaper” somewhere else:

So I basically got it for $117.50 off

2 Likes

Ah, so just to be clear, you got the $75 from using your .edu email and then an additional 10% discount from hitting ‘cancel’ on the placed order, and then putting ‘got it cheaper elsewhere’ as the reason?

Nice!

2 Likes

I must say I am really intrigued by the Odyssey Plus. I wasn’t following VR developments too closely, but this came somewhat as a pleasant surprise for me. This seems to be a sensible upgrade from the Rift. The Pimax 5K+ might eventually be the superior set, but I have yet to be convinced by Pimax as a company. So the Odyssey Plus might be a good interim upgrade until Pimax matures or there is even a next-generation successor by Samsung.

The big question though is where to buy this in Switzerland. Imported (non-plus) Odysseys are currently sold here at $600. Why isn’t Samsung marketing these in Europe?

1 Like

I must admit that in the meantime I have paid the customs bill, which was an additional €80, but still paid way less than what these units are sold for in Europe by import dealers.

EDIT: I have no shares in BigAppleBuddy or other relation to it than as a customer. I just really like the service, the quick and helpful responses to e-mails and want them to stay in business in case I need to import something again.

2 Likes

I think it was almost a month actually…! I was washing my hair.

3 Likes

So this is a pretty stupid question coming from someone who already ordered one…but is there a store similar to the Oculus Rift Experience store specifically for Odyssey compatible games? Or do I just check Steam for those titles that show WMR compatibility?

Windows Mixed Reality comes with its own ‘Home’ metaphor, so you wander around a big house and run apps from within VR. You can even talk to Cortana as well. It’s Microsoft’s play on ‘SteamVR’ and ‘Oculus Home’, and original was done for Hololens.

One of the places you can launch is the ‘Microsoft Store’ for WMR titles.

If you want to run Oculus Store exclusive titles then you’ll need ‘Revive’ that essentially facts your headset id for the software to think it is a Rift. Anything from Steam/OpenVR will be fine with the WMR ‘bridge’ installed.

PS Did you get an expected delivery date already, or is it backordered?

1 Like

It shows backordered…

Thanks for the info on the Microsoft Store. I guess I’ve been assimilated now…

Ooohhh! That’s interesting. Off to Google that. I have a few Rift exclusive titles, but by and large many of my stuff are SteamVR as well.

Perfect…!

Yep - It’s pretty simple to use, an installer direct here from the maker:

1 Like

Whelp, sign me up. Just ordered a +, too.

2 Likes

Do you know if this will work on Win10 1607? I’ve managed this long to not update but I bet I have to go to 1709.

I’ve had no issues with Revive and the developer updates it often.

1 Like

I don’t know, but always got the impression that the WMR will require a pretty up-to-date build, as in 1803 was in April 2018, and that fixed a bunch of issues.

1 Like

Some more reviews trickling in on the Odyssey + that give me some hope that it might be money well spent as a half step toward the next gen:

“Let’s be real, you didn’t come here to find out about the crazy comfort changes they made to the Odyssey+. You came here to find out if the anti-SDE filter really works. I’ll say right now, it’s a night and day difference between the Odyssey+ and every other current gen headset.”

More expanded comments (as usual…take all social media posts with a grain of salt…who knows what motivates users or who they work for. Not trying to be cynical…just trying to be realistic…)

1 Like

And some pictures that guy took through the lenses:

“take into account this is a smartphone picture of a VR headset, center of my picture is most clear, zooming in isn’t representative of anything, and none of this substitutes for really seeing it”

https://imgur.com/a/cA7r377

And another, more critical review of the + here:

“The first and obvious answer is that the anti-SDE is legit. I was concerned before getting the headset that the image might be too soft. I will say that my gut reaction is that it’s less crisp than the Oculus Go, but not as “soft” as I feared. Overall the image itself is much more pleasant that my Rift and PSVR. Speaking of PSVR, the image is very much like how you might imagine a higher res PSVR to look. I like it.”

“Unfortunately what I like pretty much ends right there. I measured FOV with the FOV utility where you move the green-bars, and I measured it at about 90 degrees with my glasses. If I take my glasses off and smash my face into the HMD (so much so that the bridge of nose pushed between the extruded area where the lenses are) then I can get this FOV to about 100. It would not be possible to wear the HMD in this manner.”

“Another problem is edge distortion with the lenses. Last year when I tried the Dell WMR, it had very bad edge distortion that was noticeable with the HMD positioned in the sweet spot and with my eyes focused dead center. I assumed the distortion was because the lens diameter was too small. The Odyssey+ (and perhaps the OG Odyssey) has larger lenses and I believe it’s better but I can still see edge distortion.”

More at the link below:

1 Like