Good dual review of Rift S and HP Reverb from Ars Technica
Some strong opinions on the Rift S:
Get this system down to $250, Oculus, and you’ll have a no-brainer add-on for any older gaming PC. Otherwise, the cheapness and trade-offs are a bit too severe for anybody willing to swallow down Windows Mixed Reality’s limitations (mostly with hand-tracking) and consider another option: the comfortable, high-res, OLED-fueled Samsung Odyssey, currently selling in the $400-ish price range as a complete kit.
Not sure I completely agree with that, as I’m not 100% convinced the O+ is a worthwhile upgrade over the Rift for $400, especially since the shape of head / fit plus the WMR stuff is worth the compromise. Still @PaulRix does have one for sale less than $300 here so possible bargain if it works for you.
HP Reverb gets a similarly critical review for general rather than just sim’ing VR:
On the other end of the spectrum, I really want to like the HP Reverb, but it mostly confirms my suspicions that such a high VR resolution at such a low price really is too good to be true. Anybody looking to get a fleet of enterprise-caliber headsets should certainly put a Reverb on and see if their specific use case fits into its compromises—because, truly, I think some VR use cases are perfect candidates for Reverb’s compromises. That’s a lot of value on a high-resolution basis alone. But I just can’t suggest the Reverb as an across-the-board VR headset—especially just one month before the launch of the LCD-fueled, 120Hz Valve Index.
Looks a definite ‘try before you buy’ or ‘buy from where you can send back’ set of red flags all over that.