Upcoming Pimax Crystal Light

04PH08

This week Pimax announced two new VR Headsets: The Crystal Super, a high end model for 1799$ and imo the more interesting model, the Crystal Light for 699$. Its basically a Crystal with a bunch of stuff taken out to lower the costs, but the screen and optics are the same, so you can still get the 2880x2880 per eye. They had to remove some chips for standalone VR, the motorized IPD, the battery, the eye tracking, a bunch of ports and the active cooling, but personally I dont mind that since I wouldnt need most of that anyway. This however does mean that you can only use it tethered, which I know is a dealbreaker for some people. For 200$ extra theres also a version with local dimming, supposedly giving you much darker blacks, but I dont think this is worth it for porn. Sadly it only has grayscale passthrough which is a shame. There is however a port in the front of the headset for adding modules and apparently they are working on a MR module with full color passthrough. No ETA on that one though. I assume the FOV is the same as the Crystal, which would be a nice upgrade from the Quest 2, but Id like to see some reviews to get some more info here. Preorder is already open and shipping is supposed to start end of May.

What do you guys think of it? Whats your experience with Pimax products, especially the Crystal?

fenderwq

04PH08 don't have a crystal myself but to add to your story: the regular crystal requires a battery, even when tethered, where the light does not. This is a big negative imo as it really gets in the way when lying down or leaning against a high chair etc. and you can't remove it (even the regular backstrap of the 8kx was already really annoying and bulky).

Also, just to warn you. The FOV is only slightly larger than Quest 3 and on par with the Index, link (Pimax always drastically overstates their FOV).

Still, the light seems like a very interesting headset for PC VR. With much higher res displays and better colors as the main selling point. However, if I had to choose a headset for porn I'd still go for a Quest 3 for the simple fact that the better screen probably won't make THAT much of a difference for video where the 8k resolution limit is the real bottleneck and the crystal light being worst than quest 3 in everything else. If you play a lot of PC VR games or wanna watch a lot of flat 4k movies or something it's a different story though.

Man, I'd wish we'd have a headset with 4k screens and these lenses in a quest form factor: 130v 180h lenses.

harigeharry

Well not sure if you ever tried the Quest 3, but if you did, I'd be surprised if you didn't absolutely want your next headset to have good passthrough. For me it's really a game changer, I would never ever want to use a headset without passthrough for porn anymore.

I've owned various Pimax headsets and didn't like them too much. They just never got the optics right. Supposedly the optics are better with the Crystal, but I'd be very wary. Pimax doesn't have a good reputation.

04PH08

Thanks for the feedback! Looking at some data for the Pimax Crystal it seems like it really isnt that big of a difference FOV wise. I have only ever tried passthrough in the Pico 4, but didnt like it all that much. However, given the other limitations, I have now decided to try the Quest 3 first, because I found a good deal putting it at almost half the price of the Crystal Light.
I still am intrigued by the significantly higher resolution though.

harigeharry

04PH08 Good decision! Try the passthrough on the Quest 3 and I'm sure you'll feel like you made the right decision.

fenderwq

yeah for me it's the same, can't do without passthrough anymore and getting back to wired is also something that would need some really nice specs for me to even consider that again. I just wished Meta or some other company would make an actual quest pro (unlike the first one). With 4k per eye or something like that. We'll see

mblack1

The interest of buying a pimax crystal light for VR porn is the sharpness of the image. Not all VR porn content has necessarily the AR. But for me the sharpness of the image is more important than AR compatibility.

rerun119

For me the Pimax 8kx is still better for porn than Quest 3. It does depend on what you care about. I don't care that much about PT.
The pluses for the quest is that it's easier and quicker to get it started. I don't care about the cable either but that would be another upside for quest.
I haven't tried the Crystal so the 8kx might not be a good comparison but the biggest reason and maybe the only reason I still like it better is the FOV. It's crazy good. All your view is picture. There is still a little that isn't picture but it's so far to the sides that you don't notice.

I'm still waiting on the Pimax 12k but that might be a pipe dream at this point.

fenderwq

rerun119 yeah had both for a long time and the 8kx is a great headset. I did notice though that on the best video quality (e.g. the newer VRbangers vids) the image quality is noticeably better on quest 3. For games like halflife alyx its a very big difference, so the screens of the quest are better degree by degree it's just a lot of porn isn't high res enough and sharp enough to notice. The FOV was great though, but my 8kx died.

Personally hoping for 130 degree pankacke like hypervision showcased a year or so ago. That with 4k would be awesome.

rerun119

fenderwq Yes I agree that the quest 3 image is better. As you know it comes down to better image or better FOV.
I don't think people know how important FOV is when that haven't seen what is possible. I've been waiting on the Pimax 12 k for like 3 years now. The last time I looked it said it was 85% done but it said that a couple of years ago too.
I haven't heard of the hyperversion but if the FOV is big then I would buy it in a heartbeat. I was thinking the Apple was going to have a big FOV because that would separate them from everybody else.

fenderwq

rerun119 yeah me too. Kinda gave up hope on the 12k though. I think large pancake lenses like the ones Hypervision teased are likely the future. But when will they come?

I just want something like a quest 3 pro with 4k per eye qled and big 130 degree pankacke lenses. The tech is already there but I doubt meta will do it because of the crap rendering power of the Qualcomm chips.