HTC Vive Review

Picture of two base stations not included

The HTC Vive is the product of the partnership between HTC and Valve (the company that made the Steam software for the PC).

The Vive is a room scale virtual reality package that consists of a headset, two controllers, two mountable base stations and a breakout box with cables. To use the Vive effectively you will need a high-end PC and plenty of room to move around. The minimum specs to run the Vive are as follows:

AT LEAST A GTX 970 OR GTX 1060 GRAPHICS CARD, 4GB RAM AND CORE I5 CPU. 

When you unpack the box, it can look a little daunting to set up with all the cables and parts, but thanks to the well written instructions the setup is made as simple as possible. I found the hardest aspect of the installation was installing the base stations. I mounted them on the wall with the supplied brackets but they can also be mounted on bookshelves or other high objects.

Once the software is installed, the cables plugged in and the power turned on it is time to run the first-time Steam VR setup. In this process, you measure the distance of the playing space (if you are going to use the room scale feature). You also calibrate the sensors of the headset, controllers and base stations. When this is done, you are ready to go through the Steam VR Tutorial. The tutorial is very friendly and easy to learn.

Now you can use the Vive.

It takes a bit of getting used to at first. The headset mounts over your head with a long cable hanging down your back. Once the headset is on you will see a room in a 3D space. The controllers will appear where they are in real life. The headset does feel quite heavy and you must be careful not to get tangled in the cable on the floor. The accuracy of the movement tracking is extremely impressive thanks to the two base stations on the walls. The resolution of the headset display is 2K with a refresh rate of about 90Htz, about double that of a normal HD television. But because it’s so close to your eyes you can still see the pixels which makes watching 3D and VR videos not the best experience. Where the Vive shines is playing games. The games for the Vive are growing all the time and getting better and better. My favourite game and one I never get sick of is Audioshield. This is a game where you hold a shield in each hand and have to block the orbs that come at you in the beat to the music you are playing. There are some great fast paced racing games available also, like Radial G: Racing Revolved.

Before buying the Vive I would suggest you look at the games and software available to see if it is suitable for you. There are many great games, but there are many stinkers as well.

The controllers last a long time before recharge and the force feedback works really well. The display can also be adjusted for your eyes. 

After using the Vive for a few months I can say that a good virtual reality experience is finally here and over the next few years things will only improve. Higher resolution headsets will come out as well as being lighter and without cables. But here and now the HTC Vive will meet the expectations of what people expect from virtual reality.

Is the HTC Vive experience worth the money? It depends on your expectations. For the average consumer, probably not. For those of us who are technology adopters or enthusiasts, yes. For the average person who wants hours of entertainment? Depending on what games they like that’s a definite maybe.

If you just want to sit down and use a controller I would recommend the Oculus Rift as it’s a bit cheaper but the HTC Vive is currently the best consumer room scale VR experience you can get.

Considering the current price and the ever-improving technology that will be available in the future I give it:

7.5/10