Updated, March 18: We went along to the Currys PC World shop in London to check out the Vive VR experience.

Original story

If you're still on the fence about virtual reality and would rather see a headset before parting with your hard-earned cash, HTC has got you covered. The HTC Vive VR headset will be available to try in-store at selected Currys PC World shops, Overclockers UK, and Scan Computers from today, March 17.

Each of the stores—which are spread across Leeds, Reading, London, Stoke-on-Trent, and Bolton (full list at the end of the story)—will feature a full Vive demonstration station for individual sessions. Expect a line, though, as you won't be able to book a session in advance. Sadly, you also won't be able to actually buy a Vive in-store and take it away—at least not at first. For the moment, the participating stores are limited to taking pre-orders for the £689 headset.

However, you'll be able to escape the steep £57.60 delivery charge HTC wants for online orders and pick up the headset directly from the store.

The Vive will be the first PC-based VR headset to hit UK retail stores, with Oculus only promising to bring the Rift to shops in the US in April. No doubt HTC's phone business and retail relationships have given it a leg up over Oculus in terms of getting actual units in the shops, which—given that most people haven't used or even seen a VR headset before—is particularly important.

VR was the talking point at this year's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, with the likes of AMD, Nvidia, Oculus, HTC, and Sony all pitching various VR solutions. AMD unveiled the Radeon Pro Duo, a monster dual-GPU graphics card intended for serious gamers and VR developers. Sony announced a price and release date for its PlayStation VR headset, which will be available to buy from October for £349/€399/$399.

Meanwhile, Oculus demoed the 30 games that will be available for the Rift at launch, some of which were more convincing than others. HTC is also held its own VR event at GDC, demoing the upcoming Valve-made game The Lab.