An interesting new entry to the VR HMD scene… very interesting.

(These are just my first impressions, a detailed review will follow)

A week and a half after the “soft launch” of the Samsung Odyssey+, I have finally received mine and put it through a small silo of trials. In roughly 3 hours screen time here are my impressions of the SO+ relative to the OG Samsung Odyssey.

Picture Quality

(I will include some through the lens comparison pictures shot on an iPhone X as best as I could. They should not be considered conclusive in anyway. There is no replacement to putting your own eyeballs in a VR headset)

I will cut to the chase right away. It is improved. Samsung’s SDE (screen-door effect) reduction technology is effective and I would estimate that 75-85% of the SDE has been removed. Objects enjoy an improved impression of permanence as if I was inhabiting a digital world based on the picture of a 720p television.

I found the difference especially compelling in Project Cars 2 and the Blu’s whale scene where it definitely benefitted both games’ realistic graphical style. Elite Dangerous text was a little bit more readable, but the difference between the SO+ and the SO OG was not night and day here.

Where night and day difference could truly be found was jumping straight from an Onward match in my trusty Oculus Rift to one in the SO+. Here the updated screen really showed what 2.5 years of progress could amount to. Graphics were crisp and the reduced SDE compared to a launch day Oculus Rift made a huge impact in perception and enjoyment.

Contrary to the initial reports of the image being significantly softened by the new anti-SDE technology, switching immediately from SO OG to SO+ and back quickly I did not come away with this impression. If anything, it strengthened my initial impression that the screen/SDE-reduction has made a sizable impact on the quality of the picture hitting my eyes. In all regards, I preferred the screen on the SO+ to the SO OG.

Optics

Appear to be the same as the SO OG. Nice FOV. Large sweet spot with clarity loss only at the extreme edges. In the same league as those of the Oculus Rift and a definite improvement over the Vive in my own experiences.

Controller

Not a lot of change here, although when holding both a SO OG controller and SO+ I found the creaky, hollow feeling of the SO OG controller was no longer as present in the SO+ controller. It did not feel heavier or significantly different, just a bit more solid.

Comfort

The SO+ no longer squeezes my nostrils shut so that was an immediate game-changer improvement. Who would have thought being able to breath freely would make being in a VR headset so much more enjoyable /s.

Otherwise, they are pretty much the same.

The padding on the SO+ does indeed feel nice to the touch, but honestly, I preferred the wipeable faux leatherette of the SO OG.

Both Samsung Odysseys appear to have been inspired by the PSVR style head strap, though they fall well short of the comfort of that headset. It took me quite a while to perfect my own personal fitment, but when worn (with the rear of the head strap pushed upwards just to the verge of discomfort) the lenses come nice and close to your eyes helping clarity and closing off the more distracting then ever ambient light leakage.

Tracking

This one is going to be hard to quantify, but tracking felt overall less jittery and more solid. It feels like you can depend on it just a little bit more on the SO+ than compared to the SO OG.

Playing Fallout 4 VR for about 10 minutes I did not experience the lost controller or flying away controller flashes that would punctuate my playtime occasionally on the SO OG.

I will need a much longer sample time to be able to confirm or refute these initial findings so stay tuned.

Miscellaneous

I was having a mysterious issue whereby the tracking would be lost and the headset (with my head in it) would start doing a slow somersault through the virtual environment. Needless to say, this was not pleasant and very worrisome. I thought it was the lighting or plainness of the walls in my tracking area.

As it turns out, it was the extension cable that I had rigged up for room scale Oculus Rift and SO OG use (where it worked fine in both cases). Removing this USB and HDMI extension and plugging the headset directly into the computer fixed this issue however now I am stuck with the laughably short cable length provided on the headset for the time being.

Overall Impression

I like this headset. I like it a lot more and a lot faster than I experienced after first donning the SO OG.

Picture quality is definitely an evolution, perhaps short of the speculated revolution that the Pimax and other future headsets will one day bring. At this time and with current GPU limitations, I suspect the SO+ might fill that handy in-between space between what we have had since 2016 and what we are expecting in the future quite nicely.

(Full size comparison images viewable shortly here: imgur)