HTC Vive XR Elite Virtual Reality Headset + Controllers

For that kind of money I was expecting so much from a gadget. This was a big disappointment and I fell for the exaggerated description and of course features which they failed to deliver. The controllers are big and the frame a little smaller to fit on my already small face. Id stick to my oculus2 which I can honestly say never failed me from the day I opened the box.

Vive has produced yet another high-quality product! Once again HTC Vive is making headsets for recreational consumers. I originally had the Vive OG, and the Vive Pro OG with the lens mod. I bought the quest 2 just for travel and mobility. After hearing everybody’s complaints with the XR Elite, I was concerned this headset would not be a vast improvement in quality of play… Especially with PC-based games. A good example is the quest 2 running kayak mirage… it is horrible… no detailing or definition in any of the landscape/scenery whether playing standalone, or PCVR with a cable! And I was concerned that without the video compression of the Vive pro that the XR Elite headset running off USB-C would not be good. I was completely surprised! Very pleasantly surprised!!! I’ve been using VR since the inception of consumer headsets, and this is a nice step up! The pancake lenses make all the difference and it is so much better than the quest 2!!! So much clearer, great definition in images. and the diopters are the icing on the cake! I wear contacts and as part of the set up process you have the option to adjust the diopters. I decided to adjust the diopters just for the experience and wow! So now one eye is set on 2 1/2 and everything looks pristinely clear!!! My vision is fine in all other scenarios, and now I’m glad to be able to see better in VR too. I’ve heard complaints of God rays, fix your diopters! Also, using the cable link, I was able to run Lone Echo flawlessly! I could never get the quest to run it, and when I did. It literally dropped more frames than it played and of course it just looked ugly. Even with a high-quality hardwired cable link. Lone Echo is also a program that doesn’t look great with the screen door effect… So I didn’t want to play it with my Vive Pro either. It looks glorious and runs so smoothly it’s insane with the XR Elite!!! Haven’t run half life Alex yet, but I’m sure it’s going to play as well as lone echo does, if not better! I have been thrilled to see that the headset runs all my old programs in steam, as well as revive! Sweet! Before getting the XR elite, I was using two headsets, my Vive Pro for at home on PCVR, and the quest 2 for mobility around the house, and when I travel using it as a standalone headset. The Vive XR elite is a step up in all directions! It is extremely comfortable, no mods needed like you have to do with the quest 2, (ouch!), and I can’t get over the clarity!!! I can use it anywhere in the house as stand alone, or run it with wireless streaming without sacrificing quality. Because it can run as a standalone, it makes it perfect for traveling… Especially with its low profile and lightweight! The XR Elite definitely meet my needs, and exceeds expectations. I did not have a headset that I could run wirelessly with higher quality PCVR. Absolutely love it! So exciting! Now, like all things in VR, the software is a little bit slow in coming. Patience wins here. Software will be coming, and I’m ready for it. I remember in 2016 trying to find software… There’s a plethora available now in comparison to that!!! Lol.

Great for wireless vr gaming! I have not used it for other purposes but this headset works very well for steam. Be sure to have good wifi and itll fun flawlessly. I dont have 6e or anything fancy, just a good router (netgear nighthawk) and streaming to elite with no problems.

Bought it for my kids 16th birthday. He got super frustrated with it. Im a Microsoft Systems Engineer and I cant even get the thing to do what its supposed to do. And our PC is a top Alienware costing over 6K. We have Unifi wireless - everything in our setup is commercial grade except for this device. It is less than fun - its frustrating. If that is what you are into - go for it. But it is total junk IMO. Wait for other options TBH. Its not worth it - ESPECIALLY at this price point. So disappointed.

A few things I thought I was going to really enjoy about the XR elite were the tether-less streaming and adjustable diopters, as well as the potential to hack in steamVR tracking by rigging a base station tracker to the HMD somewhere. My suspicions were correct; even though I have never used an inside-out HMD, the tracking was abominable and would cut out often, regardless of lighting condition. This left me with the white/grey screen, and having to completely redo my playspace. Unfortunately, ALVR and similar projects were not ready day one. PCVR streaming also causes a noticeable performance impact, even on a 5800X and RTX4090. Pairing took hours of frustration and shoving my face as close as I could to the screen, because the pairing QR code would never scan! Sure this can be fixed with updates but my neck was sore and it was a 4 hour process before I even got into streaming. USB streaming is also temperamental. Also, hand tracking for this product does not exist. Its unusable, and the FOV of it is also ridiculous. It feels like 20 degrees of scope and you have to stretch your hand out in front of you as far as it will go. As for comfort, the face gasket, marketed to be this soft, plush fabric, has a hard and painful plastic inner frame, that is extremely UNcomfortable (painful actually) on your forehead depending on the shape of your face. It also continued to push my eyes out of the sweet spot. If I adjusted the headset to line up my eyes with the device correctly, the gasket would detach from the bottom and leave a 10-15MM gap - what?! The head strap was sorely needed to make it bearable for the 30 minutes I could stand to experience it. This needs to go back to the drawing board, and the newest media coverage of this device shows new experimental facial interfaces already. These are crutches that will not do much to fix the full scope of the broken UX of this product. What I would like to see out of this product, as with the flop of the cosmos, is a completely re-engineered facial and head strap interface. A clone of the orignal HTC vive facial interface and DAS was the best design I have experienced so far from HTC and was hands down the most comfortable VR experience. A copy-paste would be totally fine. Additionally, make it base station tracked. And make binocular overlap better than or equal to the original vive. FOV is also terrible but would get a pass as a first gen of a new form factor if everything else was fixed. Will any of this happen? No. Would I trust HTC and buy it if this came true? No. The XR Elite is what it is. What HTC is trying to do is just not going to work in its current state, trying to do too much and experiment too much. If it worked as advertised, and was actually wearable without discomfort, this would make huge waves. Congratulations on trying HTC, other projects will surely piggyback on the development of this device.

Setup was ok, main usage was PC VR. The usb cable didn’t work despite working fine with quest 2. I had to use pc streaming. Not the best. The weight is light but there is noticeable pressure on the forehead. With the sunglass mode, it squeezes hard on the head. I found it to be an issue. It hard to recommend it at this price. AR is a feature no one, yet, asked for it and yet we are paying for it. The price is steep.

Streaming from PC Sucks, the thing is constantly in a loading screen (let me tell you how exciting VR is watching a HTC logo for 20 mins...), The left lens is literally littered with green dead pixels like it got hit by a magnet or something. Im looking into a return.