The HTC Vive Pro 2: A Review of the Latest VR Headset

As I sat down to review the latest iteration of the HTC Vive Pro series, I couldn't help but feel a sense of excitement and anticipation. The past year has been a rollercoaster ride for VR enthusiasts, with numerous updates and advancements in the field. However, despite the hype surrounding Valve's Index headset, the industry still feels somewhat stagnant.

One of the biggest challenges facing VR hardware manufacturers is price competitiveness. With the Valve Index being a major player in the market, it's hard not to compare HTC's latest offering to its rival. While the Vive Pro 2 offers some impressive features, such as improved optics and display quality, the asking price remains a significant barrier to entry for many consumers. I recall last year when graphics cards were scarce, and the index was in short supply; HTC missed the window by launching this headset without more widespread availability. Graphics cards were maybe more available then, and you had to make the purchasing decision between that and the G2 at launch. However, it was also too late, and the price was too high.

I'm not sure if HTC is listening to reviewers and feedback, but a lower price point would be a welcome change. The company knows they're not in Valve's league when it comes to revenue streams from Steam, so they need to find ways to make their products more affordable. I empathize with the struggle of VR companies; they don't have the luxury of having millions and millions of dollars in revenue to support their business. They're not Oculus, which can afford rock-bottom prices for its hardware due to Facebook's resources.

As a result, HTC has chosen to focus on pushing the Vive Pro 2 towards businesses and enterprises. I get it; this is a bold move that requires significant investment and trust from customers. However, as an enthusiast, it's frustrating to see VR headset development slow down when we're eager for more exciting technology advancements.

The Vive Pro 2 itself is a solid performer, offering excellent image clarity and display quality. The field of view is impressive, but not quite what I expected – the sweet spot feels slightly disappointing compared to some other headsets on the market. This is where the headset falls short in terms of user experience, and it's something that may leave enthusiasts feeling underwhelmed.

One aspect that excites me about the Vive Pro 2 is its potential for future upgrades. With the release of the Vive Focus 3 standalone headset, HTC has shown they're committed to innovation. The stand-alone headset uses the same optics and display as the Pro 2 but also runs content locally and can stream from PC tethered and untethered in the future. If I have the chance to test out the Vive Focus 3, I believe it may push VR hardware forward.

However, from a practical perspective, it's clear that we're still at a bit of a stalemate in terms of VR technology development. The pace of innovation is slow, and we've yet to see a major leap forward that would make significant changes to the user experience. For now, the Vive Pro 2 will play the current generation of games and content on Steam VR and Viveport very well but won't offer anything groundbreaking.

Before I wrap up this review, I'd like to acknowledge any questions you may have in the comments section below. Thanks for watching, and we'll be back next time with more coverage of emerging technology in the VR and mixed reality space.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhey everyone it's norm from tested and welcome back to  projections i know it's been a while but we're back covering virtual reality and mixed reality  hardware and today i'm going to be reviewing the htc vive pro 2. if you're watching this the  day we're publishing this video it's actually the launch day for this headset it's shipping  today uh htc announced it at their vive con event about a month ago alongside their standalone  htc vive focus 3 headset this is the one they sent me uh on loan for review and i've been testing it  in all my favorite vr games for about the past week or so and after a week of using this i'm  going to get right to the point i'm left honestly feeling a bit disappointed not necessarily with  the kind of the specs and the speeds and feeds and the experience i think the experience is  solid and good but with well primarily price and also the fact that this headset isn't that  exciting it doesn't move the ball forward in vr hardware but maybe i'm getting ahead of myself  so if you have been following uh vr hardware the headset hardware over the past couple years right  now basically hardware is divided in essentially two camps you have on the oculus and facebook side  the the quest 2 you know it starts at 300 it plays everything in the oculus ecosystem whether that's  locally on the headset or tethered to a pc uh via usbc cable or their wireless airlink  system and also of course plays games that you can buy in steamvr now if you're not into using that  headset and that ecosystem on the steamvr desktop side there are a couple options as well there's  of course there's the valve index that's valve's first party headset they put out almost wow almost  two years ago now is when that was announced and that was in anticipation of half-life  alex and they really wanted to move the ball forward after this whole first generation of  the original rift and the original vive and even the vive pro um and then also there's the headsets  on the windows mixed reality side that also runs steamvr games really well and at the top of that  it's hp hp with their reverb g2 that came out last year that was a headset i really really  enjoyed they overcame some of the hurdles of windows mixed reality specifically the controllers  and focused on a combination of optics that were co-developed by valve in hp  along with the speaker system with the panels that they source this high resolution high  pixel density panels that offer just still i think unmatched clarity in the consumer vr  space and that leaves htc in a kind of a weird spot because last year they released the cosmos  and maybe the less said about that the better it's a little bit dead on arrival the tracking left so  much to be desired and really unfortunately not a good product so uh it feels like they've been  working on maybe a proper successor to the vive and while there has never been a 5.2 they did  of course the vive pro and this looks very very similar to a vive pro in fact it's almost exactly  the same ergonomics the design idea i wouldn't be surprised if almost exact same injection molded  molds for things like the vive wands they're still shipping this with the vive wands the blue  ones that came with the vive pro it's using the updated base stations for steam vr and it is the  lighthouse based tracking so you're going to get all that same type of fidelity still i think the  best in class tracking fidelity for home based vr but again if you look at this other than the  fact that the front is black instead of blue it looks just like a vive pro they've done  nothing to improve the headphones which are fine they're good but they're still on ear headphones  while the industry may have now been moving to off-ear speakers like with the valve index or  even the lower quality ones on the quest that pipe audio at your ears instead of on and in your ear  and the really the big difference what they did in terms of changing this headset is in arguably the  most important part of a headset the visuals the display and optics stack and so on paper it sounds  really exciting you have a display that's 2 24 48 by 2448 lcd panels now as opposed to oled there's  still separate panels so there's ipd adjustment with a good range up to 72 millimeters i apart  and and also uh it's now rgb uh subpixels so high pixel fill but really we're talking about almost  5000 pixels wide even much higher resolution than you get on the valve index and even higher  than what you'd find on the hp reverb g2 that was a 2160 by 2160 lcd panels per eye although  really small panels which added to the the pixel density there these panels also go up to 120 hertz  you can run sweet spot at 90 hertz but in the htc vive console you can change the settings and  boost it up data resolution 120 hertz if you wish but all of that is to really service the optics  htc's new optics for this headset and they're even maybe bigger than the resolution is the  field of view that they're advertising for this they say it's 120 degrees and that's horizontal  field of view not diagonal and i'll be honest i never felt like i got 120 degree field of view  using a hmd tester you can use a free application it's almost like a an eye test for headsets you're  supposed to look at these two red bars they spread further and further apart as you adjust and you  kind of mark down when the bars disappear that's how you can measure the horizontal  and vertical field of view and with the kind of eye relief pushed all the way so the hardware eye  relief to make sure the lenses and optics are pushed toward your eyes so that pushed closest  to my glasses and the glasses do fit on here in this in this headset i was able to get 107 degrees  uh horizontal field of view far short of the advertised 120 and vertical field of view at a  theoretical maximum of 90 only 87 in that and you can even see the way the the lenses are  designed the optics design they look more oblong more oval they are much wider than they are tall  even compared to the optics the fresnel lenses you'd find on previous uh headsets and you can  adjust that so people who've had this headset for this past week other reviewers are quick to point  out that you can replace the gasket very simple to remove that via the velcro and this is actually  the the face pad that comes with the headset i've replaced it with a vr cover a really thin  one that's made for for the quest actually it fits perfectly and that allowed me i could take off my  glasses to push the optics and the the image the the the visual stack as close to my eyeball it's  a point where my eyelashes are almost touching the lenses and with that and using the same hmd tester  i was still only able to get 114 degree horizontal field of view and only one degree higher 88  88 degree field of view vertically still short of that potential maximum of 120. now a lot of  this will be dependent on you know the your own personal ipd mine is 67 uh and also i was trying  it without glasses with without glasses changes everyone's facial shape and eye shape is different  but i felt like it was not that full benefit that i was getting and their their pursuit of that  wide fov i think does come at a cost at a cost of image quality and clarity in a couple ways so we  also evaluate the the optics of a headset there are two things we first look out for one is the  ibox sweet spot so this is the sweet spot how much of the headset and how how aligned do your eyes  have to be with the ipd adjustment with the actual lenses so that you get a clear image um sometimes  it's important because if your headset's jostling around if you're playing a really  fast-paced action game and maybe the headset even if you have it clamped real close and tight to  your head there's going to be a little bit of wiggle maybe not side to side but maybe angular  wiggle and if your eye box uh sweet spot is small as it is with this headset some the image will go  blurry and you'll have to constantly be adjusting with one hand and that's unfortunately the case of  all the headsets on the market right now between even the quest 2 the valve index and the reverb  g2 the vive pro 2 has the smallest and the worst sweet spot in the eye box unfortunately that's not  to say you're gonna have a bad experience it just means that you may have to adjust it and  find that sweet spot and again get the ergonomics fitted perfectly to your head and you can tell you  can do a little bit of adjustment but you can only tilt upward with the headset i find that  sometimes getting that sweet spot getting it parallel to your eyes requires tilting it down  and there's just not that adjustment with this old head strap design the other thing we also look for  is clarity edge to edge clarity once you've found that sweet spot with the eyes how clear is the  image as you move around the entire field of view and that's also going to be dependent on of course  the field of view of the headset here because i was getting up to 114 degrees horizontally  it made sense that when i looked to the far corners of the image i started to get a little bit  of chromatic aberration a little bit of blurriness but for the most part the image is pretty clear  throughout the edge edge clearness certainly within like 90 degree horizontal is clear and  i can happily say there the screen door effect is not present there are enough pixels here the  pixel density the pixel fill is good enough that we've passed that point where we're even  considering screen doors so we're more concerned about things like you know the the god rays that  you get with fresnel lenses that are apparent here and how good the contrast or the brightness is and  they're going with lcd so the contrast if you're a oled fan it's not going to be as deep of the black  levels as you would find on oleds but for the most part for the vast majority of that image very  clear no mirror no chromatic aberration until you get to the edge and things that god raised i think  unfortunately with current optics are standard the interesting thing though is that even though the  panels themselves are i think based on what i've been able to find online they're two  point almost 2.9 inch panels which are the same uh physical dimensions of the panels that are on the  reverb g2 and they're technically higher pixel density because the lenses are pulling the the  photons and the pixels stretching them so you can fill them into a more of your your field of view  the clarity on something like the g2 and even the g1 i think is actually sharper than what i was  experiencing on the vive pro 2 and that's because the reverb g2 has a much narrower field of view  and so this is a kind of almost a debate among vr users what what do you want to go for do you want  to go for wide field of view or does that matter and certainly as a first impression if you were to  give someone this headset and show them 110 114 degree field of view versus  90 to 100 degree diagonally field of view on something like you know the quest 2 or  the reverb it's going to immediately feel more impressive on on this headset if i can say based  on my experience over time it's not something i feel is actually as impactful as pixel density and  clarity of image uh when you're in the moment when you're in the game that periphery i kind of  my brain adjusts to the field of view of whatever headset i'm using and i stop thinking like i'm i  have tunnel vision as long as it's not narrower than 90 degree field of view i don't feel like i'm  in you know wearing binoculars and even though this is wider because the vertical field of view  is still relatively cramped it doesn't feel extremely spacious and so the trade-off of  having the wider field of view i think does come at the cost of the sharpness and clarity that  i've come to expect out of a high pixel density display like on the g2 if you're a sim gamer and  you're playing racing games or elite dangerous i still would recommend the reverb g2 as opposed to  this in terms of just the sharpness and that's gonna depend also on your graphical settings  so interestingly here you have to adjust the rendering resolution on the vive console side  native resolution make sure it's that almost 5k uh it's a 24 48 by 24 to 48 per eye and then on the  steam side as well uh max it out on the vive side and then adjust the rendering resolution maybe  do some over sampling if you're if your graphics card can handle it but also note that you cannot  access motion smoothing on the steamvr software even with the latest update i just tried last  night motion smoothing is only enabled on the vive side and the vibes motion smoothing  on my graphics card for example 2070 super i was struggling to get consistent frame rates  at native res even at 90 hertz because of the resolution of this and that motion compensation  the motion smoothing is really noticeable you get definitely get some visual artifacts of things  start moving around really funkily on the screen when i talk about also the costs that htc has  put in the headset we have to also talk about the price and that feels like maybe the biggest  disappointment with this you know i i wouldn't mind you know that they call this the vive pro  2 even though this feels like maybe a 0.5 an incremental update the fact that they've just  updated the the display and optics and they haven't changed anything like the microphone  or integrated wireless even though it's compatible with the the the wireless accessory that they buy  separately but this is selling for as a full kit fourteen hundred dollars now you probably  if you've read the press release you knew that you may have an opinion about that my opinion is  it's it's too much frankly i know they're saying that this is targeted to business customers and  what that means is that they believe there is a customer base out there in the business world  where the difference between a thousand dollar set and a 1400 dollar set is not that much and  the support that they're gonna provide for the business customers and the it compatibility that's  gonna be worth it for them but for consumers it is way too much especially when the options that you  are right now even on the high end is a thousand dollars for the vive index and for that you get  the better knuckles controllers the valve index controllers uh standalone wise it's still 800  just for this headset i still think that's a couple hundred dollars too much for that i would  directly compare it with the reverb g2 which is six hundred dollars with controllers you can even  find it for 570 right now on hp site or you can even buy that headset by itself for 500. and if  you don't want to use the vive wands if you're just again like a sim gamer and you're using  your own hota setup or your wheel setup i again would go with the g2 and it puts this in a really  curious spot you know it it feels like maybe they're aiming on the consumer side for people who  have the original vive and never upgraded or looking to upgrade for those people i think  they'll be happy with the valve index where you can buy the controller separately and use that and  the headset over there is five hundred dollars or if you have the original vive pro you know it's  again i feel like it's an incremental upgrade and certainly not worth 800  just for this headset it feels like too little of an upgrade too late because this would have been  much more interesting if they uh announced this last year and when the index was in a short supply  graphics cards were maybe more available and you had the purchasing decision between that and  the g2 at launch but also not just too little too late but also too expensive and it's conceivable  that at some point htc will drop the price of this and i certainly hope that they're listening to  reviewers and the feedback and and do that because it really feels like they got to be more price  competitive with the valve index and i understand i empathize with them as a company because  they're not valid they don't have the luxury of having millions and millions of dollars in revenue  from steam to support their business and they're not oculus in facebook who can afford to to have  rock bottom prices for their hardware to have the strong footing in the hardware ecosystem they've  made the choice to push this for businesses and for for that i get it i get it and if you  have the income to drop 800 on a headset or 1400 on a full set and maybe if you have a  you know 3080 or a 30 90 or 3080 ti graphics card that can run this i don't think you'll be  disappointed with this i think you'll have to make a decision of what's important to you in terms of  image clarity or uh field of view and you'll have to accept the fact that the field of view here  isn't really that 120 and the sweet spot i think is a bit disappointingthat's why this is a it's been such a frustrating past week and i really really wanted to  love this and i don't think anyone out there is going to be disappointed if they end up buying  this and using it as long as you know what you're getting into and you know that you're probably  paying i don't even want to say the the appropriate hardware cost because hp  they put out a great headset 600 bucks yeah so i wish htc luck i think the more interesting  hardware is probably the vive focus 3 that's the standalone headset using the same optics  the same display as what's in the pro 2 here except that also runs content locally as well  as ability to stream from pc tethered and in the future untether that's one if i have the  chance to test that out i think from a technology perspective maybe a way to push it forward but as  vr enthusiasts we're kind of at a stagnant point right now it was really exciting a  year and a half ago when valve put out the index and that was supposed to again push the industry  forward but we really haven't seen that happen i'm not sure if it's a a chicken and egg and  maybe it's the reality of hardware development it's not easy i'm sure the research that uh and  experimentation and testing that hc had to do to get even this visual stack wasn't cheap and maybe  that's just the pace of vr hardware at least from a practical sense incremental updates increases in  resolution as those panels become available if more development and refining of the optics  decisions that are made in the r d side until uh there's a big leap frog uh in hardware experience  but this isn't it um it will play the current generation of games and the whole back catalog  all the things that people put out on steam vr and on viveport uh very well uh but i think as  enthusiasts we're waiting for the next big jump uh well that does it for the uh vive pro 2. uh before  i have to send this back i'm happy to answer any questions you may have in the comments uh  below but thank you so much for watching and we'll be back next time with more coverage of  emerging technology in the vr and mixed reality space i'm norm and i'll see you next time bye\n"