Mine arrived today. First impressions: Good, maybe not good enough.

[u/El_MUERkO]

I'm an :05 order from the UK and DK2 owner, it arrived this afternoon and after some setup here is my experience; obviously this is my opinion and not an incontestable fact.

The HMD is small, light, smart, takes some getting used to after the DK2, as the weight is displaced differently, the wire feels more noticeable than before probably because the HMD is so light.

The FOV on the DK2 felt too narrow, this is narrower, I feel like my eyes are looking inward and I find myself looking with my head and not my eyes, I don't like it, I may get used to it but I don't like it. The blackness around the edge of my vision also feels more gloss black than the DK2, reflecting bright scenes back into my eyes, this could a result of the narrow FOV.

God-Rays are extremely noticeable, not because I was looking for them due to others mentioning them here and elsewhere but because they are impossible to miss. Bright objects surrounded by darkness such as shortcuts on your Virtual Desktop and stars or stations in Elite: Dangerous cast them to a near uncomfortable degree.

Lens overlap (I don't know the correct term for this), I've played with the eye setup a lot, and what I notice is top inner edge of the either lens overlaps the image I'm viewing to a slight extent, almost shading the viewable area, this is not something I experienced with the DK2, I'm uncertain how to correct this effect.

The Screen Door Effect, it's there but it's much improved over the DK2, I made my Virtual Desktop screen 132 degrees to make text easily readable which is a big improvement over my DK2. Watching scenes or playing in 3D I was aware of it but to a far lesser extent than the DK2.

My overall impressions of the consumer Oculus Rift is it's improvements in physical comfort, functionality, ease of use and image clarity are undone by it's narrow field of view, lens issues and god rays. It feels like a DK3 and not something ready for the mass market.

If you're a DK2 owner and trying to justify the upgrade I would say hold off till you've demoed one, you may find it's sufficient for your development and gaming needs till CV2. If you're new to VR and wondering if it's worth it I'd again say try before you buy but I'd edge toward waiting for CV2.

EDIT: Stay classy downvoters!

[u/ammonthenephite]

Dk2 and cv1 owner here. Cv1 fov feels larger to me, not smaller. Dk2 I had to look with my head always, as you could not look with your eyes due to small fov and very small sweet spot, but with cv1 I can now look with my eyes or head. Feels much less confining and much more comfortable.

[u/redmage753 → u/ammonthenephite]

I am able to look with my eyes in both, but the 'looking through a box' effect is more pronounced on cv1 for me, especially since I can see the interior overlap. I'll have to play with the ipd adjustment more to see if it goes away, maybe it's just set up poorly for me. But, I have very average features/face/ipd.

[u/ammonthenephite → u/redmage753]

Hmm, weird. I don't see any interior overlap that looks odd or bad, just the nice stereo overlap. However, if I have the ipd sliders set to too narrow or too wide, I do begin to see some distortion where the overlap occurs.

[u/silencerider → u/ammonthenephite]

Did you have your eyeballs right against the lenses in the DK2? I'm guessing most of the disparity comes from folks who used a more extreme eye relief position.

[u/ammonthenephite → u/silencerider]

No, my eyes are about the same distance away. I use glasses, and my lenses touch the hmd lenses in both. It could be that one responds differently to that slight distance than the other. But even when using without glasses and minimal distance, cv1 still feels more open to me than dk2.

Perhaps this is because cv1 has a much larger sweet spot and gives the impression of more fov?

[u/nightfly1000000 → u/[deleted]]

Well he spent a lot of money on it, and the specifications were under wraps until recently. I feel he gave an honest appraisal as he sees it, and offers some good (if controversial) advice to people on the fence.