Got my Vive setup tonight. First-blush thoughts:
1. Cables. Cables everywhere. So many of the cables. Haven't gotten my Subpac yet; I can't imagine what a wire mess it's going to be

2. The headset is surprisingly lightweight for being so big.
3. What makes this better than the GearVR is (1) computer rendering = far superior graphics = more immersive gameplay, and (2) the VR controllers (which are very accurate & have vibration) = really put you into the game. I'm really glad I didn't go with the Rift; the VR controllers is what sets this apart from GC & the GearVR for sure.
4. Did the tutorial with one of the little computer ball dudes from Portal. There's a part where you blow up balloons with the controllers & then can pop them with lasers...if you let them go, they just float up really high. Good quick showcase of how desktop computer rendering can improve VR.
5. Aside from the tutorial, I only had time to play with NVIDIA's Funhouse for a few minutes. WOW. The VR controls come surprisingly naturally...everything from the Micky Mouse hands to shooting arrows. The arrows mini-game was surprisingly well-done...it was actually very natural. Aside from the graphics improvement, the VR controllers is what makes all the difference.
6. I have it setup in an extremely limited space right now. You
absolutely want to use roomscale with this. Do what you must to make room! Moving around, with great graphics, with VR controllers...it's just awesome!
7. My Vive lenses fogged up right away. Need to look into this. Although it is like 60% humid here right now.
8. The VR interface for Steam is surprisingly easy to use. Thought it would be more clunky. The VR controllers are so accurate (they shoot a laser beam at the menu items & then you click to select) that it's a piece of cake.
9. The screen didn't seem like an enormous improvement over say my Note 5 in the GearVR, but it was better for sure. I'll have to try out some video apps to see how those look, because that's where the pixels were most apparent in the Samsung.
Next, I need to setup my VirZoom bike & play a few more VR games, watch some movies, etc. I can see how the Subpac could really add another dimension (I previously had bass shakers in my HT couch & loved them, and when I moved, I bolted a couple to my gaming chair haha. Playing Fear was epic!). They need to get the wireless & battery stuff figured out for the HMD ASAP (including for the headphone audio). I'd also like to see an induction charging system for the headset & controllers once that happens. What might work for the wireless, for now, is having a mini-computer built into the headset with a battery & doing Steam streaming. But I know they're working on some high-speed video streaming stuff for VR so they'll probably skip straight to that. The backpack computers might be a hit until then though (they should design it to look like a Ghostbusters pack!).
I can see how an omni-treadmill like Virtuix has would be really excellent. My play area for roomscale was taken over, so I basically have a little more than standing room at the moment, and being able to put down something you could not only walk around in, but freely roam in say a game like Minecraft, would be awesome. That's one of the problems with the GearVR & VR in general, regarding simulator sickness...if you could let your body dictate the movements rather than a controller, that will go a long way to avoiding any feelings of nausea that go along with VR. Oh, and even tho my introduction to the Vive was brief, I didn't seem to get the same fatigue that I did from the GearVR. It's not anything heavy with the GearVR, but I suspect that the screens & 90FPS stuff are different enough that it helps to reduce eyestrain or whatever.
They did a really good job of making the system kid-friendly. Pop on the headset & headphones, hand them the motion controllers, and they figure it out in about ten seconds flat. The Funhouse game is a great introduction for children because the controllers are so simple & straightforward that they can jump right into it. I think this has huge potential for learning games...education in a room can be so boring; imagine doing it like they do from the library scenes in Star Wars with the Jedi kids, where stuff pops out at you in 3D & you can explore it & really be able to understand it because rather than just visualizing it, you can literally SEE it. For example, I have a really hard time with math visualization...I can visualize my art projects no problem, but give me numbers & after a couple lines mentally, it all just disappears. I can see this being huge for education.
I think, especially with room scale, that design projects will be enormous. Like if you're designing a car or an airplane, you can see if it's really big enough & see how things feel without having to even 3D-print a prototype. Or with houses, especially with roomscale & omni-treadmills, you can walk around your house design. IKEA already has a demo, which I think is a great introduction of what you could do with it...imagine having a catalog of stuff you can buy & being able to demo it before doing a new-home build or renovation. No more mentally imagining it & then being disappointed when it actually goes in! Basically like the IKEA scene from Fight Club:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exL51n3py6g
Oh yeah, as far as my desire for a laptop to make this portable...hahaha. This would be such a pain to go anywhere with. HMD + mega-cable coil. Two controllers + chargers. Two Lighthouses + power supplies. Laptop or computer/monitor/keyboard/mouse. Surge strip & extension cords for everything. The GearVR wins hands-down here. In fact, I really hope that VirZoom releases the games for the GearVR soon because it'd be soooooo much easier for cycling. I am currently undecided on a computer. I will probably end up with a GTX1070 laptop, but my original idea of the 380T with the handle wouldn't be bad either. Having a screen there to see what's going on inside the HMD is really handy when you have someone else (especially kids) playing, but I just don't think I'd be willing to pack everything up & go visit a friend's house with the full kit all that often because it'd be such a pain.
Anyway, it's super awesome, love it, definitely look forward to using it more! Have a whole slew of fun games lined up to play
