Its the first week of January and as always CES starts the year of with a technological bang, with companies from across the globe gathering in Las Vegas to showcase their latest innovations. The main event doesn’t start for a couple of days, but that hasn’t stopped Lenovo unveiling one of its virtual reality (VR) offerings, a new head-mounted display (HMD) for Windows Holographic.
Shown to The Verge and Engadget, the HMD was only a prototype and non-functional, but it gives a much more accurate look at what the company plans to roll out. From the images one of the first design ques you may notice is that the Lenovo device does resemble Sony Interactive Entertainment’s (SIE) PlayStation VR somewhat. Rather than the triple strap design used by HTC Vive and Oculus Rift to fix the unit onto a users head, the headset is merely suspended on a hinge from the main plastic strap. This will allow users to quickly exit out of VR to check a phone for example.
Coming in at around 350 grams – significantly lighter than 550 grams for HTC Vive – the Lenovo model boasts a pair 1,440 x 1,440 OLED panels, higher than Rift and Vive, but as the unit wasn’t operational no actual comparisons could be made.
What the design does uniquely feature – and will likely be seen on more Windows Holographic models – are two forward facing cameras. These are there to provide inside-out room scale tracking for the headset, thus removing the need for external cameras or sensors like the Vive’s Lighthouse system. They could also provide mixed-reality (MR) applications somewhat similar to Microsoft’s HoloLens, just far more basic as there would be no holographic reprojection.
There are still a lot of unanswered questions about the headset – namely when it’ll be launched – but its should be sometime this year with a retail price between $300 – $400 USD. For any further details on the device and Lenovo’s VR plans, keep reading VRFocus.