Pimax 5K Plus – Page 2 – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

October 24, 2018

Pimax Launches Pre-orders for “8K” & “5K” VR Headsets, Pricing & Specs Here

The Pimax “8K” headset was the result of VR’s most successful Kickstarter campaign, beating out all others, including Oculus, with a whopping $4.23 million raised when the campaign concluded in November 2017. It’s been a bit of a bumpy road over the past year, with some shipping setbacks and several changes made to the final product lineup, but Pimax has now announced that pre-orders are starting today for the “8K”, “5K” Plus, and “5K” Business Edition (BE) headsets.

Update (2:05 PM ET): Contrary to the countdown clock seen on the company’s landing page, which indicated that launch was scheduled for later this afternoon, it appears that pre-orders are now live. Pimax’s site is however down, so check back soon.

Update (4:50 PM ET): Controller and Steam VR base stations are now available with a deposit of $300. It’s unclear if these are based on Steam VR 1.0 or 2.0 however.

Pre-order pages are now live, although it appears pre-orders officially start today ~~at 7PM ET / 4PM PT~~ (see update).

Cutting to the chase, here’s the prices of each headset. The prices below are for the headset only, and don’t include motion controllers or SteamVR tracking base stations:

Pimax “8K” – $900
Pimax “5K” Plus – $700
Pimax “5K” BE – $1,000

Pimax is offering a few bundled items including additional optical hand-tracking modules for $170, and both NVIDIA RTX 2080 and RTX 2080Ti for an additional price. All three headsets can be extended with modules including wireless transmission, eye-tracking, a scent module, and a deluxe headstrap with better ergonomics and integrated audio, although these don’t appear to be currently available for pre-order.

Notably missing is any mention of availability on SteamVR tracking base stations or the company’s Knuckles-style controllers. We aren’t sure when Pimax will include these as a purchasable option, as both are required to fully interact in VR games, although there’s a page on the company store (see update).

There’s still no clear launch date, although it appears, as Pimax has stated in the past, that Kickstarter backers will receive their units first, with pre-order customers following.

While the final prices are likely to cause some sticker shock—Kickstarter backers originally purchased “8K” at $450 – $500 and “5K” at $350 – $400 through the campaign—to put it into perspective, a Pimax “5K” Plus is $100 cheaper than the HTC Vive Pro, offering a substantially larger field of view (FOV) over Vive Pro’s ~110 FOV.

The originally advertised “5K” headset was scrapped just last month in favor of the new “5K” Plus, which uses an RGB-stripe pixel layout with rectangular pixels as opposed to a PenTile-like layout, the former being a better choice for text legibility. Backers who elected for a “5K” headset are being automatically upgraded to the “5K” Plus however—and while it’s pretty confusing, it seems to be a no harm, no foul situation for those who got on board early.

Pimax “8K” Specs – $900

Display: CLPL (Customized low persistence liquid)
Resolution: 3,840 × 2,160 per display (7,680 × 2,160 total)
Input content: upscaled from 2,560 × 1,440
Motion to Photon latency: <15ms
Refresh Rate: 80 Hz, Brainwarp Support
FOV: ~200 degree diagonal
Audio: 3.5mm audio jack, integrated microphone
Output: USB 2.0/3.0, DP 1.4
Tracking: SteamVR 1.0 and 2.0 tracking
Content: SteamVR and Oculus Home
Fit: Adjustable headset strap (deluxe headstrap optional), IPD adjustment, VR frame
Minimum Recommended GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080Ti and AMD equivalent or above

Pimax “5K” Plus – $700

Display type: CLPL(Customized low persistence liquid)
Resolution: 2,560 × 1,440 per (5,120 × 1,440 total)
Input content: delivered at native 2,560 × 1,440
Motion to Photon latency: <15ms
Refresh Rate: 90 Hz, Brainwarp Support
FOV: ~200 degree diagonal
Audio: 3.5mm audio jack, integrated microphone
Output: USB 2.0/3.0, DP 1.4
Tracking: support for SteamVR 1.0 and 2.0 tracking
Content: SteamVR and Oculus Home
Fit: Adjustable headset strap (deluxe headstrap optional), IPD adjustment, VR frame
Minimum Recommended GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 and AMD equivalent or above

Pimax “5K” BE, costing $1,000, has the same specs as the “5K” Plus outside of an OLED display, clocked at 85Hz. The Pimax “5K” BE is said to be a limited time offer.

Update (12:51 PM ET): In a previous version of this article, Pimax “8K” was quoted as having an OLED display. This is an error, as only the “5K” BE has an OLED. It was also incorrectly supposed the 200 degree FOV was horizontal, when it is indeed a measurement of the diagonal FOV. Both have been corrected in the body of the piece.

The post Pimax Launches Pre-orders for “8K” & “5K” VR Headsets, Pricing & Specs Here appeared first on Road to VR.

September 13, 2018

Pimax Will Open A Virtual Store Inside Somnium Space

Earlier this month Pimax had a meeting exclusively for its Kickstarter backers, where some announcements were made regarding to Pimax 8Kand 5K+ virtual reality (VR) headsets, thus revealing that the company had not been idle in the months since the end of the Kickstarter campaign. Now Pimax have announced that it is working with Somnium Space to create a Pimax Store inside the Somnium Space virtual world.

The Pimax headsets were created as an attempt to push the boundaries of what is possible with current display technology and bring high resolution and wide field-of-view to VR users.

While many users backed the device on Kickstarter, many consumers want to see how the device looks and feels in their hands before putting out the cash for purchase. The Somnium Space VR will allow people to closely inspect a VR recreation of a Pimax 8K or 5K+ headset. They will be able to feel the shape and dimensions as well as see the latest reviews or talk to Pimax representatives in the virtual store.

“We believe that Virtual Reality should not only be about great visual experiences, but it also needs to bring additional value for players and companies. Allowing players to experience and directly purchase things like Pimax VR headsets, or cars like Tesla Model 3 will make their decisions much more educated thus bringing additional value. On the other hand companies will be able to better represent their products with more precision and level of detail which they are not able to do in today’s simple web browser format. This will not only increase their revenue but will also save money by opening more virtual stores rather than real ones.” said Artur Sychov, founder of Somnium Space.

“We are excited about this cooperation, because Pimax will be the first VR hardware experience shop in Virtual Reality. Players will be able to take the headset into their hands, look around, buy headsets and accessories, watch reviews made by testers, meet other VR enthusiasts and chat.” said Xunshu – Global Marketing Manager at Pimax.

For future coverage on Pimax and Somnium Space, keep checking back with VRFocus.

September 8, 2018

Pimax “8K” to Begin Shipping By Month’s End, Pimax “5K” Plus Announced

While Pimax has been met with several delays in delivering its ultra-wide FOV headsets, the quest to get headsets out the door to backers of its successful Kickstarter campaign may soon be coming to a conclusion. The company says the first “8K” and “5K” headsets will begin shipping to backers by the end of September, and also announced a new “5K” Plus model; backers of the original “5K” will automatically be upgraded to the “5K” Plus.

Following a meetup of Pimax Kickstarter backers in Berlin, an update on the company’s Kickstarter page notes that backers got to see the company’s latest “8K” prototype, the M2, which was influenced heavily by feedback from a select group of backers who privately tested the prior M1 prototype over the course of three months.

While Pimax had originally estimated that headsets would begin shipping in January 2018, the company has seen its share of delays (not entirely unexpected for a hardware Kickstarter), but now says that the first headsets will begin shipping to backers by the end of September.

Before then, backers will be able to find reviews of the M2 prototype (which we understand to be very close to the final “8K” that will ship to backers) from several Pimax community testers beginning September 16th at 9AM PT.

At the Berlin backer meetup, the company also introduced a new headset model, the Pimax “5K” Plus, which is said to have a new panel resulting in a 9% increase in pixels-per inch. The company has yet to specify the exact resolution of the “5K” Plus, though the original “5K” has a 2,560 × 1,440 resolution per eye.

Interestingly, Pimax says they will sell the “5K” and “5K” Plus concurrently as separate models. Luckily for the original backers, the company has committed to automatically upgrading all “5K” backers to the “5K” Plus; backers of the “8K” will have an option to switch to the “5K” Plus with some bonus accessories, the company says. The price of the “5K” Plus hasn’t been announced.

Sebastian Ang of Mixed Reality TV conducted and translated an interview with Pimax CEO Robin Weng at the Berlin backer meetup which revealed some additional details about the headset’s development timeline.

Weng said that Pimax expects, with 90% confidence, that all Kickstarter backers will receive their headsets by the end of the year. Controllers however are another matter, and the company doesn’t expect them to be in the hands of developers until early 2019, with finished units heading to backers in Q2 2019. Thanks to SteamVR Tracking, Pimax users could conceivably use HTC Vive controllers in the meantime, but they run $130 each as sold from HTC.

Pimax Showcases Upgraded 5K Plus Headset at Backers Meetup in Berlin

After a strong Kickstarter launch for its 8K and 5K headsets Pimax went a little quiet, with several months without regular updates for its backers. That’s not to say it hasn’t been busy, in fact at the end of August the company held a backers meetup in Berlin, Germany. This not only allowed customers to get hands-on with the latest iterations of the headsets but also for Pimax to reveal another, the Pimax 5K Plus.

While Pimax has shown the 8K version at a number of events, most of these tend to be more industry focused – VRFocus went hands-on with the prototype at CES 2018 – so the meetup was a good chance for European customers to demo the devices for the first time.

Pimax demoed the potential of 8K with several recommended graphics cards including the GTX 1080ti and videogames such as Arizona Sunshine, Onward, Pavlov VR, and Skyrim VR, allowing users to compare its tech with rivals already available.

Obviously the big news revolved around the Pimax 5K Plus headset. What does the ‘Plus’ indicated, well its all about improved visuals with a new panel that has enhanced sharpness with the PPI improved by 9 percent. What’s more while the 5K and 5K Plus will both be sold by Pimax – the latter being more expensive – Kickstarter backers for the original 5K model will be upgrade to the ‘Plus’ version for free.

Both the 8K and 5K Plus headsets are expected to begin shipping this month with Pimax hoping to complete all Kickstarter orders by Christmas 2018. Any 8K backer that may have decided they now want the 5K Plus model can do so, with the monetary difference being able to go towards accessories like the eye-tracking module or controllers (both of which are still in development). The first demo versions of the controllers are expected by the end of the year, with developers getting hold of them in Q1 2019. They should then see a public release in Q2 2019 if things go to plan.

The next few months look to be fairly busy for Pimax, as further details are released VRFocus will keep you updated.