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.
Before we get to the specs (listed below): if you’re wondering why we put Pimax’s headsets in quotes, it’s because the company has taken some creative license in their naming scheme. Their names (“8K”, “5K”) reflect the combined resolutions of both display panels; VR headsets are typically quantified by the resolution of only a single display, because when the user puts on the headset the pictures are combined to form a stereoscopic view—you aren’t seeing 8K resolution, but rather something closer to 4K (minus some pixels), which is then stretched and refocused to fit the headset’s ~200 degree FOV. In reality, a measurement based on pixels per degree is a more accurate estimation of the final viewing experience, but you’re probably not here for that, and just want to know the raw specs.
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.
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