How do we evaluate Huawei's VR helmet?
Huawei released its first VR helmet product on April 15. It is a mobile phone box that targets Samsung Gear VR. Although mobile phone manufacturers do VR helmets in the industry is something that has been foreseen for a long time, but the entry of such a company as Huawei is still attracting people's attention.
The question is, what should we focus on? Did this product pass the line?
Huawei's mobile phone box is marked with the Samsung Gear vr. According to Nuo Teng CTO Dai Ruoli's point of view, the qualifying line for mobile VR is Gear VR. Does Huawei achieve this pass?
From the hardware point of view, the experience of the mobile phone box mainly depends on the helmet and the inserted mobile phone. In terms of helmets, Huawei and Gear VR are similar in design (of course, all mobile phones are similar), and the input method is also a touchpad; the viewing angle of 95 degrees is not much different from that of Samsung 96 degrees; Huawei VR also supports 0-700 degrees. Myopia adjustment. Overall, before carefully comparing, it is hard to say who's helmet is better.
Huawei VR Side Touchpad
The more important impact is on mobile phones. Huawei and Samsung have a significant gap in this regard. First of all, Huawei's high-end mobile phones still use 1080p screens. For example, the Mate 8 phone that Huawei VR will adapt to uses a 1080p IPS screen. In contrast, the Gear VR's Samsung flagship is equipped with 2K AMOLED screens. Compared with the IPS screen, AMOLED has a higher response speed, its low afterglow characteristics can reduce vertigo. Of course Samsung is also a winner in terms of resolution.
Beyond the screen, although Huawei's self-produced chips have been getting better and better in recent years, GPUs have always been at a disadvantage. This will also adversely affect the VR experience. Therefore, on the whole, Huawei's VR on the hardware has not yet reached Samsung's standard.
On the software side, Gear VR has the support of Oculus, and it is estimated that it is only a matter of how much ahead of Huawei.
To sum up, the conclusion is that according to Dai Ruoli's standard, Huawei VR has not yet passed. But this does not mean that it is not a competitive product.
Mobile phone company to do the advantages of mobile VR
Before the domestic mobile phone VR box did better than Samsung, there is an important reason is that they are not a mobile phone manufacturer, so there is no way to do a deep optimization of the helmet-fit phone. Therefore, some manufacturers will feel helpless, such as Zhou Hongwei, CEO of domestic VR startup company Pico:
When we do this kind of product, the biggest experience is powerlessness. If we do well, we must do it well. Certainly it is necessary to make a change to the system and software of the mobile phone, including the bottom part. The promotion of this part depends on in-depth development.
Huawei will not have such helplessness. Careful observation will reveal that Huawei's mobile phone box does not fit a certain size range of mobile phones into a helmet as vendors such as Storm Mirror do, but designs a specialized helmet for a mobile phone. This one-on-one helmet approach can improve the experience of mobile VR. In fact, the domestic technology-leading startup company Fireworks Workshop also adopted the same approach to design helmets.
Why adapt a special helmet for a mobile phone? Zhang Mengyu, who studies VR in Huawei, said to us:
The first is the structural problem. The appearance, size, location of data interfaces, and screen size vary widely. It is difficult to guarantee the excellent experience without designing for the target; once again, it is necessary to ensure sufficient low-level delays to achieve many chip-level optimizations. The ultimate VR experience guarantee (4K video hardware decoding/OLED/USB Audio telephone link) requires chip level support, which also determines the specific model.
He continued to explain the problem of the mobile phone box:
Many mobile phone boxes can't do this kind of thing, not necessarily because they can't do it, but their business model can't do such a thing. As a handset manufacturer such as Huawei and Samsung, our business model is completely different.
If there is technical capacity but no mobile phone terminal is used as a basic platform, one can only do one. The benefits of an all-in-one machine are actually many, and theoretically a better experience than a mobile phone. Because a lot of better device and technology mobile phone manufacturers can't put in all mobile phones for VR, this will push up the cost of the mobile phone itself, use the mobile phone to play VR after all is a minority, this is based on the mobile phone to do maximal limitation of VR. Of course, doing one machine naturally has its problems.
From a product perspective, compared to startups, Huawei has advantages in making VR mobile phones. Many media experience after Huawei's VR evaluation is really low latency, which is the effect of special adaptation and deep optimization. Of course, other domestic mobile phone manufacturers such as Xiaomi and Meizu also have the same advantages.
Not to mention the brands and resources outside the product, Huawei is already the manufacturer of handsets with a shipment volume of 100 million yuan per annum, especially in the high-end market, including the popular Mate series and P series.
Fragmentation of mobile VR in the future
“The Fragmentation of Mobile VR is the future†is the title of a speech recently held by the CEO of the fireworks workshop Dianchi. In his view, the future of mobile VR must be fragmented.
Mobile phone manufacturers will provide different hardware and software solutions based on their respective mobile phones. In order to circumvent the mobile phone manufacturers, VR manufacturers will also propose their own set of software solutions, such as one machine and Gear VR. The two are constantly intertwined.
Almost every mobile VR manufacturer announces a suite of developers after the product is released. Huawei is no exception. The official said that it will soon open the developer alliance VR SDK, and it also has built-in payment functions in its products. The top 100 developers Those who do not have a platform are divided into 1 year.
It is easy to understand that vendors all want to build their own content ecosystem and attract more developers to settle in. However, if everyone pushes the platform, it may become a nightmare for developers. They need to make choices among various platforms.
In view of this fragmentation problem, Zhang Mengji’s point of view is:
It is decided by the market that there will not be so many SDKs and ecosystems. Developers can't stand it. There will be a process of survival of the fittest. Everything starts with the user experience.
At present, the two most popular platforms in the field of mobile VR are Google's Cardboard and Samsung Gear VR. However, neither of them has entered China, leaving room for domestic companies. The role of Cardboard and Gear VR is also possible in China by Storm Mirror and Huawei VR.
Huawei also said that it will not stop there in the field of VR and there will be further actions in the future.
The pattern is so, and what we really should focus on is what Zhang Mengyu said—all starting from the user experience. This is the decisive factor in whether users can buy or not.
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