Today HP oficially unveiled the HP Reverb G2, the successor to the original HP Reverb VR headset. The device is priced at $599 and is up for pre-order starting from today in the US and June for the rest of the world. Shipping will start in fall of this year.
The G2 is a solid upgrade to the G1 and the company seems to have addressed all of the major pain points of the first Reverb. Inside-Out tracking has been improved and now features 4 instead of 2 cameras, which should make it quite comparable to tracking capabilities of the Rift S and Quest. Controllers have received an upgrade as well. Instead of the standard Windows Mixed Reality controllers HP now delivers controllers with button layout parity as compared to the Oculus Touch, which should make it easier for developers, because they won’t have to design their games for different kind of button layouts.
The displays also have been improved and according to HP they now offer better contrasts and higher brightness. Also the problem of perceived Mura has been addressed, a flaw that would decrease picture quality in the original Reverb . The resolution was not changed from its 2160*2160 pixels per eye and also the FOV is still specified with 114°.
The Reverb G2 now features an IPD slider which will allow more people to actually use the headset. The slider has a range of 60 to 68mm and according to HP this will prevent users from seeing the edges of the displays, a problem common with the original Reverb.
The Reverb G2 has also been improved in the audio department. It now features the same off-ear headphones that can be found on the Valve Index. Another indicator on how close HP worked together with Valve on the G2.
The HP team behind the G2 sat down with me for an in depth Q&A session that you can watch below.