The Vive XR Elite is HTC’s answer to the Meta Quest Pro

After an announcement over the past few weeks, HTC has finally unveiled the Vive XR Elite, an AR and VR-centric headset with sound. pretty much similar to the Meta Quest Pro released late last year.

Like the Quest Pro, the Vive XR Elite focuses primarily on augmented reality while offering a solid virtual reality experience. It achieves this through the combination of four wide-FOV cameras with color gradation, 6DoF tracking and, most importantly, a depth sensor – something that Meta’s high-end headsets lack.

The inclusion of a dedicated depth sensor should allow the Vive XR Elite to better sense your surroundings, resulting in a more immersive AR experience with virtual objects remaining in the real world as you walk around – but we’ll have to see how well it does. implements after it is available.

Of course, this is Meta’s dominant content, using consumer VR headsets to deliver premium VR and AR applications for the Quest Pro since day one. HTC, on the other hand, has focused primarily on the B2B market for its standalone headsets, meaning HTC’s Viverse doesn’t have that much content.

The company said the headset launch will coincide with the release of more than 100 mixed and virtual reality apps, including Demeo, Les Mills Body Combat, FigminXR and Unplugged, but it’s still missing out on key Meta-exclusive games like Beat Saber and Resident will give 4 VR.

You can connect the headset to a PC for VR gaming, and unlike the Meta headset, you can wirelessly mirror your Android smartphone screen to the headset to enjoy streaming apps like Netflix and Disney+ on the big screen.

There’s also support for controllers and hand tracking, as HTC plans to release a wrist tracker later this year to further improve hand tracking accuracy for AR games and apps.

It’s also quite sleek in design, weighing in at a relatively light 620g, and its modular design means it can easily switch from a standard VR headset design to a Vive Flow-like goggle design, depending on who you are. Make.

The screen looks impressive with key features including a 110-degree field of view, 4K resolution, a fine-tuning IPD slider, and adjustable lenses that allow eyeglass wearers to use the headset without wearing glasses. This is a much-loved feature of the Vive Flow, and it’s great to see it here.

Although the Vive XR Elite has a workable swappable battery system that allows you to remove the battery and replace it once, battery life is roughly the same as the Quest Pro’s two hours. If you don’t want to save extra battery, you also have the option of plugging in a power bank to extend playtime.

When you’re done, the included 30W charging station should make it easy to charge the headphones, and it also means you’re good to go when you want to hit an XR session. .

HTC

Of course, what matters most to the consumer is the price, and HTC has managed to drop the Meta Quest Pro from the $1,499/£1,499 of the top-end Meta to $1,099/£1,299.

It lacks some key features offered by the Meta headset, including face and eye tracking, but HTC says these will be available via an official add-on in 2023. The main advantage of this approach is that consumers won’t be interested in top-of-the-line face tracking, and can simply ignore it and save for the headset itself, which is a further extension of Vive’s modular strategy.

HTC is not far behind; The Vive XR Elite is available for pre-order directly from the Vive website and select third-party retailers, with pre-orders expected to ship in late February. Once available, it will be available from more popular third-party retailers like Amazon, as will other headsets in HTC’s VR collection.

Interested in HTC’s latest modular XR headset, or is the Meta Quest 2 and Quest Pro’s built-in content library too hard to pass up? Let us know Twitter.