HTC announces $800 Vive Focus Plus standalone VR headset for $800

Facebook’s impressive Oculus Quest standalone VR headset will is getting a serious rival when it launches this spring.

To compete with the Quest, HTC’s releasing the Vive Focus Plus, its own standalone VR headset with built-in head and hand-tracking on April 15. The two headsets are pretty similar, except one kinda important thing: HTC’s headset costs $800, which is twice as much as the $399 Quest.

Announced at its Vive Ecosystem conference in China, the Vive Focus Plus competes directly with the Quest in just about every way. The headset will in over 25 markets and support 19 languages, according to HTC.

Both headsets have the same 2,880 x 1,600 total resolution (1,440 x 1,600 per eye) and are powered by the same two-year-old Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 mobile chipset. And both support 6DoF (six degrees of freedom) for head and hand-tracking; both come with a pair of hand-controllers. 

The differences are really in the details. The Vive Focus Plus has a faster 75Hz refresh rate compared to the Quest’s 72Hz. The Vive Focus Plus has a 110-degree field of view and the Quest has an FOV of about 100 degrees. And although both headsets have built-in speakers, the Quest has a headphone jack for your cans but the Vive Focus Plus doesn’t.

HTC’s detailed the Vive Focus Plus’ battery capacity (4,000 mAh), but Oculus has only said the Quest will last between 2-2.5 hours on a charge.

At the end of the day, the differences will be negligible and content is what will make or break the headsets. The Quest supports the full library of VR apps from the Oculus Go and has recently added “killer” VR games such as Beatsaber. Meanwhile, the Vive Focus Plus is focused more on enterprise applications, which isn’t nearly as exciting.

One app HTC showed off included a new video player that adds dimension to 360-degree videos, allowing users to step closer towards a video as if it really has depth, according to VentureBeat.

Another experience involved HTC’s 5G Hub and demonstrated HD video being streamed directly to the headset.

HTC says there will be about native 250 applications that’ll work with the Vive Focus Plus at launch via its Vive Wave platform. The new headset will also work with 70+ titles from its existing Vive Focus headset.

With both Oculus and HTC tossing their hats into the standalone VR headset ring, it’s pretty clear both companies strongly believe wireless VR headsets that don’t require PCs or phones are the next big thing.