Kopin is touting a new prototype VR headset featuring their 4K OLED ‘Lightning’ microdisplay that they say is made specifically for VR. At nearly half the size of other headsets, and made from lightweight materials, the device feels featherlight compared to VR products on the market today.

Update (8/19/17): Following my hands-on with Kopin’s ‘Elf’ headset at E3 where I got to look at the form-factor, I recently met with the company at the Silicon Valley offices of Goertek—Kopin’s manufacturing partner—to get a look inside a working demo of the headset.

Side and Weight

Photo by Road to VR

The functional Elf headset prototype was the same impressively small form-factor as I saw previously, featuring a pair of Kopin’s 1-inch ‘Lightning’ displays each with a 2,048 x 2,048 resolution and 120Hz refresh rate. The headset isn’t just significantly more compact than others—at just 220 grams it’s less than half the weight of the Rift and Vive (though at this point it’s lacking integrated audio, IPD adjustment, or positional tracking tech, which would require additional hardware and weight).

Connection

Photo by Road to VR

The headset connected to the host PC with DisplayPort and USB plugs which came together into a single thin cable that plugs into the headset with a USB-C connector. Kopin has developed an OpenVR driver to allow the headset to operate with SteamVR content.

Dark (for now)

Photo by Road to VR

The demo I was shown through the Elf prototype was a SteamVR game called InMind 2 VR. In the demo I was looking at models of brain neurons. The first thing I noticed when I put on the headset was how dark the image was. I could see fine, but it definitely seemed darker than it should be. When I asked Kopin about this they said that the display isn’t finalized and they expect to double the brightness by the time they are manufacturing them for sale.

Field of View

The second thing I noticed was the field of view which felt much closer to Google’s Daydream headsets than what you’d be used to with the Rift, Vive, or PSVR. Kopin said the prototype I was looking through was a 70 degree field of view, and that they’re working on developing different lenses to offer 80 and 100 degree fields of view (and I got to look through early versions of those lenses; more on that later). On the 70 degree prototype, the ‘binocular’ feeling (of having very noticeable dark circles around your field of view) was quite apparent. Despite the incredibly smooth and sharp image I was seeing, the low field of view is an immersion killer so it’s a good thing that Kopin is also developing lenses with a wider view.

Image Fidelity

With more than three times the pixels than the Rift and Vive (2,048 x 2,048 vs. 1,080 x 1,200), it looked stunningly sharp (pixel density in this case is getting an extra boost from the lower field of view too). Individual pixels are all but invisible, and I couldn’t make out any screen door effect. Since the 70 degree FoV lens isn’t Fresnel, I didn’t see any god ray artifacts (which are prevalent on the Rift and Vive), nor did I spot any chromatic aberration. I didn’t see any obvious mura issues which is good, but would want more time in the headset to be sure that there is none. Also, because this is a micro OLED display, the blacks were very deep. However, I didn’t get a chance to see the right scene to assess whether or not there was any black-smearing present.

Distortion and Correction

The Elf headset is made entirely to show off the display and lenses, so right now there’s no positional tracking tech built in. That means that in my demo the headset was only tracking rotation. The tracking felt fine and seemed exceptionally ‘smooth’ (likely thanks to the 120Hz refresh rate) though as I turned my head I noticed quite a bit of distortion warping the view around the periphery which seemed to be due to the lenses. Kopin says they are still working on the driver for the headset and tweaking the distortion correction; they seem confident that once the lenses and driver are finalized they’ll be able to eliminate the warping.

The Cost of a Wider Field of View

Photo by Road to VR

I also got to see prototype versions of Kopin’s 80 and 100 degree field of view lenses (backed by the same Lightning display) which were hooked up to a test board rather than built into a headset. The 80 degree lens was a two-element Fresnel and was much brighter than the 70 degree or 100 degree. It was clear that the field of view on the 80 was wider, but since it wasn’t hooked up to a headset with headtracking, it was difficult to get a good sense for how immersive it could feel.

The 100 degree lens was a two-element non-Fresnel and it was dark like the 70 degree lens. Although the lens itself may provide a 100 degree field of view, at that field of view you can see the edges of the display which, in my opinion, is less immersive than having a smaller field of view where you can’t see the edges of the display.

Kopin plans to develop larger displays in the future, which could mean a larger field of view without visible edges, but they won’t be ready for several years yet. Given that, Kopin’s 80 degree field of view option seems to be the best sweet spot presently for immersion and image fidelity. The big question will be: to what extent are consumers willing to trade field of view for image fidelity?

Elf is a Pitch, Not a Product

Photo by Road to VR

One important thing to remember about all of the above is that Elf headset is not going to become a product, it’s simply a pitch for Kopin’s VR microdisplays and Goertek’s manufacturing capabilities. The company’s hope is that a consumer electronics company will want to produce a product based on the Lightning display, and the Elf headset is the demo to sell them on the form-factor that it enables. Goertek says that the companies are “actively marketing” the Elf headset to potential consumer electronics companies. That means that an end product containing Kopin’s Lightning display might end up looking quite a bit different than the Elf headset today. In fact, although Elf is tethered, Kopin says that the foundation of the headset is also suitable for all-in-one mobile VR headsets.


The original article continues below, which speaks to Kopin’s long term plans for developing VR displays (including those of higher resolution and large size), and the microdisplay vs. traditional approach to VR displays.

Original Article (6/14/17): Kopin is a publicly traded display manufacturer that was founded in 1984. With the massive buzz generated by VR, the firm has developed a roadmap for manufacturing displays specifically for VR headsets. Microdisplays by their nature are small and incredibly pixel dense, and also capable of high refresh rates.

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The first microdisplay that Kopin is positioning for VR is what they’re calling ‘Lightning’, a 1-inch display with 2,048 x 2,048 per-eye resolution and running at a whopping 120Hz. With the Rift and Vive using displays of 1,080 x 1,200 pixels, Kopin’s Lightning display has just over 3.2 times as many pixels, and runs substantially faster than the 90Hz refresh rate of those headsets.

Photo by Road to VR

The tiny size of the microdisplay also brings another advantage: the potential for a much shorter focal length. Consumer VR headsets on the market are all roughly the same bulk size, not because we can’t design smaller enclosures, but because the physics of light requires that the displays be a certain distance from the lenses in order to present a focused image to the user’s eye. A smaller image allows for a shorter focal length, which means the displays don’t need to be as far from the lenses, potentially resulting in a much more compact headset.

Kopin has worked with Chinese ODM Goertek to develop a prototype VR headset that employs their Lightning microdisplay. The result is an incredibly compact and lightweight device that is an absolute joy to wear compared to the bulk of today’s consumer headsets.

Photo by Road to VR

I got to handle and wear a functional prototype at E3 2017, but unfortunately I didn’t actually get to see VR content through it since, according to the company, the only computer the company had on hand that was cooperating with the demands of driving a custom 4,096 x 2,048 resolution across both displays at 120Hz had to be shipped off to CES Asia (another conference which is also running this week). I expect to meet with Kopin again in the near future to see content running on the prototype headset; for now I can only talk about the form factor.

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Compared to the consumer headsets on the market today, even the very lightest among them (like Gear VR and Daydream View) the Kopin prototype headset feels feather-light (note that it was missing a small driver-board for the displays which would add a slight bit to the weight). A single flexible strap that goes around the back of your head holds the device on your face with ease, no top strap required. The shell was made from a thin and extremely lightweight plastic. It was rigid, but it’s unclear to me if the durability of this material is enough to stand up to consumer usage; they may need to shift to a thicker or more durable material which could push the weight up some.

Photo courtesy Kopin

In photos alone it’s hard to appreciate how much smaller the Kopin headset is than others, but it feels much closer to the size and weight of a pair of ski goggles; it hugs close around your eyes without taking over so much of your face. It’s not nearly as ‘deep’ either, meaning it doesn’t jut out so far from your face. The slender profile compounds with the light weight since the leverage is not nearly as great as it would be with a bigger enclosure sticking further out from your face.

Photo by Road to VR

If and when most immersive VR headsets achieve this form factor, it’s going to make a massive difference in comfort and ease-of-use for VR.

Continued on Page 2: Microdisplay Tradeoffs »

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Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • Lucio Lima

    Only “110 degrees” ? NO, thank you!
    We need more FOV!

    • TheTruth

      Well 110 is the same as vive/rift/psvr so you’ll be getting it for its form factor and resolution. This is an acceptable upgrade till gen 3 with hopefully wider fov.

      I’m assuming/hoping they’ll figure out integrated wireless before gen 3

    • Joan Villora Jofré

      Actually 100 degrees.

    • REP

      I don’t see a future for this lenses. FOV is too low and foveate rendering will be the norm moving forward, resolution will take a secondary seat.

      • sntxrrr

        You still need a panel with such a high pixel count for the part that’s in focus and looked at.

  • Sch@dows

    Those displays are great, but unusable without eye tracking to make fovated rendering and lessen the burden of the GPU.
    And the headset is so small, I have a hard time believing the tracking is as accurate as others.

    • navika

      It’s just a display. Can a PS2 run on a 4kTV? Of course it can run. Display resolution has nothing to do with the power of the device.

      Power of the device is needed if you want to run content made in 4k.

      So, if you upgrade your monitor to 4k, you will not be able to play any games anymore until you upgrade your PC as well???

      • Sch@dows

        No, PS2 isn’t capable of 4k rendering (1080i max). And there is no need to have a 4k display if you don’t have any 4k sources.

        But with eye tracking, fovated rendering become possible, and with it you can benefit from 4k pixel density where you’re looking at, with just a portion of the computing power required from full 4k rendering.

        There is no use for a display which cannot be used by the most powerful hardware available to the public.

        • JMB

          While I share some of your sentiments it is simply not true, that a super high res screen wouldn’t afford a considerably improved experience even if that res cannot currently be rendered at a native level and/or be supported by foveated rendering. The main issue with the current generation of HMDs regarding visual fidelity is their screendoor effect, which a higher res screen would reduce considerably EVEN if the displayed resolution were the same as it is now.

          • Sch@dows

            Indeed, I won’t deny (since it is the first thing that jump to my face the 1st time I put the Vive on. But it can also be improved by other mean, like the tech use for the screen (ie: PSVR who has almost no screen door effect despite its lower resolution).

            But, VR also lack image quality. This can be related to lack of details/complexity because the hardware feeding the headset isn’t powerful enough, but also because of the image definition which results in an image way more aliased or blurry than normally.
            And both of these issues can only be improved by either lowering the stress put on the hardware, or increasing the rendering resolution.
            And if that’s not done yet, it is because current top-end PC lack that kind of power, so there is a absolute need for eye-tracking and fovated rendering to reach those improvements.

            The fact that I put image details & complexity above the screen door effect, is a personal opinion obviously, based on the fact that after 5min of immersion, I completely forget SDE (while I still notice the lack of image quality).
            Some people might think the opposite, or even think that increasing the FOV is the number one priority above everything else mentioned above.

    • Sam Illingworth

      Eye tracking and foveated rendering already exist and work and will only get better with time, so there’s no problem there is there?
      And I get the impression this is to show off the display tech, it’s not a product they’re trying to sell you. It doesn’t matter what tracking it has.

      • Sch@dows

        The display tech is great, for sure. But the article is also (and mostly) about how that tech was used in a compact headset, way smaller than the Vive and Rift). But if that headset doesn’t provide at least the same level of functionalities (tracking) or doesn’t let you use that tech properly (eyetracking must be in the headset so ou need room for it) … the comparison is flawed.

        • Sam Illingworth

          I don’t think eye tracking will add much weight – the addon for Vive is tiny, can’t weight much. Same goes for tracking sensors, I reckon.

          I think perhaps the adjustability adds quite a bit of bulk to the Vive maybe?

    • Stefan Küppers

      I wonder as well if the statement is to broad.
      In my mind for example you would need signifcantly less processing power if you only want to display 4k stereo video compared to a complex game.
      Sure you could run into bandwith and decode problems but overall it should be manageable.

      • Sch@dows

        Indeed, it might but better suited to whatch movies, but in that case, it shouldn’t be compared to VR headset, and more with headset like Sony HMD series and the likes.

        • craylon

          yup
          I wonder if we need subcategories in the future like gaming headset, video headset, work headset.

          If the device is a lot lighter then the vive and can improve upon a 2-3 monitor installation at every day work tasks like spreadsheets or web developing I would be interested in buying such a device even besides my vive.

    • sntxrrr

      Tracking shouldn’t be a problem since the FOV is still equal to what’s currently on the market. The smaller hardware components might actually help placing the IR lights and cameras in the HMD

    • Get Schwifty!

      Good point about the tracking-

    • Brent

      LOL how would the tracking suffer from a smaller size?? and who cares about eye tracking just get a gtx 1080 or dowwnsample

      • Sch@dows

        Tracking requires hardware, be it external ones like the cameras and IR marker of the Rift or the Base station and the internal sensors and chipsets to compute positional data of the Vive.
        Since the headset didn’t feature any of those, it only leave us with inside-out positional tracking (the kind of google is pushing for) but that also requires additional hardware in the headset too (cam and chipsets).
        So unless the headset is planing on mimicking the atrocious tracking, imprecision and unresponsive behavior of the gear vr, it needs space in the headset to put things in … hence too small = is there even positional tracking in this headset.

        As for the computing power, even 1080 Ti struggles to get good performance/framerate with an image quality that is still inferior to what you can get with normal displays, to due to the lack of resolution, Cranking up the rendering resolution to fit a better display, won’t certainly change that fact (it will be even worse), 1080Ti or not (and even if it was possible, that would limit VR to only a handful of users).

  • remosito

    > I got to handle and wear a functional prototype at E3 2017, but
    unfortunately I didn’t actually get to see VR content through it since,
    according to the company, the only computer the company had on hand that
    was cooperating with the demands of driving a custom 4,096 x 2,048
    resolution across both displays at 120Hz had to be shipped off to CES
    Asia (another conference which is also running this week).

    that is the lamest cheap ass excuse I have ever heard. And just stinks of their on-site prototype not being functional (something broke?). There is a truck-ton of VR content. Some of which is a lot less demanding than others. Worst case just show a static 3D image to showcase the massively improved pixel densitiy per arc degree….

    All this apart from the total planning and logisitcs failure on the part of the people involved. If you have two tradeshows. You buy/build 4 goddamn systems months ahead of time (a backup for each site and ship all of them seperately). And what kinda people do they have over in asia that can’t even buy/build computer rigs! This is all soo laughable.

    • Sam Illingworth

      Calm down man. Perhaps they’re a very small company? Perhaps it doesn’t matter as it’s the technology that’s interesting, not the people presenting it.

      • remosito

        Yes the technology would sure be interesting if one could actually see it. Or our VR journalists in this case.

      • Get Schwifty!

        The problem here is a medium and tech which is visual simply “needs to be seen to be believed”. Now from a culture which thinks nothing of hijacking technology wherever possible like the Borg, I am more dubious about the viability of claims and want to see the results to back it all up before getting too excited.

        Don’t get me wrong, I am _very_ excited at the possibilities here, especially the vastly reduced physical footprint itself of the HMD, but talk is cheap. If you have killer tech, I think I would want the world to see it. OTOH, it is probably a random, ad hoc encounter with someone from the business and not a planned review. I am guardedly optimistic until I see a real review of the visuals. Love also to know just how much this might cost, etc. but since we are talking “many years” for a factory to even produce the displays, might as well forget about it for now.

    • Gabe_b

      Also, you can just provide a lower resolution input, it’ll still look better than on an existing display due to less screen dooring

  • Rigelleo

    Since optical aberrations are inversely proportional to focal length, such a system probably suffers from poor image quality. It does not matter if you have millions of pixels if they are not visible because they are blurry

  • I’d rather it be the same size as the oculus if it meant ditching the Fresnel lenses. After using the vive and owning the rift, Fresnel lenses are an absolute dealbreaker for me on future headsets. The glare from these lenses makes VR desktop and movie environments like bigscreen unusable for more than short periods of time due to eye strain. Hooking an HDMI input to the PSVR control box and watching a movie is night-and-day more comfortable than the rift, despite the limitations and lower resolution, entirely because of the lack of Fresnel lenses.

    Virtual screen environments will be the first broadly usable technology to benefit from high res displays, particularly with laptop based VR with the MAX-Q form factor coming shortly, and Windows Mixed Reality bringing desktop apps to VR as a base-line for everyone. It’s time manufacturers realize these lenses don’t cut it, and come up with more creative solutions.

    • Get Schwifty!

      I agree – Fresnel lenses are needed currently but we need to get past them ASAP.

      • RFC_VR

        Fresnel in Vive very noticeable, tried Rift recently impressed with hybrid Fresnel lens. Then tried PSVR (Ps4 pro) with Farpoint very impressed with lens and display panel.

        • Andrew Jakobs

          And to think the resolution on the PSVR is even less than both the Vive and Rift, and yet still delivers a very good image without any distraction SDE (I was expecting a lot of SDE hearing from people about it, as I have the DK2 which has pretty much SDE, but then I had a PSVR on my head a couple of weeks ago and I was like, WTF, there is hardly any real distracting SDE, people are just bitching like hell)..

          • RFC_VR

            Yes I was very impressed with the Sony RGB display panel in the PSVR, if you read up on their tech (sub pixel density) it’s optically impressive and a real contrast to the Samsung PenTile panels in Vive and Oculus​.

            Perhaps we should not be surprised lest we forget Sony’s decades of class leading consumer electronics and display manufacturing…

            Minimal SDE and non fresnel lenses gave Farpoint a very clear line of sight with no noticeable distortion.

            Perhaps just some mura correction needed (software patch?)

    • Totally agree.

    • sfmike

      One more person who hates the fesnel lenses. The GearVR is superior for the fact they are not used. I’ll take some color aberrations on the edges over the god rays that make it seem you have cataracts at an early age. Fesnel lenses have to go.

    • kool

      I was going to say I’ve had no problem with extended sessions on the psvr. Thanks for explaining why.

  • Interesting technology. Given the consideration of page 2, I wonder how much this tech will help in next gen VR headsets, but it is cool nonetheless

  • I don’t really care about the headsets staying the same basic size as they are now as long as both the resolution and field of view numbers continue to increase and they eventually go wireless too. Making the overall headset smaller is properly the least important thing to me at this point in time. And anyone who actually has a clue about VR should be thinking similarly; there’s zero point is obsessing over making it smaller until we can actually nail that other stuff in at least the current form factor. Not that I mind anyone also trying to reduce the size too–but there’s zero chance I’d buy a smaller headset if it means having to go backwards in any of the actually important areas in making VR a truly immersive and great experience.

    • VR deluxe

      I would happily wear a race helmet size VR device right now if only it had double the resolution of the rift and vive. SDE and god rays make the current experience worthless

    • Master E

      I’m hoping these little companies creating pixel dense micro displays just means HTC and Oculus are brewing up something sweet.

      And agree I’d rather see resolution and FoV improve, but… one of the problems with VR for the masses (non enthusiasts) is the disconnection it creates from the real world and people around you. Why I think AR/VR HMDs and smaller more practical gear IS something they all have to have in mind.

  • Foreign Devil

    What is the original purpose of making microdisplays before VR? I can’t think of any. In which case it’s surprising this couldn’t be optimized in size for VR.

    • benz145

      Lots of high-end usage: think military HUD displays, professional camera viewfinders, etc.

    • projectors

      • Foreign Devil

        Ah now that is the only use case that makes sense to me. . because you will need to magnify a tiny postage size 4K screen throught he projector. . the other stuff like HUD and camera viewfinder doesn’t makes sense since the small size and pixel density if overkill for those.

        • The Home Cinema Projector market is always bouncing along. Companies like JVC with their DLA models and Sony with their VPL models have high end 4K Projectors costing between $5,000 and $10,000. They use a single 4K panel too (although they are not exactly LCD but based on a more advanced version of it). The good news is that they also use advanced optics so hopefully it will be a cross-compatible market and costs will drop all around. Many other projectors use standard LCD panels. It is a big market and will certainly help VR.

  • El_MUERkO

    Wider FOV is the biggest future selling point for me, it’s the limited FOV which snaps my immersion most, I’d love a duel card setup, one running each 4kx4k screen, with a nice 120 degree FOV, that’d be heaven :)

    • Harmen

      I just think that I am wearing skiing glasses, that stops me being bothered bij 110 fov.

    • Robert England

      120°? That’s nothing. You can get that in Gear VR simply by modding. I did it, now I can see the entire ‘image’ with none wasted / unseen around edges.
      The PIMAX headsets, (5k and 8k) have 200° FOV
      Wearality 150°

  • psuedonymous

    The big sticking point with microdisplays is the eyebox & exit pupil. As you grow the FoV, those shrink. If you go too far, you end up with a display that if you look directly forward you can fill the entire visual field, but if you look to the side your pupil exits the area within which the display is visible and you see nothing. This is a fundamental optical problem that needs to be solved before microdisplays are viable for wide FoVs without large (and heavy and expensive due to using many solid precision elements) optical assemblies.

  • Kopin-u-late

    You’ve got a bad typo in there. It should be “nonfunctional prototype” instead, ha ha

  • Keopsys

    Yeeeaaw, that’s coming. I personally do not care too much about tracking so if they could make also a ‘just video version’ a bit less expensive that would be great.

    When looking at the picture with the device open, I feel there is so much empty space that they could do a version even thinner with 2 rounds were the displays are. That would be a cool look too, who said the front had to be flat like oculus ?

    • Master E

      Or how about some of the curved flexible lense/screen technology

      Imagine a flexible or curved screen magnifying a micro display the size of a racing helmets visor… 180 degree fov

      That’d be nice

  • ConceptVBS

    Vaporware. Mark. My. Word.

  • Kevin CCIE

    Has no one noticed that there are NO ELECTRONICS in the so called light and smaller Kopin VR headset. No wonder why they gave no demos to anyone and gave the fake – the PC required to run it has been shipped – lie/excuse.

    • benz145

      See the updated article : )

  • impurekind

    I honestly think I’d rather have more filed of view than resolution for now. But obviously I want both in time.

  • Raphael

    I too have a 2k per eye system I’m developing with fellow engineers. Displays are made for vr with up to 140hz. We use a mechanical gyroscope for tracking together with ultrasound emitters and detectors for positional. Field of view is our big selling point at 170 degrees. Design uses a new type of as yet un-made lens so we’re seeking $20,000 to produce. Have raised $80 in one day.

  • Henree

    what graphics card do you need to run that? a 1080 will not be enough….

  • Lucio Lima

    NO, thanks!
    I only buy when the FOV is greater than 100 degree!

  • Ed

    As many others have expressed too, FOV improvements are most important to me. More resolution is nice but it won’t be hugely important to me until increased FOV demands a higher pixel density. I also want to see lighthouse tracking support on new headsets. There’s no reason for every HMD manufacturer to reinvent the wheel with tracking when we have such a solid and open tracking platform that anyone can use.

  • ZenInsight

    At this point if it isn’t wireless… I’m less excited.

  • Joe Black

    Accurate 6DOF+RoomScale or bust.

  • NooYawker

    Prototypes are always awesome, because they’re prototypes. Now getting that to large scale manufacturing at a marketable price is a whole different story. There’s lot’s of great experiments going on, let’s see how many actually make it onto gen 2 devices.

  • What I am waiting for is 2k x 2k, a field of view that fills my full vision, no artifacts, oled contrasts, bright display and 120hz.

  • traschcanman

    “4K OLED ‘Lightning’ microdisplay ”

    2K x 2K is 4MP not 4K

    4K is 4K x 2K = 8 MP

  • Surykaty

    I’m a proffessional and I can easily find budget for even 4 quadro cards and a 5 thousand dollar VR headset (the quadro cards should in theory have no problem with such a headset while not playing games). My question is then… why aren’t there any PRO headsets with higher resolution? Why aren’t there any professional VR tools to work with? The whole VR developement seems sooo spazzy.. first big advancements then slumber.. I think everything is waiting for big players to release version 2 headsets with a considerable display upgrade.

    • Robert England

      PIMAX. 8K. 200° FOV ;”)

      • Surykaty

        I have very little confidence in chinese products. Plus the reviews are not that stellar.

        • The FOV has blown every single reviewer away as far as I have seen and that is on early prototypes. Time will tell if the final product is as good as everybody hopes though.

          I have good feelings about it myself. Besides, there is nothing better coming out yet so until somebody announces something else and I assume here, this is still the most anticipated VR headset for 2018.

          As to Quadro cards, I think in the future NVidia may need bring out a pure VR card as things shift from monitors to VR/AR. Quadro are all about support, drivers, memory etc and the recent P series can pack a punch. But it also targets a different technology. Instead of precise viewport rendering and the ability to handle masses of geometry in vram they would also need to focus on hardware for VR like foveated rendering at the driver level, huge resolutions with single board but with one gpu per eye rendering and hardware acceleration of lens transforms. This would then split into two groups again, the pro market and the consumer versions so we have legacy cards like Quadro/GTX and a new breed of cards like QuadroVR / GTXVR cards. All speculation of course :)