Samsung yesterday announced the latest version of their Gear VR mobile headset alongside the new Galaxy Note 7 smartphone. Both the headset and phone are available for pre-order starting today with a release date of August 19th.
Like the Gear VR that came before it, the latest Gear VR for Note 7 is priced at $99. It’s now available for pre-order directly from Samsung. The headset supports the new USB-C connection of the Note 7, but an included micro-USB adapter ensures backwards compatibility with all the phones that worked with the prior version of the headset (details on Gear VR versions and compatible phones here). Unfortunately it doesn’t look like Samsung will bundle the new Gear VR with pre-orders of the Note 7 like that had for the S7 launch a few months back.
The new Gear VR has a slightly improved field of view (from 96 degrees to 101), but from our time with the unit it’s not enough to make a terribly noticeable difference unless you actually had the older version on hand to compare side by side. The addition of a new Home button (next to the Back button above the trackpad) is a welcome addition, but all in all, if you’ve already got a Gear VR headset, there’s not much to justify an upgrade. For those who don’t already own one, Gear VR is still easily the best mobile VR headset available (though we’ll have to see what Google’s Daydream has to say about that when it launches this Fall).
We’ve got 17 photos of the new headset here for your perusal, including a good look at the adapters and how they’ll attach to the headset.