[VR Question]

What are the differences between Oculus Rift and Gear VR? I haven't had the opportunity to try either.

[Highrisedrifter]

The main differnces, obviously, are that the Gear VR requires slotting in a Galaxy S7, S7 edge, Note 5, S6 or S6 edge whereas the Oculus Rift has it's own integrated system. If you already own one of those phones, then check out the Gear VR first I think.

If you want to engage in PC gaming, then the Oculus Rift might be better as it seems like it is designed more for PCs whereas the Gear Vr might need a little bit of software tinkering before it works, so i've been led to believe. I've got a Rift DK2 and whilst the resolution on that is pretty bad, the consumer ones are much, much better. Another huge difference is in the price tag. The Gear VR is less than $100 but requires one of the above phones to function, so if you don't have one, you will need to get one, which will push the overall price up, and the Rift is around $600.

Both of them are backed by huge companies (Samsung and Facebook), so the support for them should be pretty good. I would say that the Oculus Rift is the more 'mature' of the technologies though and my opinion is that it is likely to be the one more readily supported by third party game developers.

Most of my post is pure opinion though, so take from it what you will.

[krisguy]

If what you are looking to do is view videos and 360 degree photos, then the Gear VR will work well. I have one, use it for Netflix, Flickr 360, and viewing DVD rips of my own DVDs in the Occulus Theater. There are some cool games, and Minecraft just launched as well.

[Propanol]

What does mean "powered by Oculus" on Gear VR?

[the_moesiah]

What does mean "powered by Oculus" on Gear VR?

I'm curious about this too, because the Xbox One VR is going too be powered by Occulus as well.

[Fnord]

The hardware is built by Samsung, but the software (ie the store you launch into when using the device) is operated by Oculus. Oculus has full control over what titles are published to their store.

[Chemy JMHT]

Also Oculus and Samsung have a partnership for the technology, like how to present the images in the screen and stuff like that, will be apparently the same with the Xbox, some rumors says the Xbox VR will simply use the oculus rift for VR.