It wasn’t that long ago that I wrote about the incredibly lackluster laptop market, and I have to admit that as far as regular consumer laptops go, not a lot has changed.  Over the past half year or so, I’ve researched Windows laptops extensively, and guess what I ended up buying?

A 13″ MacBook Pro.  Sigh.

My new MacBook Pro

But that’s not really where the story starts.  No, instead this story begins around January when I decided that I’d probably be buying a laptop this year.  I’ve expressed my displeasure with Apple’s current laptops more than once on this site, and as a result, I set out to find a Windows laptop that would make me happy.

In the beginning, I was determined to buy a gaming laptop to replace both my desktop and my laptop, and after hours and hours of research, I narrowed my choices down the Razer Blade 15 and the MSI GS65.  In doing that research, I learned quite a few very alarming things about the Windows laptop market that I’ve been totally immune to since 2005 (when I bought my first Mac laptop).  Yes, I do have a Surface Pro 3, but I never really intended on that completely replacing my laptop.  Settle in, this is a fun list.

  • Trackpads on Windows laptop are either pretty good (read: not great) or awful.  You have to do research on every single model (even if you are just looking at Dell laptops) to make sure you’re getting a good one.  I would never buy a Windows laptop without a glass trackpad and Windows Precision Drivers, and even those are not as good as a MacBook’s.
  • Poor customer support/lack of local support options/quick turnaround for issues is a serious problem.  The best option seems to be buying from Microsoft with their Performance Guard warranty so you can return/repair/get help at Microsoft stores.
  • Screen/light bleed (bright spots on your display) is very common, but the quality varies a lot manufacturer to manufacturer.
  • Build quality varies wildly, including case flex (when the chassis gives if you press down on it) and screen flex, which I was horrified to learn was an actual problem in the Windows laptop world
  • A lot of Windows laptops have questionable cooling solutions and/or try to cram way too much hardware in way too little space, and, as a result, get pretty loud and hot.
  • No Windows laptop has speakers that come anywhere close to Apple’s.  Honestly, Apple’s laptop speakers are magic.  I have no idea how they manage that level of quality from those tiny speakers.
Razer Blade 15, fresh out of the box.

So, after considering all of this, I bought a Razer Blade 15 from the Microsoft Store.  I was drawn to the power and design, as Razer used a unibody design similar to Apple, and it had top-notch specs.  It didn’t solve two problems I have with Macs, though: the high refresh rate screen didn’t have a touch option, and the price was essentially equivalent to a 15″ MacBook Pro.

I brought the laptop home, got it setup, tried to play Fortnite on it, and the fans kicked on so loud that it was actually distracting me from the game.  That area above the keyboard was so hot that it felt like my finger was going to actually burn.  My device also had moderate screen bleed.

On the flip side, the design was “nice,” aside from the gamer-aesthetic Razer logo.  The trackpad was also probably the best I’ve used in a Windows laptop, maybe tied or slightly better than a Dell XPS.

But I returned it the next weekend.  It was too loud, too hot, and generally too imperfect to justify its price.  It was back to the drawing board.

I decided gaming laptops were clearly out, so next I’d find a good ultrabook.  I kept my eye on the Razer Blade Stealth, the Dell XPS 13, and sort of the Huawei Matebook X Pro.  Surfaces don’t have modern ports, and they’re expensive, so they were automatically disqualified.  Apple was also rumored to be updating the MacBook Air, which I was actually pretty excited about.

Then Apple released the update, and they used a Y series CPU.  Yes, I know it’s 7w, but I’m not buying a Y series CPU again.  Apple had once again disappointed me with their laptop offerings.

First off, the Huawei seemed like the best deal, but no matter how I tried to slice it, the design was such a personality-less ripoff and the device was known to have just enough common issues that I knew I’d be disappointed with it.  I didn’t want to have to take apart the laptop to put a piece of paper under the trackpad to make it not rattle, which is a very real and common thing people have to do with that computer.

Dell is also hard for me to stomach.  The XPS line is pretty nice – the design is premium, and it has personality; however, that personality is decidedly “Dell.”  The carbon fiber palmrest design and the general Dell aesthetic is not my thing.  Plus, I keep telling myself after all the issues I have with other Dell products in my life, I probably shouldn’t keep buying Dell stuff.

Finally, I wasn’t a fan of the bezels on the Razer Blade Stealth, but it seemed like the best option.  That is, until I found out all of the issues people seem to have with it besides Razer’s already infamous customer support.  Apparently the screen is prone to phantom touches, and it’s so common that people just disable the touchscreen and live with it.  Come on, this is totally unacceptable.

It was at this point, months later, that I gave up.  Apple does not make the laptop I need, but I was left with no other options.  I could either buy a laptop that had meh power but the right price point (MacBook Air), or I could buy a 13″ MacBook Pro, which had the power the Air should’ve had along with a bunch of other stuff I didn’t need and a price tag I didn’t want.

This was a long, difficult process for me, and I am a tech person.  I can’t imagine how frustrating this must be for the average person laptop shopping right now.  Apple really would’ve killed it if the MacBook Air would’ve come out at a lower price and also offered a U series chip at a mid-tier price point (~$1300).  That said, I do like the MacBook Pro.  I’m dealing with the keyboard and still trying to find a use for the Touch Bar, but I’m sure I’ll have a whole article about that later.

If you’ve gotten this far, sighed, and realized I wasn’t going to make a recommendation, don’t fret, here it is: if you don’t want a Mac, and you want an ultrabook, get an XPS 13.  The other options are just not suitable for most consumers.  If you enjoy or can deal with Dell Aestheticâ„¢, the XPS 13 (and 15, for that matter) is a quality machine, and they will back it up with decent support.  Bonus points if you buy an XPS 13 at a Microsoft Store.  Heck, even if you don’t buy it there, I think you can still bring it in to them for free basic troubleshooting.

The post So, you want to buy a Windows laptop… appeared first on Philtered Tech.

Source: Philtered Tech

I recently heard two very conflicting viewpoints on Facebook.  On a tech podcast, a host said that kids today call Facebook “the old people app,” which is something I’ve been hearing for a while.  But a colleague told me that from what he’s seen administering a Facebook group, there’s actually tons of kids on it.  He believes Facebook skipped a generation, since there was, no doubt, an age group for a while that shunned Facebook.

Honestly, I’m inclined to believe my colleague over the tech podcast considering that tech journalists don’t live in the real world.  I wish the tech podcast was right (and maybe they are, I haven’t looked into it), but regardless, I guess that’s enough intro to what that post is about.

About a week and a half ago, I deleted the Facebook app from my phone.  There are quite a few reasons, but the gist of it is A) I’m tired of seeing people’s crappy political opinions and B) Facebook as a company is an untrustworthy trash heap, and I want less of it in my life.  I’m not deleting it entirely (I still check it on my computer/iPad, just not on my phone), and I still have Messenger and Instagram on my phone (at least, for now).

I have, over the course of a couple years, been drastically reducing how much I post on Facebook, now I guess I’m just looking at it less too.  I wish I could get rid of it, but I feel like I need it to keep in touch with certain people and to (don’t laugh) promote what I’m working on, aka, my novels, blogs, etc.

So, anyway, I do still post a lot on Twitter, but that platform is usually pretty vapid (that’s not an insult, I like having a platform that is just stream-of-consciousness for mostly unimportant thoughts), so I was thinking maybe I could start blogging more often and just get a plugin for WordPress that cross-posts my posts to Facebook and Twitter (rather than doing it manually).  I suppose I’d still be giving Zuck data that way…I’m not sure that I care too much about links to my own site though.  Besides, as I’ve heard it put best, if you’re not on Facebook, Zuck still knows everything about you from the you-shaped hole in your friends’ accounts.

If you’ve read Iterate, then you know that one of the central themes of the story is a time loop that revolves around August 28th, 2018.  Well, that is today, so on that note, Happy Iterate Day!  To celebrate, I wanted to make the Kindle version free for today, but I found out when I went to make the price change that you cannot make a book on the Kindle Direct Publishing platform free unless it’s enrolled in KDP Select.  I would have no issue with that, except KDP Select has an exclusivity agreement that I am not comfortable with.  As a result, I can’t make the Kindle version of Iterate free today.  However, I can still give it away, just not quite as easily!  If you would like a free copy of Iterate, please Tweet at me.  This offer stands until the end of August.

I also figured there is probably no better day to give more information on the sequel, which has been in the works since a few weeks after I published Iterate.  The moment I cemented the title for Iterate was when I also knew that the sequel would be called Reiterate.  It was an obvious choice for both books, which made the usually daunting task of picking a title pretty easy in both cases.

Clearly, I’ve been sitting on that tidbit for a while, but that’s not all that I have to share.  The first draft of Reiterate is currently sitting just shy of 41,000 words, and I would be shocked if the finished first draft is anything less than 60,000 words.  It’s hard to truly estimate a word length for a story you’re not done telling, but if my guess is correct, that would make Reiterate longer than Iterate by a bit.

I am still trying to release Reiterate in Q4 of this year (meaning sometime before January 1st, 2019), but that date may have been a bit too ambitious.  Regardless, it will be done when it’s done, and I’m pretty excited with how it’s turning out.

Source: PhilipDiStefano.com

It feels really strange to admit this, but for years now, music has not played a very significant role in my life.  These posts are now all hidden, but if you’re a longtime reader of this blog, you may remember the many times that I’ve written about all of the ways that music induces emotions from me – elation at the news of new album releases, being in awe of amazing lyrics, grief when bands broke up or went on a hiatus, being bummed out that I couldn’t make it to concerts or that artists just didn’t go to Louisiana – this is just a small part how music has affected me in the past.

I still listen to music on occasions, but not in the same way.  Sometimes I get a song stuck in my head, so I listen to it a few times, and that’s that. Most reliably, I’ll listen to music while I’m writing, but it’s a very specific album that I’ve probably listened to hundreds of times that helps me concentrate (R/D’s “Liquid Heart Keeper“).

Really, the biggest impact music still has on my life is that every once in a while when I’m feeling nostalgic about something, I dig up an old song and relive that moment that ties me to the song.  That was really the inspiration for me writing this post out – “Eden” by The Mayfield Four randomly popped into my head, and I instantly had flashbacks of hanging out in that weird little atrium in the geology building at LSU.  This, in turn, made me remember trying to read “Neuromancer” for the first time in that same room, and also, perhaps more importantly, brought back fond memories of writing garbage romantic flash fiction in the hall outside of one of my geology classrooms while waiting for the current class to leave so I could go in.

Another really strange feeling I’ve experienced before from music is a bizarre sense of nostalgia while listening to songs about things I’ve literally never lived out.  I suppose you could say those songs were powerful enough to transport me somewhere else and give me that brief sensation of living vicariously.

But nowadays, I just can’t seem to get into any new music.  It just feels like that part of me is gone, replaced by podcast after podcast after podcast.  And maybe that’s a good thing too; I certainly enjoy my podcasts, but sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever be able to feel the same way about music again.

In my last post, I briefly mentioned that I’ve been playing Fortnite a lot, which if you know me, you may find a little weird considering I normally don’t play competitive shooters.  One player shooters, yes.  Multiplayer online games, yes.  A combination of the two…not so much.  In that same vein, I wanted to explain why Fortnite is so great and why you may want to consider playing it if you’re not already.

3 Fortnite characters standing in a group

Image courtesy of Epic Games

First, what is Fortnite?  Well, to explain that, here’s a quick history lesson.

Just over a year ago, Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) was released and received extremely positively.  PUBG certainly wasn’t the first game of its kind, but it undeniably popularized the battle royale style of game.  That is, 100 players on a map, one team wins (or if you’re playing solo mode, then one person wins).  What’s more, PUBG popularized how these types of games work, which was essentially you start off in a vehicle in the sky and parachute down to the map (which is an island in basically all of the battle royale games I’ve seen).  Once you land, you have to quickly pick up a weapon and other loot to survive and take down other players.  There are more mechanics depending on the game, but that’s the gist of it.

When PUBG came out, Epic was busy developing what is currently known as Fortnite: Save the World, which is a player-versus-enemy co-op game where you fight monsters with weapons and the aid of materials you can use to build forts (you can craft individual walls, stairs, ceilings, floors, etc).  Epic saw the attention PUBG was getting and realized they had all of the assets available to essentially clone PUBG, and they did exactly that.  Two months later they released Fortnite Battle Royale, which from this point on, I’ll just refer to as Fortnite since, funny enough, even though Save the World was the original incarnation of the game, Battle Royale is what anyone who mentions Fortnite is actually talking about.

PUBG logo

Image courtesy of Venture Beat

That said, Fortnite is currently one of the most popular games in the world.  Last week on Twitch, I saw 700,000 people streaming Fortnite.  Next most popular was League of Legends at 100,000, then PUBG was in third at somewhere over 70,000.  So if Fortnite is essentially a clone of PUBG, how did it essentially stomp the game it copied into the ground?

First and foremost, Fortnite is free.  Save the World isn’t currently free, but when it exits its early access period, it will be free.  PUBG is not free, and I feel like that alone bears significant weight, especially among younger audiences with less disposable income.  So yeah, that’s reason number one, and it’s a big one.

I’ve only played PUBG once, and it was on mobile, but I still feel weirdly qualified to talk about it because I’ve watched Polygon’s video team stream that game every week for 1-2 hours for just over a year.  The one time I did play it, there was no learning curve since I already knew practically everything about the game.  Since Fortnite is nearly identical to PUBG, I already knew how to play Fortnite except for the crafting stuff, which was easy enough to learn the basics of.  Also, I pay a decent amount of attention to video game news in general, so the world of PUBG news isn’t exactly foreign.

First off, Epic makes a lot of interesting and thoughtful changes to Fortnite.  When they add something to the game that players don’t like (for example, an overpowered gun), they actually monitor this feedback and make adjustments accordingly.  Epic employees regularly post in /r/FortniteBR confirming bugs, providing comments on community feedback, and a host of other things.  I’m not sure how Bluehole (PUBG’s developers) handle that kind of stuff, but based on feedback I’ve heard, I’m guessing not super well.

Fortnite also runs really well on the platforms I’ve played it on (PC and iOS), and it’s available on almost every major platform and console, with Android support coming soon and also being the final missing piece.  Now, I can’t play on my 12″ MacBook or my Surface Pro 3, but it doesn’t take a beefy machine to run Fortnite with playable graphics.  The mobile client is also surprisingly good considering how hard it is to play that type of game on a touchscreen.  PUBG’s iOS client is actually pretty good too, but the details that Epic put into the Fortnite mobile client to make it playable versus being on a computer or a console are really thoughtful.  There’s an auto-shoot option and a visual alert that notifies you when there is shooting, a chest, or footprints nearby – all aids to things that are made more difficult on a phone or tablet.

Another thing Fortnite does really well is monetization.  Yes, you can play it 100% free and experience absolutely no disadvantage in gameplay compared to someone that’s spent $1,000 on cosmetic items.  Fortnite allows you to purchase V Bucks, and V Bucks are used to buy cosmetic items, emotes (usually various dances), and of course, the Battle Pass.

Image of Fornite's season 5 battle pass showing tiers and items gained

Season 5 battle pass, image courtesy of Forbes

Epic really knocked it out of the park with the Battle Pass, because unlike PUBG’s monetization system (loot boxes, which are essentially gambling), you always know exactly what you get with the Battle Pass, and you get it by playing the game and completing quests.  Nothing is random, period.  If you’re a better player, you get more experience, which means you level up faster, which means you reach higher tiers of the Battle Pass and receive the items associated with it.

Purchasing a Battle Pass costs 950 V Bucks per season, which is equivalent to $10 with 50 V Bucks leftover, as you can buy 1,000 V Bucks for $10.  Each Battle Pass lasts for one season, and one season lasts for 10 weeks.  But wait, this doesn’t necessarily mean you need to pay $10 every 10 weeks.  If you just play the game, some tiers in the Battle Pass reward 100 V Bucks, so essentially, if you earn and save 950 V Bucks worth of your rewards every season, you only need to spend $10 one time, then play the game, and you’ve got a perpetual Battle Pass for as long as you keep earning enough rewards.  And yes, it is totally doable to do just that, but you might be enticed to buy emotes or costumes.

Oh, and the most important thing about the Battle Pass?  It actually makes the game, which is already fun to play for free, more fun by providing additional Battle Pass-only quests and secrets (I only just learned about secret Battle Stars yesterday!).

Unlike PUBG, Fortnite only has one map, but it gets updated and changed every season.  My last blog post was called “RIP Moisty Mire” because Epic removed the swamp that took up the entire southeast portion of the map and replaced it with a desert for season 5.  In season 4, a meteorite struck the location in the center of the map (Dusty Depot) and turned it into Dusty Divot.  And it’s not just simple stuff like that; the seasons are themed and bring along interesting changes.  At the end of season 3, players knew something on the map was going to get wiped out because you could see the meteorite in the sky, so there was a lot of speculation on what would happen.  When the meteorite did hit in season 4, there was a new consumable item called “hop rocks” (essentially meteorite fragments) that allowed players to jump higher.  At the end of season 4, a rocket that had been on the map for a while took off and smashed into the sky, cracking it like glass and introducing “drifts.”  Random stuff started appearing and disappearing on the map, and like I said, an entire section of the map disappeared and got replaced.  It’s just a really cool method of storytelling for a game mode that really doesn’t even need a story (but I’m absolutely glad that it sort of has one).

If I had to point out a weak point of Fortnite, it’s that there are a lot of people that play, and the game is immensely popular among audiences ranging from teens to adults.  That means you’ll probably have teenagers on your team, and if you have voice chat on, you will hate your life.  I keep it turned off, and I’m thankful Epic gives me the option to do so.  It also sucks when you’re playing squad mode (teams of 4), and some random jackass refuses to land with the rest of the team.  It puts everyone, including the solo person, at a disadvantage compared to a team that sticks together and lands in the same area.  You can play solo or duo mode (or only play with friends you trust to not be jerks) to avoid this, but it’s a part of squad mode life if you’re playing with randos.

Finally, I just want to say that Fortnite gameplay is really fun, even if it’s fundamentally frustrating.  You’ll probably die most of the time wherever you land, you’ll probably win very infrequently (only one person/team can win out of 100 people, after all), and you’ll probably get sniped out of nowhere right after you pick up the best close-range gun in the game.  That’s a part of competitive shooters, and yet, that challenge is what makes it fun.  I personally consider it a win if I at least take someone else out before dying.  Of course, if you don’t like shooters, you probably won’t like Fortnite, but I’d also point out that I typically don’t like competitive shooters or third person shooters, yet here I am, telling you that the competitive, third person shooter called Fortnite is a blast.

My attention has been divided between this blog and a couple others (the bottom two on the side bar over there –>), but if you’ve been paying attention to those, you’ll probably notice that my activity on those has waned as well.  Most of my writing focus lately has been going toward the sequel to Iterate, which is actually coming along pretty well, but I’ve been sorely lacking in posting personal/life updates here, so I guess it’s time to do that.

I’ve been wanting a new laptop since the beginning of this year, and for the first time, it’s not because there’s a laptop out that I want.  Quite the opposite, it’s because I feel ready for a more powerful laptop than my 2015 12″ MacBook, but the problem is, there is literally not a single laptop on the market that I want.

I usually default to buying a MacBook when it comes to laptops because Windows laptops are kinda terrible, but I’m just not the biggest fan of Apple’s current laptops.  Now that they’ve updated the Pro models with a Touchbar and didn’t bother with the non-Touchbar version, which is literally the only laptop I’m interested in from them, they’ve just totally lost me.  But even before that update, I had given up and gone over to the Windows world for a laptop, and let me tell you, that market is a total and complete mess.

This is probably the wrong place for me to get into the details since I have a tech blog, but I’m gonna do it anyway.  The issues boil down to a combination of some (or perhaps all) of the following:

  • Poor trackpads, aka, “Does this laptop have a glass surface with Windows Precision drivers?”  This is a dealbreaker – don’t buy a Windows laptop that doesn’t have this if you plan on using the trackpad.
  • Poor customer support/lack of local support options/quick turnaround for issues
  • Screen bleed
  • Build quality, including case flex (does the chassis give when you press down on it) and screen flex, which I was horrified to learn was an actual problem in the Windows laptop world (can you tell I haven’t purchased one in a while?)
  • Noise tests (how loud do the fans get?)
  • Poor quality speakers (no one comes close to Apple here)

I pity anyone shopping for a Windows laptop.  I bought a Razer Blade 15 and returned it because it simply wasn’t worth the price tag for the heat/noise it generates.  And heck, now I feel bad for the pros that went out and bought the new i9 MacBook Pro, because I guess those are throttling hard (7-25-18 update: Apple has apparently fixed this with a software update yesterday).  But, at least if you want a Touchbar (or don’t mind paying the premium for one), you can buy a pretty decent 13″ or 15″ Core i7 model…so I guess that’s something.

Anyway, I gave up on that and instead just focused on my desktop.  I mounted a monitor arm on the wall next to the sofa, so now I can easily use my desktop while relaxing.  I also bought a GTX 1080, which I installed yesterday, so hopefully I’ll be set for another 3 years or so with that (my GTX 970 was just over 3 years old, and honestly would’ve still been fine had I not gotten into VR or wanted a 144Hz 1440p gaming monitor…).

I guess on that note, I’ve been playing a ton of Fortnite, so if you want to play together, hit me up on my mobile (that’s a little old person humor for you, the joke is that I’m old; social media is fine).  Oh, if you don’t read my tech blog, I guess I should mention that VR is awesome, and I’ve been playing Beat Saber almost every day since I got my VR headset.  It’s really cool, and the most fun I think is truly to be had with the games that are designed for VR rather than shoehorned to fit VR.  Fair warning about it, though:  I don’t have issues with nausea (the headsets are super fast and responsive these days) but some people still get motion sickness.

Anyway, here’s to hoping Apple releases a good laptop without a Touchbar that has at least a current generation Core i5 sometime in the next year so I can buy one.  Sigh.

For some reason, I thought I’d posted here that Iterate would have a sequel at some point, but I suppose I confused platforms.  Regardless, this post is to say that yes, Iterate will have a sequel, and I am currently writing it.  As much as I’d love to release it on August 28th, 2018, that’s a pretty unrealistic goal right now.  While subject to change, I’d say a more likely release will be Q4 2018.

Source: PhilipDiStefano.com

I’ve always thought augmented reality (AR) was the future.  I’ve mentioned it before on social media, I’ve said it on a podcast I used to co-host – AR is cooler and more important than VR.

However, that doesn’t mean that I didn’t see value in virtual reality.  In fact, I’ve wanted an HTC Vive from the moment I heard about them, but I refused to pay the $799 price tag.  Since then, I’ve maintained a half-watchful eye on the market, but I admit, I’ve been a bit curious every time I passed by the Microsoft Store and saw customers playing with the VR demo.  The wires always turned me off, and I told myself “I’ll get one when they’re way cheaper or when they’re wireless.”

Then, a couple weeks ago. SwiftOnSecurity tweeted this:

 

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Needless to say, I was intrigued.  Oculus Rift had come down to $399 and the HTC Vive to $499, but I still didn’t want to make that level of investment on a wired headset.  $199, though?  Take my money!

And indeed, they did, because I now have a Lenovo Explorer VR headset.  Well, I guess it’s actually a “Windows Mixed Reality headset,” but I’m a little unclear why it’s branded as that, considering it and other Mixed Reality headsets are all VR rather than AR, the latter of which is what the term “Mixed Reality” implies.  I suppose it could be Microsoft’s way of hyping “holograms” and all of the tech they’ve prepared for the Hololens without actually having a consumer-ready version of that product available for purchase.  If that is the case, it was wasted on me, because I’ve been ready for the Hololens long before I got this VR hardware.

Skyloft environment in Windows MR. Image courtesy of Microsoft

Windows Mixed Reality Headsets are compatible with Mixed Reality games in the Microsoft store, as well as Oculus and Vive games using Steam VR (you just have to download the Windows Mixed Reality program in Steam to get it to work).  Outside of gaming, Microsoft lets you interact with Universal Windows Apps inside of your own virtual reality house.  It’s honestly pretty cool, despite how incredibly useless it is.  But again, the novelty is still quite incredible.  It was the first thing I saw in VR, and my first reaction – and I imagine most people’s is as well – was just “whoa.”

Virtual reality has a lot of moments like that, not just when you first put on the headset.  The first time I “telepathically” controlled something, I got such a huge grin on my face.  The first time I shot a gun in VR, I couldn’t believe how incredible the tracking was.  The greatest thing about this headset, or any other one, is that once you try VR, the rest of the headset will sell itself to you.

There’s a lot of weird stuff with Windows MR, and I’m sure there are bits that may or may not apply to other VR headsets, but look, I’m just going to say this plainly and simply: virtual reality is incredible.  You’re going to keep reading this article and think, “wow, there’s a lot of weird stipulations and issues.  Is this even worth it?”  So just imagine it this way – after every negative thing or issue I mention in the rest of this article, imagine the sentence is followed with, “but VR is awesome, so you won’t care.”

I know, I know, that sounds like a wild assertion, but consider this: if you lived in an alternative universe where all smartphones had a one hour screen-on-time battery, took blurry pictures, and crashed about every 30 minutes, but they still gave you the whole app ecosystem and the ability to have the Internet anywhere, you’d probably still want a smartphone, right?  Having a communication tool like a smartphone in your pocket is incredible.  VR is the same, though not quite as life-changing.

So, that said, let’s dive a little deeper.

The hardware of the Lenovo Explorer has one major drawback, but it only affects some people.  There is no hardware adjustment for pupillary distance, so if you’ve got wideset eyes, you’re out of luck.  This headset will always be blurry for you in at least one eye, so you should definitely look into one with a hardware adjustable IPD.  This was not an issue for me, so no worries there.  It also doesn’t have a mic or speakers built in like many competing headsets do, but it’s got a headphone jack.

They only other negative thing I can say about the hardware is that the Lenovo Explorer’s (much less decently-priced) competitor, the Samsung Odyssey, has a slightly higher resolution.  As far as I know, most Windows MR headsets are 1440×1440 per eye, but the Samsung device is 1440×1600.  That’s not to say that the resolution on the Explorer is bad, but even having never used another VR headset, it’s clear that the resolution could be better (the lower resolution units create what people call the “screen door effect”).  I imagine this would only take away from the experience for you if you were used to using a headset with a much higher pixel density, but I don’t think such a device exists yet.  In the meantime, it’s such an immersive experience that I really stop noticing after a bit anyway.

Image courtesy of Microsoft

Microsoft has a Mixed Reality PC Check app that you can download to make sure your computer meets the minimum requirements, but I’d also note that a lot of people, despite passing the check, have issues with built-in Bluetooth adapters and end up needing to buy a Bluetooth 4.0 dongle (I got this one for a whopping $13, it works great).  The controllers eat batteries pretty quickly, so you’ll definitely want to buy rechargeable AA‘s and a charger.  Mixed Reality also requires Windows 10 with at least the Fall Creator’s Update installed, but the April 2018 update is highly recommended.

The other downside as far as hardware requirements go is that they’re…well, steep.  I built my gaming desktop three years ago using mostly next-to-best components, and my GTX 970 is literally the minimum requirement for most VR games.  I can’t play Fallout 4 VR or some of the other big name games that were ported over to VR, but I’m actually not super upset about that…yet.

Oh, and speaking of Fallout 4, even if you own it, you have to buy the whole game again to get the VR version, and this is true for most VR games I’ve found.  I understand that a lot of additional work goes into porting these games, but I own Fallout 4 and a season pass, and I feel a little cheated that I have to shell out $60 if I ever upgrade my computer and want to play it in VR.  I’d be fine giving them an extra $15, but come on, I’ve given you ~$75 already.

The software component is actually the biggest downside of Windows MR and the Lenovo Explorer so far.  It’s completely worth the hassle, but it is a hassle at times.  Part of it is that this is all new, and while it’s getting better, there are bugs, and the other part is the learning curve that comes with a new technology.  Some people have issues with the controllers connecting, some people have issues with SteamVR crashing, some people have issues with the boundary being lost – all of which are solvable, but frustrating things that I experienced.

Image courtesy of Microsoft

Because most people seem to need to buy adapters, you can’t forget to disable your built in adapter or it will stop your new adapter from working properly.  Sometimes SteamVR just crashes and you have to restart SteamVR, Steam, the MR Portal app, or your whole computer.  Oh, and the boundary?  That’s the thing that you trace in reality to tell you in VR where you can move in your room without bumping into stuff.  It’s really neat, but it requires a well-lit room and a floor with a distinguishable pattern, because besides the built in accelerators and whatnot, it also uses the front-facing cameras to determine your location.

It took me about 20 minutes of wracking my brains and googling to figure out why I was getting the “boundary lost” message (I had to turn on the lights), and though it seems obvious in hindsight, it is such a typical Microsoft error message, lacking the most basic instructions to fix it.  I’m sure it’s in the manual, but seriously, who gets a VR headset and sits down for an hour to read a boring book about it?

Within VR environments the biggest issue is locomotion.  It’s something that has yet to be solved in a great way that doesn’t also cause a large amount of users to get motion sickness, so as a result, most games use some kind of teleportation mechanic.  This is a very non-immersive solution, which sucks, but the other options are 1) make people sick or 2) don’t make games that require that kind of movement.

Option 1 has resulted in games like Pavlov VR, and option 2 has resulted in lots of “wave shooters” and games like Beat Saber.  If you’re unfamiliar, Pavlov VR is an online FPS that some Steam reviews call “Counterstrike for VR,” and it employs a locomotion technique where you basically just put you finger on the left touchpad to move around.  I tried it, and while at times it’s a bit disorienting, it didn’t make me sick, and I actually sort of liked it (I returned the game though, as I was stupidly hoping for more offline content, of which the game has almost none).

Superhot VR gameplay

Wave Shooters are games like Superhot VR and Raw Data, where you stand in one spot and shoot enemies as they approach you.  You can move around within the space you’re standing, but to, say, travel down a hall, you either teleport there, or your character is “on rails” and moves there automatically when you’re done with the current area.

Beat Saber is a rhythm game that takes advantage of limited physical movement, so while you don’t have to travel down a hall or anything, you do occasionally have to dodge or duck under obstacles that approach you.  This type of game works very well in VR, as do wave shooters, and while Pavlov VR was novel, I feel like maybe people are only playing it because it’s a VR shooter game, not because it’s necessarily a great game in general.  On the other hand, Beat Saber and Superhot VR aren’t good games with VR attached somehow – they’re good because they’re VR games.  That is to say, the best games I’ve played in VR so far are the ones that do things that you can only do with VR rather than ones that are traditional-style games adapted to VR.

Anyway, it’s easy to overlook the issues with VR when you put on the headset.  Even if it crashes one out of 10 times, or you have to unplug your cables and plug them back in 20% of the time, when it works, you just forget all of that.  I honestly can’t remember the last time a video game has wowed me as much as Superhot VR did.  Sure, I loved the last few video games I played (all Fire Emblem games), but it was a familiar, predictable experience.  Yes, I am admitting there is a lot of novelty with VR, which is one of the things I hate about Nintendo’s hardware every time they release it.  The Wii controllers were fun until they weren’t new anymore, then they became a detriment (in my opinion, at least).

Beat Saber gameplay. Animation courtesy of Road to VR.

The Wii succeeded in making games feel more immersive, but it only brought a part of that equation.  Sales were great, but anecdotally I believe that once the newness wore off, a lot of people used Gamecube controllers for pretty much anything besides Wii Sports.  In fact, if you look at the going price of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess on eBay right now, the Gamecube version is going for about twice as much of the Wii version, the latter of which forced you to use the Wii controller.  Of course, correlation does not imply causation, blah blah, but the Wii version of the game is technically more modern and displays in 16:9, whereas the Gamecube version only does 4:3.  I don’t know why else the Gamecube version would be more popular other than the controller.

At the very least, I think this shows that for certain types of games, people don’t want gimmicks – they just want great gameplay.  This leads to a pretty obvious question: is VR just a gimmick?

I think it’s a fair question to ask, considering one of the reasons PC gamers prefer PC gaming is because a keyboard and mouse gives you much greater control over a game than an Xbox controller, and that is something that VR takes away.  While you can technically play some VR games with a controller on your PC, the experience is greatly diminished by not using the motion controllers.

If you ask me, a person who is as fallible as any other, I’d say that the immersive nature of VR sets it apart from a device like the Wii, whose gimmick was merely a controller.  You could also say that multitouch displays were a gimmick when the iPhone came out, because at the time, “real work was done on devices with keyboards.”  Clearly, touchscreens were no gimmick, and I think VR falls somewhere closer to touchscreens than the Wii remotes.  Windows Mixed Reality applications are very much a gimmick, because there’s very little practical application for them, but VR gaming is the exact opposite of that.

VR is one of those things that you can’t do justice by talking about, seeing pictures, or even seeing video.  It’s one of those things that you have to experience to understand.  If you have the resources, I’d encourage you to try it out, and let me know what you think.

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