HTC revealed its Vive Focus Plus standalone VR headset is priced $799. It starts shipping April 15 with two hand controllers included.
That is essentially double the cost of the consumer-oriented Oculus Quest, which starts shipping this spring starting at $399 for similar overall functionality. You can read our most recent hands-on impressions of Quest and everything else we know about the device here.
Vive Focus Plus
The Vive Focus Plus will ship in most markets with an enterprise license. The headset is said to launch with 250 Vive Wave applications while its Viveport Infinity subscription program claims to include “over 70 premium titles.” Here are the Vive Focus Plus specifications, according to HTC:
- Display: 3K AMOLED (2880×1600)
- Processor: Qualcomm Snapdragon 835
- Audio: Built-in Speaker
- Tracking: Inside-Out
- Frame Rate: 75Hz
- Field of View: 110-degrees
- Battery: 4000 mAh
- Controller: 6DoF
- Data Connectivity: Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac
- Memory (RAM/ROM): 4/32 GB
- Connector: USB Type-C
- Charging: QC3.0
HTC is a company that appears to be in technological transition — with the Vive Focus Plus the latest example. HTC’s first generation Vive headset debuted in 2016 for $$799, a full $200 more than the Rift with a wider feature set. That system relied on Valve’s SteamVR Tracking technology to operate. All headsets HTC released since 2016, except for the Vive Pro, don’t rely on this technology. It should still be possible for some HTC systems to interact with SteamVR content but we’ve yet to test that sort of of functionality in a home setting. While Vive Focus Plus is HTC’s current standalone headset the company is also planning the convertible Vive Cosmos as well.
Currently, Oculus sells business editions of the original Rift for $799 with room-scale tracking and extra accessories while the Oculus standalone headset is $299 with 64 GB of storage. Oculus is also planning a 128 GB Oculus Quest for $499 but we don’t have any word on a business edition of the headset.
It is hard to get a full picture right now of how different Vive Focus Plus and Oculus Quest are from another in actual real-world use. HTC is trying to gear the headset to the business market but it is not clear how the headset or its business license will outperform Oculus Quest for business use cases.
