Today, Google showcased a new version of its Google Daydream headset. It’s a little better in a lot of ways but it’s also $99, $20 more than the previous version.
It looks largely the same, but it’s gaining the same color palette as the Google Home Mini: gray, charcoal and coral. A lot of things have been tweaked for a better experience and to capitalize on the bigger screen sizes to increase field-of-view so you can see more in the headset.
The new lenses are a lot more complex that what came before it and are comparable to what you’d see in a Vive or Rift. There’s a new design for the front plate so your device doesn’t heat up too much and there’s a top strap so it’s a bit more comfortable.
The price bump from $79 to $99 is a little risky, but at this point Samsung has already raised the price of the Gear VR with controller to $129 so there’s a little bit less pressure on Google to keep the price so low. Then again, how expensive is VR before people start really questioning what a bad deal it is.
The device adds the ability to cast your experience to the big screen so you can showcase the content you’re experiencing. VR is something that people want to try and show off to others, with this feature, the idea is to make it easier for everyone to have a social experience even when only one person is in frame.This is already a feature that Gear VR supports, so this isn’t exactly a distinguishing feature.
Daydream is available on a few devices now, most notably the latest classes of Samsung’s hardware including the Galaxy S8 and Note8. The Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL will obviously both support it, just as their predecessors did.