Acer is Upgrading Its OJO Headset

IMAGE PROPERTY OF ACER

The first generation of Windows Mixed Reality headsets prominently featured Acer hardware, with an affordable and attractive model alongside more premium fare from Samsung. We were very impressed with the hands-on time we had with that headset. Since then we’ve seen the OJO 500, with a much more polished look.

Now Acer have announced a range of products under the “ConceptD” label. These seem to be higher-spec versions of existing products and includes workstations, laptops and monitors.

The OJO has also received the ConceptD treatment and offers some really tantalizing numbers.

Higher Resolutions

The headline specification is the total resolution of 4320×2160 pixels. That’s more than twice what the OJO 500 offered.Of course, to drive such a monstrous resolution, you might have to invest in a much more powerful graphics card and CPU than is currently available. If you simply run this new OJO at the same resolution as before, there is literally no benefit to be had.

The new OJO also features a detachable visor and an open-ear audio pipe, jumping on the same trend that is seeing the elimination of over-ear headphones in VR and MR headsets.

It actually makes a ton of sense if you want to use this as a mixed reality headset, since it allows external sound to mix with the digital audio, in the same way the cameras blend your surroundings with digital imagery. In some of the photos however, there are over-ear headphones, so possible these remain an option.

WMR FTW

This is of course another Windows Mixed Reality headset, which opens it up to thousands of applications and games. Especially since WMR for SteamVR is pretty mature by now, with over 2000 SteamVR games working with the software.

Acer didn’t reveal anything about special controllers, but since this is a WMR headset, they will probably just be normal Microsoft certified controllers for the platform.

It’s unclear when you’ll be able to buy a ConceptD OJO, but in terms of price there are some rough estimates. It’s a premium product for sure, meant for designers and power users, but it’s expected to retail for less than $1000. That’s pretty reasonable, but don’t forget about the costs of a machine capable of driving that 4K resolution.

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