Oculus Go is a standalone VR headset costing $199 and available now

TL;DR

• The Oculus Go is a standalone VR headset from Facebook-owned company Oculus.
• Unlike the Oculus Rift and other VR headsets, the Oculus Go doesn’t require a PC or smartphone to operate.
• The Oculus Go is available now starting at $199, and ships to 23 different countries.

At the F8 developer’s conference today, Facebook formally announced the Oculus Go, a standalone VR headset. The unit comes with a wireless controller, access to thousands of games and applications, and starts at $199.

We first learned of the Oculus Go back in October. We knew that the device would release sometime in 2018 and knew that it would be Oculus’ first standalone headset, but now Oculus has the unit for sale at the Oculus website. Aside from the United States, people in 22 other countries can place an order, including Australia, Canada, France, Italy, Japan, the U.K., and more.

HTC Vive Focus VR headset hits FCC, US release close?

News

The device comes in two models, one with 32GB of storage and another with 64GB. The larger capacity version has a higher price of $249. So far, there appears to be only one color option, a very pale gray. We assume that more colors will become available at a later time.

The Oculus Go, unlike the Oculus Rift and other VR headsets, doesn’t need to connect to a PC or smartphone in order to function. Instead, it runs on an internal Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 chipset and features a 538ppi display panel with a resolution of 2560 x 1440. The headset has spatial audio built-in as well as an integrated microphone.

The battery life of the Oculus Go will vary depending on how you use it, but Oculus promises about two hours of gaming or up to 2.5 hours of streaming media or video on a single charge.

Oculus also says that the Oculus Go works with more than 1,000 games and applications. However, it’s likely that some of the more graphically demanding applications designed for the Oculus Rift will be unavailable to Oculus Go users.

It’s clear that Facebook is banking big on VR. With such a low price point, it’s likely losing money with each Oculus Go headset sold. But that will be a small price to pay to make VR accessible to more people and work the various Facebook brands into people’s future VR lives.

Click below to get your Oculus Go headset from Amazon.com.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7orrDq6ainJGqwam70aKrsmaTpLpwu8Kuo66rXZy8br7EpZyaq5VihXd8l29paA%3D%3D