The Pimax Crystal Light packs some of the very highest-resolution lenses around and does it at a decent price point. But it's heavy, clunky, and cumbersome. For the right type of sim racer, however, this could just be perfect.
Foveated rendering supports that high resolution
Mediocre passthrough and tracking
…despite still being costly
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I really didn't like the Pimax Crystal Light the first time I put it on. This headset is clunky and bigger than many of the best VR headsets for gaming right now, and even things like plugging it into its own power outlet and connecting it to the DisplayPort of my PC felt restrictive and a bit more old-school than many would expect now.
Of course, these can be necessary parts of getting a screen this lovely, and this is where the tradeoff on high-end VR lies. You just have to hope that the experience is good enough to handle that extra baggage, both to your space and your wallet.
Getting it out of the box, the Pimax Crystal Light has a fairly sci-fi aesthetic, with the main screen housed in a casing that is not only quite wide but made up of a mass of edges.
The very front of the headset has a silver visor-like accent, which reminds me of LeVar Burton's character in Star Trek: The Next Generation or, perhaps a little cooler, a medieval knight. I didn't feel particularly cool in the headset, mostly because that look was accompanied by groans of getting the wires just the right way to avoid the whole headset feeling too cumbersome.
Though you can do little things like tidying the cables to make it all feel a little better on the head, I found the Pimax Crystal Light to be not very uncomfortable at all. The shape around the head is good and cushioned faceplates work well to offset some of that weight but it's all very front-heavy. I still felt that dreaded pressure on the nose that is so common with VR but, within 20 minutes, started to feel it on my entire face.
Pimax Crystal Light specs