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I'm not a naysayer of VR; I've used it plenty over the years and had a lot of enjoyment. But one of the issues I've always had is fatigue, purely from hanging these things off my head for extended periods.
Be it the Meta Quest lineup or the last PC VR headset I owned, the now-defunct Lenovo Explorer (RIP Windows Mixed Reality), the form factor and the weight ultimately turned me off.
At the recent Sim Racing Expo in Charlotte, I had my first chance to try out the Pimax Dream Air, a high-end, PC VR headset that's smaller and lighter than anything I've ever worn before. All while preserving the quality of the image inside the headset, which is easily up there with the best I've ever seen.
It's not cheap. Not at all. If you're looking for budget-friendly VR, you'll still want to look at a Meta Quest 3S.
But for more serious VR players, specifically here looking towards Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 or sim racers in titles such as iRacing, aka experiences where you'll be inside VR for much longer, I think this could be a winner.
Lightness makes a huge difference (to me) for VR
The Pimax Dream Air isn't the lightest headset out there; there's still one from Bigscreen that has it beaten there. But compared to the likes of the well-known kings of the space, like the Meta Quest 3, it's night and day.
The Pimax Dream Air is around 170g for the headset, compared to the 515g of the Meta Quest 3 (and a hair lighter than this for the Meta Quest 3S). You could wear three of the Pimax headsets and still be under the weight of a single Meta Quest 3. That's significant.
Of course, as it's a PC VR headset, it doesn't have all the computer bits inside that a Meta Quest 3 does, which certainly helps. But the form factor combined with this lack of weight means it's extremely comfortable.
The bulk of my previous iRacing career was done using VR, partly for immersion, but more so because I don't have space for massive screens. But with the Lenovo Explorer, which at the time was one of the lightest headsets around, I couldn't race for more than an hour because I just started to feel uncomfortable. This meant I couldn't really take on longer races.
I'm not saying the same wouldn't eventually happen with this VR headset, but given how little it weighs, it'd certainly be longer before it did. That's where I think this could be a killer piece of hardware.
Sim racers and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 pilots will really feel the benefit during those longer sessions.
High-end hardware if you have the budget
There's no getting away from the fact that both the Pimax Dream Air and Dream Air SE are expensive VR headsets. The Dream Air SE drops a huge chunk off the price by 'only' featuring 5K resolution, and it's also the lightest of the two.
The full-fat Dream Air has an 8K resolution, and it's this one I tried out. Simply put, the visuals are mindblowing. It's by far the best VR display I've ever tried, with deep blacks, glorious colors, and razor-sharp images.
Eye tracking and Dynamic Foveated Rendering also helps preserve system performance, rendering only the sharpest images where your eyes are focusing.
With titles such as Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 in mind, the resolution available to replicate the detail both in and out of the cockpit would be insane. All from a tiny headset.
The full specs of each version are broken down in the table below.
Feature | Pimax Dream Air | Pimax Dream Air SE |
|---|---|---|
Display Type | Dual Sony Micro-OLED | Dual Sony Micro-OLED |
Resolution (Per Eye) | 3840 x 3552 | 2560 x 2560 |
Total Combined Resolution | 7680 x 3552 (8K class) | 5120 x 2560 (5K class) |
Pixels Per Degree (PPD) | 53 PPD | ~35-40 PPD |
Refresh Rate | 90 Hz | 90 Hz |
Optics | Pimax ConcaveView Pancake | Pimax ConcaveView Pancake |
Horizontal Field of View (FOV) | 110° | 105° |
Eye Tracking / DFR | Yes (120Hz, Dynamic Foveated Rendering) | Yes (120Hz, Dynamic Foveated Rendering) |
IPD Adjustment | Automatic | Automatic |
Headset Weight | Less than 170g | Less than 140g |
Tracking Options | Inside-out SLAM or External Lighthouse | Inside-out SLAM or External Lighthouse |
Connection Type | Tethered DisplayPort 1.4 | Tethered DisplayPort 1.4 |
Audio | Integrated Spatial Audio & Mic | Integrated Spatial Audio & Mic |
Cooling | Internal Dual-Fan System | Internal Dual-Fan System |
Starting Price (Lighthouse) | $1,999 | $899 |
Starting Price (SLAM + Controllers) | $2,299 | $1,199 |
The Dream Air and Dream Air SE both have the option of SLAM (inside-out tracking) or saving $300 and going with a Lighthouse system.
It's also worth highlighting you don't need a monster rig to run either of them. Pimax says the minimum requirement is an RTX 2070, while the recommendation is an RTX 3080. You can run it off a laptop, too, so long as you have a good enough GPU and its outputs to either a miniDP port or USB-C.
But if you're in the market for a high-end VR headset, you probably already have a PC that's capable of running it.
It's been a while since I've really been impressed with VR, but the Pimax Dream Air certainly ticks that box. The experience is astonishing, and with its small form factor and lack of weight, I could happily lose hours flying or racing in one of these.
The only real issue seems to be when you can actually get one. Both headsets are available to preorder on the Pimax website, but there's no indication of when shipping is expected. Hopefully they start landing soon.
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