Product Description

GET INSIDE THE GAME See Why MAXIMUM PC called the Z800 3DVisor "the best 3D goggles we've ever tested!" Immerse yourself in a world of interactive games, theater-quality movies or private workspaces with the Z800 3DVisor. Plug into almost any PC or laptop and be instantly transported to the best seat in the house, viewing your own virual 105-inch movie screen in 2D or true 3D stereovision. The Z800 3DVisor will elevate your PC game play by delivering larger-than-life 3D imagery, interactive 360-degree headtracking, stereo earbuds and a noise-canceling microphone (for online play)to put you right inside the virtual world of the game. Using Vibrant SVGA-resolution microdisplays, the Z800 3DVisor is fully portable, runs on USB power (no batteries required), and folds up into a compact size. Comes with all necessary cables and custom carrying case.

Product Details

• Brand: eMagin
• Model: Z800 3DVisor
• Dimensions: .50 pounds

Features

• Immersive 2D/3D stereovision 'big screen' experience (equivalent 105 in. screen)
• Interactive 360-degree advanced head tracking to put you inside the game or simulation
• SVGA (800 x 600); High contrast ratio (>200:1); and full color (>16.7 million pixels)
• Low power (USB-powered), lightweight, ergonomic (<8 oz.) visor
• Build-in stereo sound and noise-canceling microphone

Customer Reviews

Truly impressive hardware
INITIAL IMPRESSIONS

I recently purchased the Z800 and I am quite impressed. Knowing nothing of the product but the hardware specifications I had to see it to believe it.

I wasn't completely happy with the contrast ratio on paper, but when the visor is on you would be hard pressed to tell a difference between it and a traditional CRT. The brightness settings can allow you to even make it "too" bright.

Sometimes the visor would turn itself off - it seems this is a feature to prevent burn-in. Hopefully they will release a firmware upgrade to fix that, but a little nod of the head and it turns back on. If you use a non-static screen saver, burn-in should never be an issue IMHO.

HEAD TRACKING

Head tracking is a huge factor in this products ability to immerse its users. It even makes spectating in multiplayer games a lot of fun. It adds big-time realism even though I find myself relying on the mouse to recenter my view and aim with games like Half Life 2.

I've noticed the head-tracking is indeed sensitive to magnetism. The degaussing effect from turning on nearby CRT style monitors, or large headphones seems to temporarily hamper the sensitivity of the tracking, but thankfully no effects lasted overnight. The head tracking can even be turned off, which is quite helpful for some games.

I would suggest using the built-in earphones, or avoid headphones altogether so that friends don't sneak up on you and scare you to death.

STEREO 3D

nVidia's Stereo 3D stereoscopic drivers work exactly as promised with most games. However, I found newer versions (71.89 vs 66.81) by Guru3D that weren't on nVidia's website, and they worked well. Currently SLI configurations do not support Stereo 3D (UPDATE: The 84 series of forceware drivers has begun support for SLI), and also ATI is not releasing stereoscopic drivers (I don't keep track of Catalyst, so by the time you read this review, they might).

The stereoscopic effects can be fine tuned for each game, which thankfully isn't always neccessary.

DISPLAY RESOLUTION

The limitation of SVGA 800x600 resolution worried me too, but it seems true what I read before I made my purchase: stereo 3D tends to make you forget about pixelation. It doesn't seem to be as noticible, perhaps because any slight overlap between the two displays are resolved immediately by your brain. With FSAA 2x on I don't think I could tell you what resolution the game was running, just that it looked good - and I'm a very descriminating gamer.

COMMENTS ON USAGE

The flicker prevention works just as advertized. A 60hz refresh rate cut in half for each display sounds like a terribly low rate, but aside from noticing the occasional fast motion horizontal scanline, there appears to be no visible refresh of any kind. It would be nice if this was raised to accomodate higer FPS. Also, I cannot say for sure, but I believe the visor's frame buffer eliminates the need for VSync to be turned on, because it performs a hardware equivalent of the same function.

Reading text near the edges of the screen on the desktop can become blury if the visor is not properly adjusted. But aside from that I've never felt dizzy, disoriented, or fatigued using this unit, even when using it several hours at a time. It's impressivly small and fits over my glasses easily and comfortably. It doesn't have to rest on my nose unless I want it to, when wearing contacts. It's not clear if being turned off includes the unit's powersave mode, or if it needs to be completely unplugged.

SUMMARY

With a wireless keyboard and a reclining chair, this is the ultimate display. Nothing else comes close to it *I take that back, 100% field of vision and better contrast would be even better*. I have a 21 inch monitor and when I sit about 2 feet away the size of the displays line up almost exactly. That's the best way I can describe the sense of how big the picture looks. It's not completely immersive in that regard, but still enough that it doesn't feel lacking.

I'm still looking for software that will allow me to use virtual resolution for making the desktop pannable or scrolling with head movement, but I'm not holding my breath. I've seen this type of functionality in some laptops.

The Z800 makes gaming crazy-fun, and the desktop more private. This unit has changed the way I play games forever. I can't wait until future generation units start to approach a 100% field of vision. Overall, I highly recommend this unit as one of the highest in quality, one of the best in price, and very easily the best price to quality ratio of any HMD on the market.

a useful gadget that has a real niche
I didn't want to plunk down $900 for this in order to just to privacy, but since it has head tracking, earbuds and a microphone, I thought "what the hey".

The good:

Very crisp image. I can read text (and am using the visor to type this review).

I expected 105" at 12' to be impressive and it is. Since most of us don't have a 105" monitor that they can stand 12' away from, here is some perspective.... it is like having a 30" 4:3 monitor on your desk and sitting at an arms reach away. In other words, if I were using a 30" apple monitor and raised my visor, the picture would seem to be about the same size to my eye.

Even though it takes up most of my field of vision, I can still look under the visor to find the right key or to grab a soda. It is kind of like sitting in the balcony at an IMAX theater. I look up and see the movie screen and look down to see my popcorn and drink.

Sound quality is pretty good.

I wear glasses and was afraid that I wouldn't be able to see well. To my surprise, I CAN see pretty well (except peripherally, and that only matters in desktop mode when the screen doesn't pan).

It is pretty lightweight and surprisingly comfortable.

The bad:

Most HMD (Head Mounted Displays) make me a little motion sick until I get used to them and this is no exception. If you get motion sick, you may want to avoid this.

Head tracker doesn't have different sensitivity values for each axis (although you can adjust speed for each). I find that it is much to sensitive for the Y axis for my taste, but is pretty good for the X axis. So far, I haven't used the Z.

3d ONLY works with NVIDIA cards. My desktop has an NVIDIA and it works fine, but the laptop doesn't. I would like to see them add support for other types of cards in the future.

Overall, pretty good... excellent even for under $1k

PS, if anyone from the company is reading this... it would be nice if you could support a virtual resolution of > 800x600 so that I could pan around my desktop. Noone else does this either, but since you have such a good product, I would say to you that you could really cement in the fact that you have the best product by doing this.

Virtual reality gets real!
Finally, an HMD worth buying under a thousand dollars! Playing a first person shooter in stereo 3d is the best experience. In game, close at hand objects gain real depth and make you feel like you really could reach out and touch them. Looking down the gun in Call of Duty or seeing a barrel role towards you in Half Life brings the experience to the next level. Some games do require some tweaking of the settings, both in game and in the nvidia control panel, but it is nothing too complicated.

The Head tracking takes more time to get used to, but can be really enjoyable and add yet another layer of realism to the game. Although, head-tracking can't be used fully without some sort of wireless controller. Otherwise you are stuck using the keyboard which really limits your movement and you will find yourself using the mouse and head-tracker in combination to control your direction. Overall, the stereo 3d, head-tracker and well designed interface make the z800 worth buying. I will never look at my computer the same way again.

But I would suggest replacing the silver default faceplate with one of the faceplate kits, which have a much nicer feel to the finish.