LG Electronics was present at this year’s MWC (Mobile World Congress) and GDC 2017 (Game Developer Conference) where the company unveiled a variety of products, including two headsets designed for virtual reality. During GDC 2017 the company had an impressive VR product to showcase, known as the LG VR HMD (head-mounted-display). This product is in the prototype stages of development and was once again pushed into the spotlight by an official blog post earlier today, giving readers a new opportunity to take a sneak peek at LG’s future in the VR market segment.
The LG VR HMD prototype aims to become a high-end VR headset designed to lean on the computing power of high-end machines, not unlike the HTC Vive. In fact, the LG VR HMD is very similar to the HTC Vive, in that it uses the same SteamVR tracking technology by Valve. In that regard, the LG VR HMD is the first VR headset to make use of Valve’s SteamVR following the HTC Vive, and in practice, this means that the LG VR HMD has a pair of controllers similar to HTC Vive’s, and takes advantage of similar room-scale technologies. However, one of the areas the LG VR HMD seems to improve upon compared to HTC is design. Similar to the PlayStation VR headset, the LG VR HMD takes advantage of a “flip-up” design allowing users to lift the front area without having to remove the entire headset. This design should also be considerably friendlier to users wearing glasses, and could also help in making the entire package feel lighter.
As for other hardware characteristics, the LG VR HMD prototype is equipped with two OLED panels supplied by LG Display, boasting a resolution of 1440 x 1280 each, a refresh rate of 90 Hz, and a diagonal of 3.64-inch resulting in a field of view of 110 degrees. Additionally, the distance between the screens and the viewer’s eyes can be adjusted without moving the lens, and lastly, it appears that the headset incorporates a front-facing camera similar to the HTC Vive which can presumably feed live video of the surrounding area on a virtual screen. At the moment, pricing and availability details are unknown, and given that the product is currently a prototype, certain characteristics could change and further improve by the time it will be ready for the market. For a sneak preview at the prototype, feel free to check the video interview below.