Yay or nay?
Discover what the internet is saying about Pimax.
Upgraded Reviews scanned the web to find out what real users are saying about Pimax.
See the highlights below and decide for yourself!
Table of contents
- ✅ Pros
- ❌ Cons
- ⚖️ Summaries
- 💸 Top Discount
✅ Pros
“It is for you if you mainly play simulations on your PC.”
“It felt like a real, solid world.”
“It offers stunning image quality.”
“The joysticks have a nice LED light ring around them.”
“The slightly wider FOV adds a lot to the immersion of a game, especially games with a cockpit, such as No Mans’s Sky.”
“A long term product: it will be necessary to wait for the 6xxx generation of Nvidia to make the headset run at full speed on all simus.”
“It is lightweight and comfortable.”
“You can change your IPD settings with a little button on the headset increase the Interpupillary distance on the fly, which I really like.”
“The field of view is 200°. It is very close to the human field of view of 220. That is why; it can provide immersive VR experience.”
“The UI works decently and resembles the Switch with cubes along a side-scrolling row of recently installed apps.”
“The Pimax 4K lenses are not fresnel lenses and there are no god rays.”
“It is for you if you have a powerful PC.”
“It has perfect compatibility with SteamVR.”
“There are no SDE or god rays.”
“You can play games from the native platform, Oculus platform, or the Steam VR platform.”
“The Pimax Crystal features automatic IPD adjustment that kicks in soon after you put on the headset.”
“You can easily customize the display settings.”
“It provides excellent audio.”
“It has excellent black levels.”
“It comes with good-sounding and positionable headphones.”
“It showed excellent tracking with Valve VR.”
“It has exceptional resolution and clarity.”
“The Vision 8K X also supports Pimax’s Dual Engine Mode, which gives you the option to lower the resolution and implement upscaling to enable a higher 114 Hz refresh mode setting.”
“It comes with decent controllers.”
“8k resolution truly feels next-gen.”
“High quality headphones provide detailed and neutral audio.”
“Pimax offers its headsets in a few different configurations.”
“Setting up the Pimax Crystal is straightforward and can be completed in a few simple steps.”
“It is compatible with various accessories. The open-ended system means that you can use any controllers and tracking cameras.”
“It allows you to quickly change batteries without turning off the headset.”
“It has crazy resolution.”
“The true essence of any VR headset lies in its visual quality, and the Pimax Crystal excels. Boasting a remarkable 2880 x 2880 resolution per eye, the visuals are crisp, detailed, and immersive.”
“On the plus side, the Pimax does have headphones.”
“It offers insane visuals.”
“It comes with great sounding speakers.”
“It has a high resolution 4K screen with minimal SDE.”
“This headset pulls its power through two USB cables.”
“It is well balanced considering the weight.”
“It is for you if you don’t mind tinkering with hardware and software.”
“It is for you if you want an exceptionally sharp and clear picture.”
“Objects looked perfectly solid and you could see the details up close.”
“It offers a wide field-of-view and immersive experience.”
“The device is easy to navigate, easy to add software to and easy to use.”
“The design of the Pimax Portal is sleek, modern, and reminiscent of a Nintendo Switch, which is a very good design.”
“It offers a wide field of view.”
“It has dual 1440p displays.”
“The Vision 8K X comes equipped with Pimax’s Comfort Kit upgraded face cushion, which offers an extended forehead cushion to help balance the headset.”
“It allows high precision head tracking without any base station or tower.”
“It offers seamless integration with SteamVR API.”
“It offers 4K-resolution. As a result, the clarity is pretty great.”
“Beautiful high-resolution display, large field of view; VR has never felt so immersive.”
“The improved cooling system ensures that extended sessions remain comfortable.”
“At its maximum brightness, the Pimax 4K’s brightness is satisfactory.”
“It offers massive field of view (up to 180° horizontal).”
“The 200 degree FOV does make an enormous difference. It feels like natural vision since your periphery is no longer blocked.”
“It has comfortable and rechargeable controllers.”
“The Pimax Crystal’s auto eye-tracking technology automatically monitors a user’s gaze in real-time, enhancing the VR experience.”
“It offers very high value proposition at just $375.”
“It gives you a crazy FOV.”
“The Crystal also has integrated eye-tracking and auto IPD adjustment.”
“The buttons feel nice to use.”
“It gives great audio (with DMAS earphones).”
“The Vision 8K X supports four different FOV options: Large, Normal, Small and Potato.”
💸 Top Current Discount
❌ Cons
“Eye Tracking doesn’t work.”
“Without controllers, it is not easy to navigate some media apps such as Skybox VR.”
“Standalone/Streaming doesn’t work yet.”
“It’s massive and heavy.”
“It is larger and heavier than the average headset.”
“It is big and heavy (circa 1kg).”
“Battery swapping is a chore, and required even in PCVR mode.”
“Frustrating at times – be prepared to tweak settings in Pitool software.”
“When viewing the Pimax 4K through its sweet spot, the headset presses down on my nose bridge.”
“It has underdeveloped (and arguably unnecessary) standalone mode.”
“Eye-tracking and standalone mode don’t work yet.”
“It is heavy on GPU’s.”
“We’d like to see a tilt adjustment on the headphones so they would fit a wider variety of head sizes, and a moisture-resistant face cushion would be a huge bonus.”
“At $1,299 for the headset with the standard modular audio strap and $1,399 for the forthcoming deluxe version, the Pimax 8K X is the most expensive consumer-focused headset that money can buy.”
“It has slightly muted colors and grayish blacks.”
“Although the Pimax 4K has a detailed display, it suffers from a screendoor effect.”
“It is not for you if you want a comfortable and lightweight VR headset.”
“It is not for you if you want to play good standalone VR.”
“Standalone mode is bare-bones.”
“It is expensive.”
“It is not for you if you expect straightforward and stable functionality.”
“The Pimax 4K lens has a bit of distortion.”
“There are some software issues to be worked out.”
“Piplay software is not polished – feels like a dev kit.”
“Battery system needs a rework.”
⚖️ Final Say
Read the summaries of what reviewers think about Pimax below.
“Current VR systems are designed around the compute power of the NVidia 980 card. Pimax demonstrates what the NVidia 1080 card can do for VR. Using the PiMax gives you a sense of how all future VR systems will look like in a few years. It is a huge leap forward from systems of today.”
“The Pimax Crystal, with its Summer 2023 updates, stands as one of the best VR headsets you can buy at the moment. Yes, it has had early-stage problems – that Pimax acknowledges and is working to resolve – literally while I was writing this review another firmware update arrived to make some incremental improvements. They’re frequent and are clearly addressing user feedback at a pace.”
“Because of the Pimax 4K’s dismal tracking performance, distracting screendoor effect, and other disadvantages, I would not recommend it. If you want a VR headset that has similar amount of detail without the Pimax 4K’s problems, check out the Oculus Rift S (reviewed here) or Samsung Odyssey.”
“While not the most user-friendly device on the market, there’s undoubtedly a demand for what Pimax has on offer. The large FoV and occasional glitchiness make strong VR legs a requirement, but if you’re an enthusiast who wants the best, bleeding-edge hardware, the Pimax 5K+ is guaranteed to deliver on that. The second generation of VR is here, and it’s here early.”
“This device is honestly astonishing. It’s incredibly well-built, and despite some minor annoyances, it works perfectly. Lightweight and robust, the Pimax Portal is fantastic for on-the-go gaming, and with the ability to use emulators, Android gaming and cloud-based services, it is incredibly versatile. It’s easy to recommend this device to anyone because it offers something for everyone with some great future potential.”
“The most bonkers and power-hungry virtual reality headset we’ve seen to date, boasting two 4K displays, an epic field-of-view, and a price tag almost as gargantuan as its lenses. If you’ve got the patience, the power PC and the cash to run one, however, then Pimax delivers an untouchable VR experience.”
“If you’re looking for an excellent display along with high resolution on a budget, this is the headset which you can buy. Also, by tweaking the settings, you can almost eliminate the screen door effect and edge distortion.The main USP however of this headset is the field of view of 200°. All in all, it incorporates many of the features which are even missing in the most popular VR headsets. That is why; it is a headset which you should not ignore.”
“If you’re a hardcore VR enthusiast, who already knows a thing or two about triple-A virtual reality PC gaming, and you own a gaming computer powerful enough to take advantage of it – the Pimax Crystal might just be the perfect headset for you to invest $1,599 in. Now, that’s a lot of money, but you’re getting one of the highest-quality consumer VR displays, and superb VR immersion.”
“On paper, it is impossible to find better technical characteristics! We will find many flaws, but as long as you have a powerful graphics card, the pleasure will always be there!”
“The Pimax Crystal is a clear step forward for PC VR. The image is super sharp, making it perfect for simulations such as Project Cars 2 or Microsoft Flight Simulator. The foveated rendering can even reduce your PC’s system requirements without sacrificing image quality. However, you will have to do a lot of tinkering and tuning to get a good experience. You will also need expensive accessories to take advantage of SteamVR’s accurate tracking – if it even works.”
“The Pimax Crystal provides exceptional visuals and promises to deliver eye-tracking and standalone functionality in future updates. It’s an impressive bit of kit, but at present, it just feels unfinished.”
“The Pimax Vision 8K X is the highest-end headset that Pimax offers and is best suited for extreme VR fans with an excessive budget. You’ll need an RTX 3080 or better to drive the HMD to its best potential. You should also expect to spend much time fine-tuning the settings to dial the headset in for each game for the best performance. If those things don’t dissuade you, no other headset compares to the Vision 8K X.”
“The Pimax Crystal feels like a work in progress. It’s one of the most powerful VR headsets I’ve used, but it doesn’t matter when it isn’t getting the basics right, or is releasing without key features ready. At $1600, I expect so much more.”
“The Pimax Crystal is a powerful and well-designed PC VR headset featuring some impressive hardware and stellar visuals. However, the incredibly high price tag and underwhelming all-in-one mode hold it back from greatness.”
“If you are able to stomach the areas its rough around the edges (the Piplay software), the PIMAX 4K VR offers an exceptional value proposition for the value conscious to-be-VR-connoisseur. I have no qualms in recommending the headset as a good buy since it offers better VR experience than the Vive or Rift in some cases – as long as you realize that without touch controllers, there will be a portion of the experience that you will not be able to access (barring any PS4 Move Motion Controller improvisation).”