Samsung’s mobile phone (and Oculus) powered Gear VR vr headset us to become available for pre-order in its first consumer form on November 10th according to a user who attended a recent Best Buy tech demo. The new $99, lighter model will replace the two previous ‘Innovator’ editions first launched at the end of last year
According to a reddit user who apparently attended a tech demo session organised by US retail giant Best Buy, we’re finally going to see a consumer release for the Samsung Gear VR headset next week. Pre-orders are to go on sale on Tuesday November 10th with the first units set to land on buyer’s doorsteps from November 23rd.
The new Gear VR was announced at Oculus’ Connect developer conference back in September and is set to work with all 2015 Samsung Galaxy smartphones. The original ‘Innovator Edition’ was launched last year exclusively for the Note 4 with a later iteration, designed for the S6 line of smartphones, announced March this year. Both early iterations were designed as toes in the water, ostensibly for early adopters and developers.
The consumer focused Gear VR is 22% lighter, down to 310 grams, and will retail for $99, half the price of the original innovator edition. The new unit also features an enhances version of the original touchpad (pictured above). At Oculus Connect, Samsung said that the new edition would be available before the US’ retail event ‘Black Friday.
We’re trying to confirm this news via official channels right now, but the dates do seem to tally with expectations. Whether this means Europe and the rest of the world will also get a look in is unclear at this stage, for now assume US only.