Japan-based Shiftall is the latest company making an effort to deliver an ultra-compact VR headset for enthusiasts who are willing to spend big on maximizing their PC VR experience. Despite the tiny package, the MeganeX Superlight headset still manages to deliver the optical adjustments that should be standard for every headset. Though undoubtedly expensive, the headset overall is promising, provided the company can finalize a few tweaks before crossing the finish line.

Available for pre-order in Japan, United States, EU & UK, the $1,900 MeganeX Superlight from Shiftall is purportedly set to start shipping between February and March of next year. You can check out the full breakdown of specs here.

This is a tethered headset designed for the SteamVR ecosystem. Shiftall is selling the headset by itself, which means you’ll need to bring your own SteamVR Tracking beacons and controllers—or drop another $580 to buy them new.

This week I got to check out a prototype version of the MeganeX Superlight headset and found it to be a promising piece of hardware that’s certain to be held back by its steep price.

Photo by Road to VR

Shiftall CEO Takuma Iwasa told me the headset is primarily targeted toward hardcore VR users, especially those spending long stretches in VRChat. Considering his own claim of more than 3,000 hours in VRChat, it’s clear he has a real understanding of the needs of this kind of customer.

That’s what led the company to try building a compact PC VR headset: Iwasa wants to deliver something that’s lightweight and comfortable for long sessions.

A big part of a VR headset being comfortable is about being able to adjust it to fit each individual. Getting the headset’s lenses into the ideal position for your eyes is crucial to maximizing visual quality and comfort.

To that end, I was happy to see the MeganeX Superlight includes a list of optical adjustments that I’ve long wished was standard on every headset: IPD, eye-relief, diopter, a flip-up visor, and even a lens angle adjustment.

Photo by Road to VR

IPD (or interpupillary distance) is standard on most headsets, it’s the distance between the lenses. Matching the distance between the lenses to the distance between your eyes is important to making it easy for your eyes to fuse the stereoscopic image, and for getting your eyes into the ‘sweet spot’ of the lens (the optical center, where the lens has the greatest).

On the MeganeX Superlight, IPD is set by entering your IPD measurement into the software on your computer, causing the headset’s motorized lenses to move into the desired position.

Eye-relief is less common to find on VR headsets. This is the distance from the lens to your eye. Not only is this important for maximizing field-of-view, it’s also important for dialing in the ‘sweet spot’ of the lens. That’s because the sweet spot isn’t just a plane, it’s a volume (technically speaking, this is often called the ‘eye-box’).

On the MeganeX Superlight, the mount which connects the headset itself to the headstrap makes it easy to adjust eye-relief by pinching a pair of pads which allows you to freely slide the headset closer or farther away from your eyes.

Diopter is even rarer than eye-relief. This setting changes the focus of the lens to account for a person’s vision correction needs. Rather than wearing glasses, users can dial in their diopter to enjoy a sharp view.

Photo by Road to VR

On Shiftall’s headset, there’s a small dial near the side of each lens which is used to adjust the diopter for each eye. Although this is a manual process (ie: you can’t just enter a value and have the headset set it automatically), Shiftall tells me that part of the headset’s setup process will include a calibration screen to make this process easier.

While a growing number of headsets include decent passthrough views via external cameras, if the goal is to simply look outside of your headset, it’s hard to beat your very own eyes. To that end the MeganeX Superlight has a little plunger on the headstrap mount that makes it quick and easy to flip up the visor for a glimpse of the outside world, and to flip it back down when you’re done.

And last but not least—something I’ve seen on only one other company’s headsets—is an independent lens angle adjustment.

Many VR headsets have a pivot at the point where their headstrap connects to the headset, but the angle is entirely at the mercy of how the facepad rests on the user’s face.

On the other hand, because the MeganeX Superlight headset essentially hangs down from your forehead, a small dial on the side of the mount allows you to independently adjust the angle of the headset (and thus the lenses) regardless of how the headstrap is resting on your head.

Taken all together, these adjustments make it easier for a wider range of people to get the best and most comfortable visual experience from the headset.

And if you’re planning to pay nearly $2,000 for a headset that’s not only compact, but also includes a whopping 13.6MP (3,552 × 3,840) micro-OLED display per-eye, you’re definitely going to want it to have the adjustments necessary to give you the best visuals it can.

The MeganeX Superlight’s displays are incredibly crisp, to the point that there’s simply no visible pixels, sub-pixels, or even a hint of screen-door effect that I could see in my time with the headset. The virtual world not only looks completely sharp and solid thanks to all of those pixels, it also looks very vivid thanks to the rich colors and deep blacks shown by the 10-bit display.

While I need more time with the headset to be sure, my initial impression from memory was that the MeganeX Superlight felt like it had a slightly larger field-of-view, slightly larger sweet spot, and less glare compared to Bigscreen Beyond (its nearest competitor).

From a resolution standpoint, there’s so few examples of VR content that actually have the underlying graphical fidelity to show a meaningful difference—between Bigscreen Beyond’s impressive 6.5MP (2,560 × 2,560) per-eye resolution and the MeganeX Superlight’s even more impressive 13.6MP (3,552 × 3,840) per-eye resolution—that the improvement wasn’t obviously noticeable.

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But it stands to reason that the MeganeX Superlight should be the superior headset in cases where high resolving power is most important, like in flight simulators where long sightlines to distant objects are common, and for virtual desktops where resolving fine text is crucial. I’m especially interested to try the MeganeX Superlight for the latter.

While greater resolving power is always a plus, there’s no question that if you want to run VR content anywhere near the headset’s native resolution, you’re going to need to pair it with top-tier PC.

At the headset’s native 13.6MP per-eye resolution and 90Hz refresh rate, your computer will need to pump out an absurd 2.5 gigapixels per second (assuming naive stereoscopic rendering). [Note: Shiftall says the MeganeX Superlight only works with modern NVIDIA GPUs. AMD is not supported at present.]

If you don’t already have (or aren’t planning to buy) an NVIDIA 3080, 4080, or better, it’s hard to make a case for paying $1,900 for the extra pixels on MeganeX Superlight over the $1,000 Bigscreen Beyond (assuming both headsets were otherwise equal).

Photo by Road to VR

While I was impressed with the array of optical adjustments, stunning resolution, and vibrant colors of the MeganeX Superlight, I have the same reservation about the headset that I did with Bigscreen Beyond: the lack of built-in audio is a big oversight. I understand that there’s some people out there who are happy to deal with putting on their own headphones or earbuds over top of their headset, but my gut is that most people prefer the convenience of not having to deal with yet another thing to put on.

Bigscreen Beyond has since rectified this issue with an optional headstrap with on-board audio. And making it optional is fine; the people who want it can get it, and those that want to use their own aren’t stuck with it.

Shiftall tells me it’s also planning to build an optional headstrap with on-board audio, but it won’t be available (or probably even announced) before the headset starts shipping early next year. I understand that making and launching hardware is extremely difficult, but it’s a real shame to not have an audio headstrap available at launch.

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Another issue I saw during my time with the headset is some pupil-swim in the lenses. That means when your eyes move in smooth pursuit (as opposed to saccading) across the lens, the scene seems to warp in an uncomfortable way.

This is typically an issue with poor lens calibration, and it isn’t uncommon with prototype headsets which aren’t being made with final tooling or calibration processes.

While there’s no reason to think the company can’t dial in its lens calibration before launch, getting it right is very important. So it’s something I’ll definitely want to get another look at closer to the headset’s release.

Assuming Shiftall manages to improve the pupil-swim—as it says it expects to—the company is on track to deliver a pretty impressive headset. The only major issues are that of cost and the lack of on-board audio. Those two factors ensure that the MeganeX Superlight will remain a niche headset. But if the company can find a clutch of users that want what it’s offering, it will have further proven out the existence of a hardcore PC VR crowd that’s willing to spend big to maximize their VR experience.

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Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • Andrew Jakobs

    If only they would also release a cheaper version which only differs in using the same resolution displays as the bigscreen. Because pumping out dual 4k at 90fps with fidelity high will even be a hard task for an RTX5090, especially without foviated rendering.

    • Rayza

      I doubt the 5090 will have much issue with 8K games as long as you turn on DLSS, there's not really any VR games that are as demanding as high end flat games other than Flight Simulator, unless i'm forgetting something

      • Andrew Jakobs

        Because we also rely on many custom mods for VR, like the one for cyberpunk and the universal UEVR, we need more power to drive the displays in native resolution with fidelity set to high/ultra.

        • Christian Schildwaechter

          Given the quality of modern upscaling like DLSS 3.x, not using it and instead trying to render in native resolution is now pretty much always a waste of resources. Without upscaling and other optimizations like ETFR it would take several more GPU generations to reach the same levels of visual fidelity.

          This will be even more true for generative AI driven photorealistic reconstruction of simple models, like Meta is aiming for with Codec Avatars. This could allow for realistic models on mobile HMDs a decade before mobile GPU performance improvements would enable the same with conventional rendering.

          Still relying only on raw performance instead of also reducing the rendering load via image generation methods now usually means doing it wrong, though unfortunately there remain some cases where the fancy tech doesn't work. In many older, less demanding games the raw performance of modern GPU is sufficient for high resolutions, and mods themselves can add image generation support. Obviously people found ways to use DLSS and ETFR with 2011 Skyrim/2017 Skyrim VR, allowing to use a gazillion ultra-realistic Nexus mods and AI generated NPC responses for the ultimate VR experience in any resolution current HMDs can handle.

    • Bram

      4k per eye displays are only problematic if you actually plan to render your 3d game or environment in that native display resolution, but there is absolutely no need to, you can run it at a lower res and still have the benefit of having no screendoor effect at all anymore. imho the biggest value of having 4k per eye is using it for watching 2d/3d movies in high res or using the hmd as a monitor replacement, that requires far less gpu power. A standalone could do it. Looking forward to the quest 4k per eye, but it seems that might take quit a while…

      • Nevets

        Yes, an OLED 8K Quest would be a must-buy.

        • ZeePee

          Will be many years before Quest is this resolution OLED/micro-OLED.

          Meta might be shipping a small light mixed reality headset with that resolution, targeting 2027, but it won't be a Quest headset and won't be as low price.

  • XRC

    3 metre tether? Looks very thick/stiff, could be a real issue unless seated?

    but great to see these compact high resolution headsets coming to market.

    • ZeePee

      Cable is apparently not thick, its fine. Overall you get 4m including the breakout box and cables leading to the PC from there. Which is fine for seated.

      For roomacale, you'll probably want to increase that. They offer an optional 5m cable which is high quality and the right spec you need for this level of resolution, which would take this to 6m.

      • XRC

        That's great they offer a longer tether. 6 metre is optimum once you route from back of your pc.

        The best tether I've used yet is Pimax 6.5 metre fibre optic tether on the original Crystal. It's very thin and flexible and barely noticeable when moving about roomscale, makes it very usable.

        • ZeePee

          Nice didnt know that about the original Crystal cable. Would be great if this is a similar cable.

      • Phil

        "Cable is apparently not thick, its fine"

        Are the images in this article (which show a cable that looks around 8mm thick) showing a different cable to the one you're describing?

  • ViRGiN

    It's actively being shilled on by MRTV sebastian ang, so given his shilling-record, this will either be massively delayed and don't live up to the hype, or will never be released.

  • I tried the headset at AWE Europe (I wrote a review about it on my blog) and it's a shame they didn't show me all those small ergonomic adjustments!
    Btw my demo was connected to a RTX4080 laptop and it was a bit choppy, they told me it's better this headset works with a desktop pc. So it has an impressive resolution, but it is very demanding for what concerns money to spend in the setup to run this beast.

  • Jose Ferrer

    As you said the 2.5 Gpixels/second (2.455) is assuming that the render resolution is the same than the total panel resolution, but this is almost never true for most of the devices when setting default 100% in SteamVR. For example for the BSB the ratio is 2.9, for the Crystal 2.65, for the G2 is 2.1, for the Quest3 is just 1.01 and so on…
    Therefore the required render power of the GPU (assuming no FFR) will be most likely much higher. It is a pitty that you didn´t ask for that number. It is a key element to know what is the real render power required.

  • Jose Ferrer

    Another item is the DP. In their PC min specs they refer as DP 1.4. In that version maximum bandwidth is 32.4 Gbit/s, so even assuming only to render 2.455 Gpixel/s, at 8bit per color (not even 10-bit) you have 58.92 Gbit/s. So, how there are going to transmit that with DP 1.4? Perhaps using DP 2.0 (77.4 Gbit/s)? Did you ask them this?

    • VRguy

      You are absolutely right. They overshoot the maximum bandwith of DP1.4 and thats the reason the need to employ "Display Stream Compression", a lossless compression method, covered by the the DisplayPort specification. Thats also the reason only Nvidia cards are supported right now (although AMD also supports DSC, but Shiftall seems to be pushing AMD aside at this point).

      • Christian Schildwaechter

        Technically DSC isn't lossless, but the compression is visually almost unnoticeable. It uses per-line color space reduction with rather moderate compression rates of up to 1:3.

        In comparison typical video codecs separate the whole image into blocks, try to track block movement between frames and also remove colors differences/details that would be hard to perceive anyway. This allows for 1:150 compression with baseline h.264 or 1:250 with h.265 when compared to the raw video signal. These codecs make it feasible to stream PCVR over WiFi, but also cause visible differences/artifacts, esp. in still frames.

        So for all practical purposes DSC that still relies on very high bandwidth looks like a lossless signal, largely due to its simpler, mathematical compression methods and very limited data reduction.

    • Christian Schildwaechter

      The raw bandwidth of DP 1.4 is the same as DP 1.3, exactly fitting for one 4K@120Hz 8/24bit RGB Stream. Going for 10/30bit HDR already exceeds this, so DP 1.4 introduced DSC/Display Stream Compression, allowing for more data over the same connection. And while DP 2.0 is still rare, DP 1.4 was introduced in 2016 and all recent GPUs support it.

      DSC is also used on the PSVR2, with its somewhat strange per eye resolution of 2040*2000. If you multiply the pixel count with two eyes and 120Hz 24bit, you get pretty much exactly the DP1.3 raw bandwidth. Sony apparently targeted this during the design, but later decided to both offer HDR requiring more bandwidth, and using regular USB-C cables with the USB DP/VirtualLink Alt mode piping DP signals over USB data lines.

      That didn't leave enough bandwidth for camera data to be sent back to the PS5, so Sony now uses only half the available USB-C data lines for DP, paired it with DSC. This provides enough USB data capacity, but effectively halves the raw video bandwidth. DP Stream compression uses much lower compression rates than h.264/h.265 used on Quest for PCVR streaming, making it mostly unnoticeable with no added latency. With nobody complaining about compression artifacts on PSVR2 using a 2.5:1 to 3:1 DSC ratio, serving two 4K displays in the Meganex over full bandwidth DP 1.4 with DSC should work fine.

      • Jose Ferrer

        Yes, the DP1.4 with DSC will solve the transmission thing. It looks like other high-res devices with DP cable (Crystal, Aero, BSB, VP2) are using as well DSC.
        But the required GPU power to render that large amount of pixels at 90Hz (without DFR) is something that I really don´t know how it is going to be achieved. Of course, one can always subsample to be at the limit of your own GPU.

        • Christian Schildwaechter

          One benefit of high resolutions is that they are much more suitable for smart upscaling. DLSS 3/FSR 3 produce decent results when scaling to 2160p from 1440p or even 1080p, while trying to get to 1080p from 720p or 540p usually ends in disaster, despite the identical scaling factors.

          There simply isn't enough detail in lower resolutions as a base for image reconstruction, making it much more useful for the 13.6MP MeganeX Superlight displays than trying the same on a 3.5MP Quest 3S. The availability of DLSS as the most advanced form of deep learning upsampling could be a main reason why Shiftall requires the use of Nvidia GPUs. And with GPU performance increasing by about 30% per year, while render load grows exponentially with increasing resolution and FoV, just relying on raw performance will become both less feasible and more wasteful with higher resolutions on more advanced HMDs.

          • Jose Ferrer

            DLSS isn’t automatically applied to every game; it needs to be integrated by the developers.
            I only play one game (IL-2) and it is not supported (and most likely never in future). So, those options will not solve the problem for me.

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            TL;DR: our toolbox for using modern generative methods for higher resolutions or frame rates, relying on neither faster GPUs nor developer integration, is constantly growing.

            Technically you don't always need integration by the developers. A game has to expose motion vectors that are used in DLSS 2+, FSR 2+ and XeSS 1+ for object movement prediction, which improves image quality a lot. DLSS 1 not using motion vectors and only relying on AI reconstruction was rather bad, while FSR 1 as a purely spatial upscaler already worked okay for high resolution. Many games using any of the current motion vector based upscalers can be patched to use DLSS 3. Not sure if this is also true for games offering TAA, which also uses motion vectors and is very similar to the temporal component of DLSS/FSR/XeSS.

            For games not offering motion vectors, using a separate spatial upscaler like FSR 1, or the driver integrated Nvidia's Image Scaling or AMD's Radeon Super Resolution can provide less advanced, but still useful upscaling for any game, though it can make more sense to combine an upscaler with a sharpening pass in ReShade for similar or better results. Valve even integrated FSR 1 into the SteamOS Gamescope compositor for system-wide, finely tunable upscaling not requiring any game support or setup to benefit. I have no idea about upscaling options for IL-2, but according to Google at least Nvidia's Image Scaling seems to work, while ReShade was apparently banned for enabling some types of cheating in multiplayer.

            And even the original Gear VR relying on a 2014 Samsung Galaxy Note 4 dealt with the 1440p display by rendering at a much lower resolution and then using the integrated hardware video scaler to show already decent VR visuals. It might take some effort to get things going, but by now there should always be some way to drive hires displays without first throwing more money at Nvidia.

            And things keep improving. Earlier this year Lossless Scaling (multi-method scaler without VR support) introduced frame generation as a post-process, avoiding any anti-cheat trouble. The results are inferior to DLSS 3 or FSR 3, but this allows bringing high frame rates the developers never allowed for even to ancient console games running in emulators etc. Raw power will still be best, native upscaling integration second. but we now at least have more options not requiring those. And I fully expect that we'll see a lot more of that in VR with per eye resolutions moving towards 4K.

          • Jose Ferrer

            I was aware of some people in the IL-2 forum using FSR/NIS upscaling techniques but I have never used them, basically because all devices I had (CV1, Pimax5K, G1, G2, VP, VP2, QuestPro, Pico4, Index and currently Quest3) were coupled with a suitable GPU able to even introduce some supersampling.
            So, I really never analyzed the actual benefits in terms of performance/quality of NIS/FSR, but future 4K devices like this Meganex Superlight will require to use those upscaling techniques to fully benefit for the high-res panels, so it looks like I will need to learn from what those techinques can really do. (the only problem is that there are multiple methods, in-game options, external tools to mesh around)

            If there would be a device in the market better overall than Quest3 to play IL-2, I will directly buy it. I hate to say that the best PCVR headset is exactly a non-PCVR headset (Quest3). What a paradox!

            This Meganex looks ok on paper, but my main concern is FOV (I can deal with cable, no audio, basestations). The Index had a nice VFOV and HFOV.

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            TL;DR: Waiting a little longer might solve many of the remaining problems due to improving software and new VR companies releasing more high end PCVR headsets.

            Currently using smart upscaling esp. with VR still looks somewhat like alchemy, trying different combinations of things with often contradictory, anecdotal results. The tech still moves fast, with both DLSS and FSR completely changing from version one to two, and then introducing frame generation as another approach with different goals in the third release. They also spawn lots of alternative acronyms like DLAA, which is just DLSS image reconstruction without any scaling used for anti-aliasing, or DLDSR that instead of upsampling an image renders at lower resolution with temporal data and AI goes the other way and downsamples one rendered at higher resolution with the same methods, basically smart supersampling.

            So waiting for things to somewhat settle down first may not be the worst idea. And as neither Beyond nor Shiftall created their own microOLED displays, but instead buy them from companies like BOE or SeeYa that also sell to others, we might see a new wave of companies releasing similar high end PCVR HMDs soon. Initially driven by VC capital rushing into the market in reaction to AVP and the expectation of a new productivity XR market, and now being able to quickly produce new headsets based on standard components.

            That would have been possible with standalone HMDs before, as Qualcomm plus Goertek already offered the required hardware, software and production facilities to create XR2 based HMDs, resulting in similar Quest and Pico headsets plus a number of obvious clones for the Chinese market. The problem was that selling those with profit was never an option with Meta selling at cost, while it should be much easier to convince investors that selling PCVR HMDs for USD 1500 or more could actually work.

            So maybe wait a little longer and see whether others will release similar headsets targeting slightly different groups by e.g. including eye tracking, or increasing the FoV, or using inside-out training. With the tech now readily available, it should be much cheaper to develop/configure a new PCVR HMD from 3rd party components for specific niches.

  • Nevets

    So the takeout is that Shiftall isn't in the business of vaporware and they can turn out impressive hardware. Good on them. As a business venture, it seems hard to see how they'll make riches from such a niche within a niche, but top marks to them for trying and I wish them best of luck.

    • ViRGiN

      Have you seen more than one headset anywhere?
      "Mass"-production, even on small scale, has not been demonstrated.

    • Christian Schildwaechter

      VR should be more profitable for Shiftall than for Meta due to margin added on top of production cost to make back the development and pay salaries/rent, while Meta sells Quest at production cost and pays for R&D and everything else with ad income from Facebook/Instagram.

      Estimated build costs for the USD 3500 AVP are USD 1400-1800, meaning it includes a high margin even for Apple. The lower the expected unit sales, the higher the margin has to be to break even, And with niche products selling only in the hundreds and having to spread all costs over few users, the sales price can easily reach ten times the production costs or more.

      Meganex Superlight as a PCVR HMD without audio consists mostly of displays, lenses, frame/head strap, a couple of sensors and cables. Custom cables can be expensive, but maybe they got away with a regular DP cable and using its data back channel. The sensors should be standard/cheap, while the very adjustable head strap was probably expensive to develop, but won't add significant production cost. Leaving displays and lenses as the most expensive components by far.

      With USD 700 for the bright AVP microOLEDs as a ceiling, pure build cost for the much simpler MeganeX Superlight should be (significantly) less than USD 1000. They'd still need to sell a lot to start making money, but Shiftall is probably VC financed and won't have to make money immediately.

  • Rudl Za Vedno

    It looks like an awesome PCVR headset… But boy the price is making it an instant flop if they don't want to sell like just 1000 to 5.000 units or even less. I'd be very tempted to buy this thing at 1000 to 1300 bucks price range, but at 1900 it's just too much considering I'd have to additionally buy Valve's tracking system and controllers. Plus, you never know what will come out in 2025 given the fact that Asus, Lenovo, Samsung will all be likely releasing their headsets, all probably with inside out tracking and at least in Asus case as being a primarily PC/laptops focused company I'd be surpriced if it would have native wired DP support as an option.

    • Andrew Jakobs

      What fact? Nothing is know yet about the Asus, Lenovo and Samsung headsets, other then them using a Qualcomm XR2 gen2 chipset.

      • Rudl Za Vedno

        Samsung is mentioning XR headset being released in 2025 to investors in their 2025 financial forcast. Google is placing XR devices compatibility notes on adroid store… As for the Asus and Lenovo, it only makes sense to release in 2025 as it would likely compete with Quest 4 if released 2026 or beyond.

  • It may not be vaporware, but as they say — Shit falls.

  • Christian Schildwaechter

    Flip-up display, halo strap, adjustable diopter and eye-relieve on a light, hires HMD cover much of my ergonomics wishlist for productivity/MR use. But this leads to the question how bright the displays on the MeganeX Superlight are.

    This is only the third HMD using pancakes with microOLED after Bigscreen Beyond and AVP. Pancakes are inefficient, losing ~75% from somewhat directional light sources like microOLED or LCD, and 90% from omnidirectional OLED panels. Add low persistence with the display off most of the time, and 3,000nits Sony displays in AVP only deliver ~100nits to the eye. Even this required dual-layer white OLED backlights, resulting in low yields and high prices.

    The Beyond uses cheaper microOLEDs from BOE with a single layer backlight, but adds the perfectly fitting face pad, minimizing light bleed and making the display look brighter in a pitch black environment. Apple also matches a fitting face pad from a large set of available shapes to each user based on a 3D face scan, again keeping out external light.

    MeganeX now uses a universal light seal with bellows to fit the face, and could even be used without it. Extra environmental light requires brighter displays than on Beyond/AVP with tighter fit, otherwise the image will appear to be dimmer. Use without a light seal is less likely on a pure VR HMD lacking passthrough than in MR, as it ruins immersion, but it would be interesting to learn how bright the display felt compared to other HMDs.

    • ZeePee

      Impressions so far have made it clear its similar to the bigscreen beyond in terms of brightness.

      Which means, according to your point about s perfect seal on the face blocking out all light for bigscreen beyond to achieve this level of brightness, Meganex has brighter displays.

      We know it has brighter displays, its actually 5000 nits like AVP, your numbers are wrong, but the final nits of 100 for AVP, you have right.

      But they are not hitting the brightness levels the displays can achieve apparently, and they've stated they think they can increase it by 15-20% by the final product tion model.

      Bigscreen Beyond has 3000 nits displays, so much less, and so you're getting well below 100 nits to the eye vs AVP.

      Like you pointed out, the perfect seal on the face blocking out all light, means it looks brighter than a normal facial interface would achieve. So, its a cleverer design by Bigscreen.

      So overall, the capability of the displays Meganex uses is 2000 nits brighter than Bigscreen Beyond, same as AVP, they just need to tweak it to get it to those highest brightness levels for the final product unit.

      If they don't, then it'll look like the same level of brightness as Bigscreen Beyond.

  • ZeePee

    There needs to be more enthusiasm for this.

    This is the King of PCVR right here.

    The amount this gets right, on the fundamentals, is like nothing we've seen before.

    -Form factor and comfort, adaptable design tailored perfectly for you with all the options you could want to dial it all in
    -Flip-up capability
    -Excellent binocular overlap
    -Highest resolution on the market
    -Micro-OLED
    -Good clear pancake lenses
    -Good FoV that meets standards, yet in this near perfect small and extremely light form factor
    -Ipd and diopter adjustment
    -DisplayPort

    The only thing you could question is the brightness, which is at least as good as bigscreen beyond and they have said they can get it 15-20% brighter by the final product model.

    Price, for what you're actually getting, is quite fair. This is orders of magnitude better than the best the market has to offer for PCVR in terms of pure form factor/comfort and visuals.

    Bigscreen Beyond is great, but this beats it outright, and in some very important ways not only massively in resolution, but glare, fov, sweet spot/manually adjustable ipd and diopter – and so you pay a higher price quite obviously.

    This headset is THE headset PCVR has always needed.

    Time to get excited if you're a PCVR user that is interested in the high end.

    • Arno van Wingerde

      Well, maybe. But it is mostly the weakest aspect of a set that governs usability.
      For starters, it is tethered, pretty bad for playing room dimensioned games. Hi-res OLED with pancake lenses is a delightful combo, but “costs” brightness. The supposedly extra bright OLED is great, but does it have mura or distortions or … ? The cost of a system: headset base stations (which I would hate) and heavy Gaming PC makes this thing more expensive than an AVP, limiting its market to a niche of a niche: do not expect many third parties to support it and because of such limited sales, can Shiftall support it adequately on the basis of the handful units sold? No audio Solution is just lame: I prefer a heavier headset over fiddling with an earphone or earbuds in addition to the headset itself. So, yeah might fit your needs, but I would wait until they sold in decent numbers and have happy customers. The feedback of Bigscreen Beyond already has many users somewhat unhappy because of its severely limited sweet spot, making the correct fitting difficult. That won’t likely happen here, but other stuff might…

      • ZeePee

        Micro-OLED is better than normal OLED. It doesn't have any mura.

        The cable is standard if you want high quality visuals. DisplayPort offers uncompressed lossless visual quality.

        The aim is to provide the best visual experience, and that means DisplayPort. I'm not sure wireless is even possible for this resolution.

        So its up to you whether visuals vs wireless is important for you, but the purpose of this headset is simple: visuals + comfort.

        I've used both wired and wireless, and if the cable is not stiff and is long enough, the whole wireless thing is overexaggerated. I noticed barely any issue using a cable vs wireless, and it provides better visual quality. Wired is not a bad experience, its perfectly fine.

        Bigscreen Beyond also requires baseatations and controllers separately- there is nothing on the market that does this and costs less.

        Of course if you don't have a gaming PC or aren't willing to upgrade, then this changes the proposition for you.

        But its down to what you want, are you a PCVR customer looking for the best high end PCVR headset? Then this is the one.

        AVP is categorically a standalone headset, with no controllers, no games, and costs $3500 alone. It has lower resolution, and connecting to a PC means even further visual quality loss through wireless-only connection, let alone lack of DisplayPort.

        To use with a PC, your still need basetations and controllers bought separately, on top of the $3500, and of course youd need a gaming PC.

        So it comes down to what you want. High end PCVR or not? And thsts the point of this product. Its a high end PCVR headset that provides the absolute best visual quality and absolute best comfort.

        If you want standalone, thats another type of product entirely.

        No on board audio is a shame, but imo a complete non issue if you already have an audio solution that is comfortable and easy to connect. Ultimately, while it may be a very slight inconvenience, its simply not a big deal. Its a very small "minus" on the list vs what you're actually getting.

        I can recommend amazing and cheap on ear headphones that are so comfortable you don't even know your wearing it. It will make zero difference in reality, at least imo.

        All the issues of bigscreen Beyond are solved with this headset.

        Overall this thing is set to be the dream PCVR headset from what we know right now, despite lack of onboard audio.

        • ViRGiN

          whole wireless thing is overexaggerated

          lol. please stop.

          you yap so much about "high-end PCVR", but no such thing exists. userbase has responded and abandoned the platform. $20 Gorilla Tag is #1 PCVR game.

          • ZeePee

            Not sure how you conclude high end PCVR doesn't exist, when there is literally a list of high end PCVR headsets, including upcoming, like this one, and a big library of higher graphical quality PCVR games that requires a high end pc to push those high end amount of pixels at that graphical fidelity.

            You'd be lying if you say otherwise, regardless of where the focus has shifted in the market.

            This is reality, accept it.

          • ViRGiN

            That is not reality. That is your specific niche interest. There is absolute gigantic lack of high-end PCVR software, and that's been a thing since day 1, regardless of where the focus has shifted in the market.

          • ZeePee

            No there is a gigantic library of high quality VR games on PC and that's a fact.

            And for those who enjoy PCVR, there are more VR games being released.

            And the upcoming big multiplatform VR games like Behemoth and Metro, for example, will always look best on PC.

            The upcoming Assettp Corsa Evo, designed from thd ground up exclusively for PCVR, is also going to be a sight to behold in the upcoming high end PCVR-only Meganex Superlight 8k headset, which has many multiples of resolution vs Quest 3, with micro-OLED, producing visuals and and a racing experience that standalone users literally cannot even dream. about.

            That is reality lol.

          • ViRGiN

            Possessed.

          • ZeePee

            ….with undeniable, irrefutable facts. Yes lol.

          • ViRGiN

            Fuckts.

          • ZeePee

            What does that even mean lol.

          • polysix

            It means he's an attention seeking twot.

          • polysix

            You're such a bore, we all hate you.

        • Andrew Jakobs

          The whole wireless thing is overexaggerated. I noticed barely…

          And that's just your opinion, to me even the cable of the vive wireless module to the the battery on your belt/pocket is a major annoyance to me (but still a major improvement over tethered to the PC, even with a kiwi pulleysystem), I'd rather take the slight graphical artifacts over DP quality image. So for you it might be overexaggerated, but to me having DP is overexaggerated as most people wont really see the difference once they are actually into the game.
          so this headset having a wire can't make it the best highend PCVR headset for me. So 'best' is all in the eye of the beholder.

          • ZeePee

            Thats fair enough, for you its priority.

            But I don't think that's the case for the majority of high end PCVR enthusaists.

            One of the biggest things they want, is DisplayPort, not wireless. Because for most high end PCVR enthusists, visual quality and fidelity is paramount.

            For most casuals and Quest/ standalone lovers, it seems most people prioritise wireless in their preferences.

          • NL_VR

            I have a high end PC with 4090 and i play VR games on my high end PC, So i must be high end PCVR then.
            no way I would choose connect with DP cable over wireless.
            DP connected headset is not what defines high end

          • ZeePee

            Really depends what sort of VR user you are despite your high end PC you may use, and of course not everyone in the market segment of PCVR enthusiast prioritises visuals over wireless, but most do.

          • Andrew Jakobs

            Not really as a highend PC also increases the fidelity for wireless, so I'll bet a lot of highend PCVR user use their highend PC because they can get better visuals too with their wireless headset. Yeah, the sitting down simulation enthousiasts will go for DP as the cable won't be a problem, but for people who want 'roomscale' VR the cable is an annoyance. Even with the kiwi pulley system the cable gets twisted and tangled, unless you have such a game that actually takes that into account, and makes sure you would do the same amount of turns one way as the other, but I only know one excellent (student) game that does that.

          • ZeePee

            No it still is a compromise – affecting visuals at those high resolutions and adding cost and weight. We're talking about PCVR enthusiasts here who would be willing to pay a lot of money to maximise visual fidelity – wireless is not priority.

            That's why all these high end PCVR headsets do not have wireless, if you notice.

            Because they're catering to what the majority of that market segment wants the most. Thats pretty clear.

          • NL_VR

            No its because of keeping cost down.
            Many more people would choose wireless im sure of it.

          • ZeePee

            Yes, cost is one of the reasons as I said. But the other obvious reason is that they prefer higher visual fidelity – that's priority.

            If they didn't, they would go buy a Quest 3 and we wouldn't have these higher resolution better display tech PCVR headsets.

            But we do. Because PCVR enthusiasts want higher visual fidelity over wireless.

            Not only that, but wireless may not even be possible right now at those high resolutions.

            Its not that hard to understand, its pretty clear lol.

            Literally everyone would prefer wireless, but the priority is visual fidelity (and increasingly so comfort along with that) for most PCVR enthusiasts.

          • Andrew Jakobs

            No, because it is cheaper to put a wired headset on the market with those specs as a wireless, which adds a SOC and battery, and keeping in mind that wireless with those resolutions is still very hard due to the required bandwidth..

          • ZeePee

            You're explaining exactly what I said.

            The market segment does not prioritise wireless.

            No one said wireless isn't desirable. Literally everyone wants wireless, but PCVR enthusiasts ptiorietise visual fidelity, hence the willingness to spend a lot of money on higher resolution headsets with better display tech, when they could just buy a Quest 3 if they want wireless and cheap.

            Adding wireless to these headsets is both a compromise on visual fidelity, weight, and cost, as well as it may not even be possible at such high resolution – but they want the resolution.

          • NL_VR

            i prioritises fast free movement in my play area, and not have to consider any cable, even via pulleys which i used before.
            A Wired headset maybe got a slightly better image because of compression free but it do not make it worth over wireless imo. People who do simulators or sitting down playing anyway may think different, but not me.

            Then having the ability like with the Quest to use VR/MR when you are not by the computer. Something a "High end" cant even do :D

          • ZeePee

            A lot of people feel the same way you do- they prioritise wireless over visual fidelity.

            Hence why you're not the target market for all these wired-only high end PCVR headsets.

            That target market is the PCVR enthusiast crowd, who are mostly interested in prioritising visual fidelity (and increasingly so comfort).

            There's all sorts of cable experiences, short and thick is not great, but long and thin, is great. But for many, mostly non PCVR enthusiasts, wireless (and other features) is highly preferable, and so they go buy a Quest 3.

          • NL_VR

            It’s not what defines an enthusiastic in general. Maybe an enthusiastic simmer.

          • ViRGiN

            "PCVR enthusiast"

        • Christian Schildwaechter

          The aim is to provide the best visual experience, and that means DisplayPort.

          The aim could also be:

          – the highest refresh rate for competitive gaming
          – the largest FoV for more immersion
          – the fastest tracking for Beat Saber high scores
          – the best full body tracking for living an alternative life in VRChat
          – the highest PPD and color accuracy for testing virtual prototypes of real products
          – the minimal cost to give VR a try without wasting money in case it sucks
          – the most accurate passthrough with auto-focussing cameras for MR development
          – the best comfort and adjustability for daily long sessions
          – the most available AAA games with native VR integration
          – the best movie streaming services for virtual cinema
          – the highest compatibility with the existing VR library
          … and more.

          All of these could be use case specific hard (indispensable) or soft (nice to have) criteria for PCVR, and standalone would add another bunch.. Visual quality is no doubt very high on most people's wish list, but not the most important by default. Great visuals won't help if an HMD is so uncomfortable that you can't wear it for more than a few minutes. The MeganeX Superlight certainly checks a lot of boxes for many PCVR gamer, but there are enough features other HMDs offer either at all, better or different that any "best HMD" designation need to include the implied use case/application.

          • ZeePee

            I believe I was talking about Meganex on thst point you responded – that is definitely true.

            Even so, I think that for most PCVR enthusiasts, the best visual experience is indeed the highest priority, and that does mean DisplayPort.

            Comfort is indeed key, which is why Meganex deals with visuals + comfort – these two elements combined imo cater to most PCVR enthusiast's priorities.

        • Arno van Wingerde

          Actually I do not have a game PC, but I am certainly considering one – mobility graphics are severely limited and I love OLED and hate the greyish blacks of the Quest – I definitely are with you on that one.

          But… Headset $1900 + headphones $150 +base stations $600. Maye a cable hanging from the ceiling, some other bits and pieces $100. An RTX 4080 Super – based PC $2500 and you are looking at $5250. That is a lot of money… and does not deliver a "perfect solution either! I tried a PSVR2+PS5, loved Horizon: CotM but gave up amongst others because of the cable and finicky sweet spot and lack of integrated audio, now miss the OLED and better graphical power: in many ways the PSVR2 sits in between the Quest3 and the Shiftall.

          After I spend all that money, I need to install games and mods and update stuff all the time and fiddle around all over the place…

          Or you accept a major hit in graphical power but put on your $700 Quest3 (with strap etc) and are ready to dance… wherever in the house/garden and you can take it with you as well.

          Hm.. choices, choices!

      • Christian Schildwaechter

        All VR HMDs make compromises. Inside-out tracking/passthrough increase both weight and ease of use. A tether offers the best, latency free image, but adds a literal stumbling block for VR use. There will never be one "best" VR HMD for everyone.

        The MeganeX Superlight's niche/best use case is probably ""high-end gaming PCVR with USD ~5000 budget for games benefitting from high resolution with limited turning", with lots of flight and racing sim fans. Before the best tethered options were USD 1000 2.5K Beyond, USD 1600 2.9K Pimax Crystal or (pro) USD 4000 4K Varjo XR-4. Shiftall combined many of their best features while adding desirable comfort options, at a price somewhere in the middle when including lighthouses and required GPU.

        Some will still pick Beyond for its lower price and perfect fit that makes it barely noticeable during use. Others a Crystal for resolution plus ETFR, or an XR-4 for the 51PPD display (center)/passthrough and MR/AR use. Most new to VR will end up with the best value Quest 3S, while standalone enthusiasts will pick Quest 3, also the best option for PCVR gamers hating the tether or unwilling to spend USD 1000+, even if the MeganeX resolution, image quality and ergonomics could provide a superior experience IMHO justifying the (currently) "technically best PCVR HMD" label.

        • Andrew Jakobs

          You're forgetting the Pico 4 (ultra) in regard to best wireless PCVR headset.
          but you are certainly right, there really is no best headset as 'best' means different things to different people. Fir instance, to me, any headset which is tethered, being to the PC or to an external battery which you need to wear on you belt/pocket will never be the best headset.

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            I regularly check for specs on vr-compare_com, and am often surprised how many headsets I missed or forget about. The Pico 4 Ultra with better specs than Quest 3 that I in fact forgot also hints at another important condition for "best headset": availability. With Pico only selling in China, Europe plus some other Asian countries, for US users the Pico 4 is currently ranked similar to Quest 4 or Valve Deckard: great in theory, but not yet accessible in reality, making even a used Quest 2 the better choice.

            The latter, now selling on ebay for USD 120-150, will also be the winner for those on tight budgets not even allowing for a Quest 3S, if the alternative is "no VR at all", no doubt much worse. And for large parts of the world a cheap, Cardboard like smartphone VR viewer may still be the "best (and only) HMD", winning by default both due to the minimal investment and Meta and Pico combined offering their headsets in only about 25 out of 193 countries. What ends up actually being "best" will depend more on individual needs, use case and available resources than on any specific hardware feature.

        • ZeePee

          Limited turning?

          Boy do people exaggerate wired vs wireless, i really don't get it.

          If you have a relatively thin 6m cable, you are not going to be limited by the cable.

          "Technically best PCVR HMD available" is a fair way to put it.

          I think generally speaking, it does actually cater to the majority of the high end PCVR crowd in the most important ways, and generally makes the most important compromises for that segment of the market.

          This is apparently more comfortable than bigscreen beyond – its not unbreathable material stuck to your face. Its similar enough weight and yet is entirely lifted off your face. The custom fit of Beyond often causes issues where people need to send it back even multiple times to get the right fit, and you cannot adjust the ipd and diopter manually, of which there is zero benefit to that in any way.

          Lower price though, absolutely. But that doesn't mean better, it just means you can't afford it/struggle to justify the extra expense.

          ETFR is definitely one thing about the Crystal that makes sense. And of course most casuals that want a Qiest but also some PCVR, Quest would be the headset for them.

          Everyone is different, but terms of the best PCVR headset in general though, if you had to pick in terms of what the majority of high end PCVR users are looking for, it seems that Meganex nails all the most important elements where the compromises made are more desirable.

          • Christian Schildwaechter

            "Limited turning" only for a "no issues" scenario, not to imply a tether restricts room scale VR. While higher resolution is objectively better, the tether drifts into personal preference with no definitive answer. Many don't mind it and enjoy the benefits, while others get terribly annoyed. Both perceptions are valid. I don't mind, but during my first Vive Pre demo at gamescom 2015 I stepped onto the cable with one foot, then kicked it with the other, ripping all cables out of the connection box and forcing HTC to restart everything.

            Many issues are subjective. I prefer halo straps as no face pad seems to fit me, but for some skull shapes the unadjustable PSVR/Quest Pro halo straps very uncomfortably put all pressure onto only a few contact points. The Quest 3 soft strap buckles give me headaches, but most users seem fine with the default strap, otherwise Meta would have dropped it after Quest 2.

            "One size fits all" can't work, so I'm hoping for future modular HMDs with display units holding screens, lenses, cameras/sensors that can connect to soft straps with custom face pads like Beyond, light flip-up straps like MeganeX, or large halo straps counter-balanced with compute units//battery for standalone.

          • ZeePee

            For sure agreed, in the way you describe, the tether is not completely issue free, that's true. Though saying "limited turning" does imply it restricts room scale VR to be fair.

            And indeed it comes down to preference, and id say most people, including those who prefer visual quality over wireless, would indeed want wireless (though priorities differ) if there were zero visual compromises or requirements of good connection.

            I think for most PCVR enthusiasts, they prefer the highest visual quality over wireless. Not all, but most.

            When it comes to standalone users, it seems that segment of the market would mostly lean towards prefering wireless over max visuals.

        • Arno van Wingerde

          Ah… "could" in your last sentence is the keyword here. If it turns out to have a single major flaw it may not be "the set for you". And if that happens to many people, it is not going to sell well.

      • Andrew Jakobs

        The fact this headset has everything to control the lenses/displays, makes this a much better choice over the bigscreen which has fixed IPD and facegasket so only one person can actually use it and selling it is much harder (nit a problem for me as I never sold an older headset). And in regard to brightness, does it really differ so much compared to LCD? As with the Quest 3 and Pico 4, brightness is totally not a problem, far from it.

        • ZeePee

          100%. I love the look of Beyond, but this headset literally solves/improves upon all of its issues, and with a generational leap of resolution.

          I think the only selling point is lower price.

          • ViRGiN

            Bro you haven't even held it in your hands and you claim it already solves stuff.

    • ViRGiN

      How about all that… but not from "company" ran by VR Chat citizen?
      The only thing Shiftall has consistently deliver on, is the lack of understanding why it's a horrible name. They also change design and specs three times a year. This isn't a real product yet. Plus it being a SteamVR (not a PCVR!) headset further limits it's usability.

      There is nothing to get excited about, because this is still far from shipping and proven customer service, and PCVR itself is dead. Plus as many has learned with BS Beyond, small size doesn't automatically mean comfort out of this planet. It doesn't seem to have any audio solution either.

      • ZeePee

        Sure it would be nice if Valve were releasing this headset, but they're not.

        I'll take this. Despite their long development time, there are reasons why the first meganex didn't pan out well, the fundamental design was flawed. Still, they shipped it locally in Japan.

        This headset is a completely new design from the previous, and whats great is, it actually works. The design is excellent, whereas the first meganex had big issues that they just couldn't overcome.

        This one looks like a winner, but of course, nothing is guaranteed. I think they'll deliver, but its entirely up to you of you trust that or not. Your choice.

        • ViRGiN

          Why would it be nice if Valve were releasing this headset?
          Valve has proven time and time again they don’t care about VR. Valve Index was abandoned the same day it was released.

          Those obsessed with PCVR will always fail to recognize it’s dead.
          If PCVR is not dead, then Nintendo 64 is well and alive.

          • ZeePee

            Lol your comments are crazy, brother.

          • ViRGiN

            My comments are a stream of uncompress, high end thinking.

          • ZeePee

            Hahaha

          • polysix

            They are a stream of self indulgent, attention seeking cries for help. Only you think they are good comments.

    • Andrew Jakobs

      And they do one major thing wrong.. no wireless.. to me, no matter how good the rest is, if it has a wire down to a computer (or for me even down to an external battery/puck) I don't want it. I'd be fine if it has a lower resolution or being a bit bulkier (having a good design headmount/strap is imperative of course). I think even my Pico 4 is pretty light and there's room for shaving a few grams off that one.

      • ZeePee

        Totally understandable for your preferences. For some people like yourself indeed the wire is just a no-no.

        Its very fortunate that there are some decent standalone wireless capable headsets in that case.

        Perhaps the Immersed Visor is another option. Then you get high res micro-OLED (and other features) in that excellent form factor, despite losing resolution/clarity in wireless mode.

        Let's see how that headset turns out. It looks amazing and the price is confusingly low.

        • ViRGiN

          Do you even enjoy VR, seeing that you are always looking for those imaginary things like visor or meganex?

  • Arborea

    They better also release the 5K version, I have no use for an 8K version unless someone at NVIDIA wants to gift me a 5090.

    • Andrew Jakobs

      You don't have to buy this headset, nobody is forcing you.

  • Joss

    Congrats on managing not to write shitfall during the full article

  • Thud

    "At the headset’s native 13.6MP per-eye resolution and 90Hz refresh rate, your computer will need to pump out an absurd 2.5 gigapixels per second"

    The situation is even rougher than that. It has to be prepared and able to pump out many more pixels than that to enable you to turn you head at will and see your periphery instantaneously.

  • Phil

    The first impressions of who, exactly? Are you able to provide a link please.

    • ZeePee

      MRTV was the first on the scene at the launch event, he mentioned it in his video.

      Not sure where exactly but iirc its in there. Still, I would like more clarification and a second opinion on it too.

  • Derek Kent

    lol wired.