Bigscreen Beyond One Month Review

You can find my first 1-2 hour impressions that I wrote up here if you're interested, but I'll probably re-iterate some of it in this review: https://pastebin.com/AZFCx7sc

Previous headsets I've owned and used have been the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive & Vive Pro 1 (with and without the GearVR lens mod), Oculus Quest 1 & 2, & Valve Index. The Index has been my daily driver for the last 4 years and it has literally been held together by duct tape for the past year or two so I figured it was time to upgrade. My main focus is on social VR (VRChat) so feel free to keep that in mind during the review. Also this review was written on November 9th, 2023 which is about a month since I first got it so some things I bring up may become outdated/irrelevant in the next couple months.

Brief Overview - What is it?

Bigscreen Beyond is "the world's smallest VR headset. Featuring OLED microdisplays with 2560 x 2560 pixels per eye, custom pancake optics, and SteamVR tracking – all in an unbelievably small form factor weighing just 127 grams. And for ultimate comfort, Bigscreen Beyond is custom-built for you – fitted to the shape of your face and sized for your eyes – using a 3D Face Scan." (https://store.bigscreenvr.com/products/bigscreen-beyond)

The Beyond uses native SteamVR tracking, no extra software hoops to jump through.
The headset costs $999 and does not include base stations or controllers, so this headset is primarily aimed at people already in the SteamVR ecosystem and looking to upgrade their aging Index or Vive.
There is also a separate $129 audio strap since there is no built-in audio, but as of right now there is not too much known about it other than it's reportedly from a reputable and well known audio company, and may feature some kind of slightly off-ear design, but it won't be fully off-ear like Index. I have the audio strap pre-ordered and will give my review of it when it comes in.
The Beyond is planned to be fully released (not just for pre-orders) in early Q1 2024

The Good

To start off with something obvious about this headset, the size and weight. I've used the Valve Index for four years and I could never get over how heavy it is. I never grew into an NFL quarterback with bulging neck muscles due to the Index but maybe some of you have and you're used to the weight now. But man, once you put this thing on your head, you never want to go back to traditional headsets. Just moving your head around is such a world of difference. And you're going to be moving your head around in this headset a lot more than the other ones (more on that later) so it feeling just about weightless is great. I'd have 8-10 hour long sessions on weekends with pretty minimal discomfort.
Colors/OLED are incredible on this headset. There are so many VRC maps that I've visited hundreds of times on the Index that visiting them again on Beyond for some of them makes me go "Wait, this map actually looks like THIS?". Like, it is PITCH DARK when you first load into The Madcat and in you're in that small valley where there's barely any light. AudioOrbs is an incredible experience. Going into Cafe Leblanc and looking at the shadowy darker areas up in the attic. Downpour At Night where you're in an almost pitch dark house that lights up when lightning strikes outside during a thunderstorm, so fucking comfy. I really didn't even think I'd care that much about the true blacks but you don't fully appreciate it until you experience it again. Anyone that goes to clubs/DJ events are going to love this headset for both colors and the lack of weight for head banging or dancing.
Resolution is insane. It is crazy how much farther I can see and read/make out from far away. I said in my initial thoughts that things look as clear as they do on desktop on my 4k monitor and I still pretty much stand by that, 2.5k per eye is amazing and it feels like the same resolution jump going from Vive/Rift to Index that it does going from Index to Beyond. I also still feel that while you will notice a slight visual difference between 75hz and 90hz, 90hz mode is still sharper than Index. I also ran Index at 3x/300% supersampling whereas with Beyond I only run at like 1-1.5x/100-150% and still looks better on both 75hz and 90hz mode. I'll talk a little more about 75hz vs 90hz later.
I've had no issues with tracking and their utility software works very well and can be installed through Steam. You can change brightness, refresh rate, fan speed, and LED color from here (the Beyond has a cool little gamer light that's visible from the outside of the headset that slowly pulses) and everything works well. The few issues I had with the utility were resolved pretty quickly with firmware updates.
The microphone is really good! Some people have told me it's comparable to how I sounded on Index, some people have told me it's much better than how I sounded on Index. I think everyone can agree that the Index mic is already really good so tying or beating it is pretty impressive. It's sad how most headsets today still come with absolute garbage mics. Like, even if you aren't a social VR type of person it's still important for any VR multiplayer game for people to have microphones that don't sound like Xbox Live quality. One note about the microphone though, it's too loud by default. People told me my mic was clipping and didn't sound good at first, reducing it down to 85 in Windows fixed it though. Sometimes this value gets reset for some reason so you may have to check in Windows or AdvancedSettings sometimes what your mic is set to. Or people will just let you know.
Customer support has been super good so far and has been very responsive and willing to work with me with the issues I've been having regarding my face cushion(s). If your first face cushion causes the Beyond to be unusuable because of an issue like comfort or something, they'll send you a second one for free and work with you to ensure the fit is better. Speaking of which...

The Neutral

The face cushion part I: This is going to be a long one. I think this might be one of those love it or hate it type things depending on how well your facescan goes. My cushion fit me mostly well, but the cushion is a little bit too close to my eyelashes/very corner of my eye on the left side which causes some minor irritation. I also noticed that the nose area seemed very uneven on one side, but my nose is a little uneven so maybe it was because of that. I contacted customer support about it and they said they made their face scan software more accurate about a month after I did my scan, so they sent me another link to take another scan, and within a week they shipped me a free, new face cushion. However, while this face cushion solved the issue of the foam rubbing up against the left side of my eyelashes/eye, and the nose area was made a lot more even (probably TOO even), my vision felt blurrier. I was no longer in the sweet spot of the headset. I had light leak coming out of the corner of my left eye in the headset. This is what also made me realize how important getting a perfect face cushion fit is with this headset because the screens and lenses are so tiny that if it's not a perfect fit for your eyes to be exactly in the sweet spot, the clarity is going to suffer. One of the cushion's magnets also was not properly lining up with my headset. So I asked customer support what exactly the next steps should be now since the first cushion is a way better fit for me despite the minor eyelash irritation and this second one is a bust in quite a number of areas. They said they're in the process of building out more improvements to the facescan software and once these improvements are put in place they'll revisit my feedback and send another cushion my way.
The face cushion part II: So even with the minor eye irritation, I do still find the cushion pretty comfy overall after a month of using it, but it took me a little bit to get used to it. It's a completely different feeling and fit compared to any other headset out there. It's like wearing a pair of swimming goggles. This thing sucks for sweat, though I believe I remember from the Adam Savage Tested review that they said they'll be offering more sweat-resistant cushions for purchase in the future. Speaking of other cushions... Most of the pressure will be on the bridge of your nose instead of other headsets where it's your cheekbones or your forehead. For some people that have gotten their Beyond, they really hate this and have resorted to cutting out sections of the foam where the nose is (Given how customer support is willing to work with you though I definitely recommend submitting a ticket first before you butcher your one and only cushion). In fact, Bigscreen is apparently already working on a new "v2 cushion" that should relieve this issue (https://files.catbox.moe/rl8r3f.png). To me I think the pressure is okay. I do get slight red creases on my nose but the cushion is really soft and squishy so it's never bothered me that much. The headset is still absurdly light and wearing it with a tight enough fit makes it fine enough for me, and the placement of the top strap can help a lot. Speaking of which...
The soft strap/top strap. It's... serviceable. I get that they're trying to make everything as light as possible and I think you technically can get away with it on this headset cause it is so light, and it's great for stuff like laying down, but most early reviews from people I'm seeing are pretty much all saying the same thing which is that they're waiting for that hard audio strap accessory. The soft strap moves around too much, the tightening system doesn't really "lock in" so I find myself retightening the strap a few times per night (which isnt that big a deal you can easily do it with the headset still on, but it's sorta annoying), and the cable clip (which I still think sucks and has been making permanent marks on everyone's cables, although Bigscreen said it shouldn't degrade the cable) also slides around all over the strap. The "optional" top strap is absolutely necessary and I'm glad the shilltubers like Brad were able to convince them to include it standard in the box, otherwise the nose pressure I was talking about previously would be unbearable and the strap would lean down on the top of your ears.
FoV. I actually lean more towards putting this in the "Good" category since I think it's pretty good, but it is noticeably a little smaller than Index and to some people FoV isn't good unless it's on par with Index. Most early reviewers I am seeing that just got their headsets are agreeing that it's lower than Index but not so much lower that they're scrambling to get back on their Index again. I think people will be happy with the FoV. It didn't feel like how it felt to me when my Index cable broke and I had to use a Vive for a night and felt like I was looking through goggles again.
75hz vs 90hz. For me, I can notice the visual difference between 75hz and 90hz. 75hz is like, the sharpest image you'll ever see in VR, but 90hz is just ever so slightly blurrier in comparison. Bigscreen did some comparisons on their site where you can see the exact difference (https://www.bigscreenvr.com/displays) - also idk why they picked something that looks like a swastika for one of the comparisons but lmao. Personally I liked the 75hz mode more for the native resolution and the ghosting wasn't really too terrible for me. I know some people see 75hz and are like no fuckin way, but from what I hear since the pixel response times or some mumbo jumbo is faster on OLED compared to LCD, 75hz on this headset isn't going to be as shit at 75hz on LCD headsets, and I think I agree with that. I was running 120hz on Index and the 75hz mode on Bigscreen didn't feel like a dramatic drop-off. But your mileage may vary, if your eyes are used to shit framerate from years of playing VRChat like mine are you'll probably think it's fine. If you're playing games with high movement and such you might want 90hz mode. Like I said before, 90hz mode still sharper and nicer looking than Index, I just prefer 75hz for the best resolution and clarity.
Glare. This is one of the most complained about things in most reviews of this headset. For me coming from Index's glare and godrays, it's a mixed bag. There are no godrays which is nice, but the glare takes on a more smudged aspect in high contrast areas. When it's pitch black and there's just one bright light or something, the glare is pretty awful. When you're in a fully lit outdoor scene for example though, there is no glare at all, no godrays at all, everything is perfect crystal clear. I've watched movies in dark lit rooms without much issue though. Like I think overall the glare experience is actually better on this headset than compared to Index on average. Some people think it's worse though, your mileage may vary and I think the amount of glare you get is also proportional to how well the face cushion is fitting you into the sweet spot.

The Bad

To me there's basically only one major negative to the headset which is Edge To Edge (E2E) Clarity/Sweet Spot. It might be easier to just show you what it looks like. The Adam Savage's Tested video from a month ago that compared Bigscreen to Pimax Crystal (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQzSb_JPH5Y) had some pretty good footage of the lenses that shows the sweet spot and blurry edges pretty well You can see the sweet spot is super clear around the characters and around the "a fiery young woman" text but falls off pretty hard at the top and the left side. You're going to have to move your head around to make things clear as you're reading them. You're going to have to train your eyes to only look dead center in the headset to get the most amount of clarity. For me this was awkward at first but after like a week or two I was pretty used to it. Remember that the headset is super light, so moving your head around more isn't necessarily a negative or fatiguing like it would be in other headsets. The VRChat mic icon is probably going to be slightly blurry and fading off to the edges for you like it does for me. It kinda sucks for HUD stuff in games where you can't just move your head to read a notification since the HUD is locked to your head movement.

Conclusion & What I'm Currently Doing For Audio

I really like this headset. It's super fun, super comfortable, and really good for a small company's first attempt at making a headset (to clarify, I think it's a great headset even not in the context of smol indie company made it, but I think it's impressive to mention). I hope it inspires more companies to adopt this super-small, lightweight goggle-like form factor. It's already replaced my Index and I think most people coming from an older headset will find it to be a fantastic upgrade with some of the best visuals out of any headset on the market right now. I would not recommend this headset for people just looking to get into VR with their first headset, unless you just have a ton of money to spend all at once on getting base stations and controllers and you're okay with that.
I think the tradeoffs this headset makes are worth it, especially if you wish your current headset was more comfortable and weighed less. I'll give an update on the face cushion stuff whenever that happens.

I look forward to trying out the audio strap accessory whenever that arrives. I could write up a whole rant about the millions of different audio solutions I've tried out but to keep it short and sweet, I use the Bose QuietComfort Ultra wireless earbuds and I recommend them. However, you can technically use whatever audio solution you want, some people are using wired IEMs and headphones with amplifiers and shit that you can plug in to the Beyond (it has an extra USB-C port on the right side). I'm not a fan of adding any more wires than are necessary so I wanted to go with a wireless solution. There's a lot of shitty wireless earbuds out there with mediocre sound or bluetooth interference and connection issues that I tried, and to me the Bose was one of the only ones that didn't give me those issues while also sounding really good.