I bought the original Gear VR with very limited expectations and was surprised how well it worked.
The reason it works so well is the GearVR platform is comprised effectively of three things:
a) Lenses to make for comfortable, adjustable viewing.
b) A touchpad for input.
c) A ton of high quality / high fidelity sensors like Accelerator, Gyrometer, Geomagnetic, Proximity (1)
Since most VR functionality is driven through sensor fusion it's a very elegant solution to develop a one-size-fits-all headset that gives devs a way to build/test/deploy against one set of sensors vs a phone-by-phone approach.
Take that plus the fact that the DK2 screen is an overclocked Galaxy 3 screen (2) and it makes complete sense.
The reason it works so well is the GearVR platform is comprised effectively of three things:
a) Lenses to make for comfortable, adjustable viewing.
b) A touchpad for input.
c) A ton of high quality / high fidelity sensors like Accelerator, Gyrometer, Geomagnetic, Proximity (1)
Since most VR functionality is driven through sensor fusion it's a very elegant solution to develop a one-size-fits-all headset that gives devs a way to build/test/deploy against one set of sensors vs a phone-by-phone approach.
Take that plus the fact that the DK2 screen is an overclocked Galaxy 3 screen (2) and it makes complete sense.
(1) via http://www.samsung.com/global/microsite/gearvr/gearvr_specs....
(2) http://techcrunch.com/2014/07/31/oculus-rift-dk2-gets-torn-a...