Google Daydream View review: Potentially the coolest thing you’ll ever strap to your face
Virtual reality headsets are about as fashionable as strapping a toaster to your face, so the fabric-coated Google Daydream View looks almost stylish by comparison. You still look like a bit of a tool while wearing one, obviously, but considerably less so than with other headsets.
Slip in a compatible Android phone (currently only the Pixel and Moto X phones will work) and you’ve got yourself one of the cheapest (and by far the best at this price) VR experiences going. Setting the Daydream View apart from Samsung’s Gear VR is the inclusion of a handheld controller, which you use to point at and manipulate things in the virtual world. In some games it’s a magic wand, in one it’s a fishing rod, and in others it lets you grab palm trees to slingshot coconuts into the ocean.
While £70 won’t buy you the same degree of immersive reality offered by the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift or PlayStation VR headsets, this is a surprisingly convincing device that’s both comfortable and straightforward to set up, requiring nothing more than installing an app and slotting your phone in to get going.
There’s no killer app just yet, and you’ll find the current library of compatible games and films a little lacking, but if you’ve got the right phone for it the Daydream View is the perfect entry point into VR.