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Crave was tantalised by the idea of the PDT Eye-Theatre. Would it afford relief from squinting at the beautifully clear but frustratingly small iPod screen? Would it finally allow us to enter the William Gibson-esque world of virtual reality immerso-specs? And why does the set make us look so like Star Trek‘s Geordi La Forge?
We also liked the price tag. It’s a nice looking device, and at £150 it’s certainly cheap. The last one we can recall was made by Olympus in 2000 with a hefty price tag of £1,000.
Our first mistake was in having bad genes. If you wear glasses, you’re in trouble. We’re not saying that this personal multimedia viewer is anti-people with specs, but if you haven’t got contact lenses, it doesn’t want to know you.
The image quality was pretty good, although you do get the odd sensation of being right at the back of a large cinema. The set only weighs 78g, but if you were wearing it for a full-length film it would feel heavy, and we found the unforgiving plastic ear-pieces slightly painful.
Another niggle: any hint of overhead light causes an annoying reflection on the screen. The set is marketed for use on “trains, planes and automobiles” — we reckon if you wear them on a Tube or train you will look and feel a complete plonker. A long-haul flight (cabin lights dimmed — less conspicuous) is a real possibility; and as a passenger in a car it seems feasible, if you don’t easily succumb to motion discomfort.
We’re still waiting for the slender Ray-Bans that will plunge us into an immersive virtual world. And one final thing to note — despite the image pictured above, no woman in the world is ever going to curl up in bed with these as nightwear. Dream on, geekboys. -LC
