HP's Reverb G2 VR headset is $150 below its normal selling price right now

It's a much better buy at $449 than its regular $599 asking price. (Image credit: HP)

HP's Reverb G2 is the best VR headset to come from the Windows Mixed Reality group, but isn't the most exceptional value at its normal $599 selling price. Fortunately, it goes on sale from time to time. Right now is one of those times—you can buy it direct from HP for $449.

That's a tidy $150 savings, and though it is not the deepest discount we have seen on the Reverb G2—it briefly dipped to $399 at Walmart in June—it's still a lot cheaper than what it normally sells for. Just as importantly, the lower price makes some of its shortcomings easier to digest.

Overall, as we highlighted in our Reverb G2 review, the main selling point is its high resolution, at 2160p per eyeball. In our testing, the annoying screen door effect is completely absent. The caveat is that you need a powerful PC that is capable of running VR games smoothly at 4K. Though if not, you can step down the resolution per eye.

Another highlight is that this uses inside-out tracking. That means there are no base stations to configure or clutter up your living space. Unfortunately, we found the overall tracking volume to be limited, but it's still very much a usable VR headset. Plus the excellent motion gyro sensors built in the controllers help overcome tracking struggles by predicting hand movements when outside of the tracking zone.

We still really like the Oculus Quest 2, but between the requirement to link it to a Facebook account and the recent recall over the face mask, the Reverb G2 is a fine alternative.

Paul has been playing PC games and raking his knuckles on computer hardware since the Commodore 64. He does not have any tattoos, but thinks it would be cool to get one that reads LOAD"*",8,1. In his off time, he rides motorcycles and wrestles alligators (only one of those is true).