Somehow, virtual reality has become the name of the game and every PC manufacturer wants to get into the mix. Everyone is talking about how their products are VR-ready for this or VR-ready for that. The problem is that you’re still tethered to your PC and you can’t freely roam about the world as you explore a virtual world. A backpack PC can change all that and they’re already out in the wild.
Sam Byford from The Verge has put together an account of his experience with a VR backpack PC during his visit to Computex in Taipei. The main advantage to such a computer is that you don’t have that unfortunate cable running from your PC to your head, and thus, you eliminate one of the many opportunities to trip over something and hurt yourself for real.
We’ve seen a new gaming PC backpack from HP and, in the photo above, you see a solution from Zotac that literally shoves one of the company’s ZBOX computers into a backpack. Seeing how a VR-ready desktop is already going to run you north of $1,000 (not including the cost of an HTC Vive or Oculus Rift), I imagine a more compact and portable backpack PC will cost even more. And then you realize the battery only lasts about an hour.
And so, you’ve got to ask yourself whether such a setup is even worth your time anymore. Remember several years ago when “lifecasting” became a thing on Justin.tv and people were carrying laptops in their backpacks? This is, in a sense, an evolution of that, except the purpose is to dive into some other world through a pair of goggles. Are you game?