Daydream View

​​When Google launched its Daydream View headset, the company said that many smartphone makers would create phones that support Daydream mobile VR. While that list has grown slower than we anticipated, the Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8+ will be joining the fold in the coming months.

When Google's Daydream View mobile virtual reality headset ​hit shelves at the end of last year, it seemed capable, but lacked content. Has the selection of games, apps and experiences improved since then? We reviewed the best new Daydream releases to find out.

Samsung has a new Gear VR with controller arriving alongside the Galaxy S8 on April 21. While not much has changed besides the controller, let's compare the 2017 Gear VR and Google's Daydream View.

​The best VR experiences let users use their real-life bodies to maneuver in the virtual world. MindMaze wants to extend that immersion to include the user’s facial expressions: Its latest product, Mask, is a headset insert that tracks the wearer’s expressions and transmits them to their VR avatar.

When today’s virtual reality devices first hit the scene, we expected mobile VR to progress and grow at a striking pace. Fast forward to the present: Little has changed in mobile VR – to the point that its slow evolution could be dragging down the mainstream adoption of virtual reality as a whole.

Augmented reality (AR) has the potential for some really cool experiences, but it hasn’t yet hit the mainstream. Tango, Google’s AR platform for mobile devices, might help that along, and now Asus has unveiled the ZenFone AR, which works with Tango as well as Google’s Daydream VR headset.

In a few short years, virtual reality has gone from something only a lucky few had tried in private demos to a consumer product advertised in prime time television (Samsung, Sony and Google all ran TV ads this year). Let's take a look back at VR's arrival on the scene in 2016.

Google Daydream View is “intriguing, but not yet ready for primetime” and lags behind its (only) mobile VR headset competitor, the Samsung Gear VR. But gaps between these rivals should tighten over the next year and Daydream could even come out on top, thanks to a few key advantages.

​You’ve just unwrapped your shiny new tech gift, torn it from its sleek packaging, and got the thing up and running. Now what? Let New Atlas provide suggestions on which apps and games you should download first, for everything from smartphones to VR headsets.

If you've already got your hands on a Google Daydream View headset, then you are probably an enthusiastic early adopter. Here are New Atlas' picks for the best games and apps to download as you prepare to lose yourself through the power of mobile VR.

Mention virtual reality ("VR") and you’ll likely elicit one of two responses: either utmost enthusiasm and awareness, or something along the lines of Homer Simpson yelling “Neeeeerd!” But VR deserves to occupy a more substantive niche on the mainstream public radar, and here’s why.

New Atlas hands out awards for the best VR headsets of 2016.