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I’ve made my feelings about Micro-OLED displays pretty clear: these tiny screens are the future of high-end virtual reality. They’re stunning; with deep blacks, a stunning range of colours, and none of the usual pitfalls of non-OLED displays. The Pimax Dream Air has two of them, hidden away beneath a compact pancake lens system. It’s the only VR headset I’ve worn as of late that made me say “wow” out loud—I haven’t done that since, well, probably the first time I wore a VR headset.
The Dream Air is tiny, too. It more closely resembles a pair of ski goggles than the company’s other VR headset, the Crystal Super, which looks more like a prop from an ’80s sci-fi movie than a modern-day wearable. Both are impressive in their own way—my first time experiencing Micro-OLED was in the Crystal Super—but the Dream Air’s diminutive size and light build make it far more comfortable to wear over long periods.
So, it’s the best VR headset, right? I wish it were that clear cut. I’ve not tried anything that gets close to the Dream Air in terms of visuals, size, and comfort; however, it lacks finesse in tracking. The model I’ve been testing uses Pimax’s own inside-out tracking technology called SLAM, and whether it’s this or the run-of-the-mill controllers that Pimax bundles with all its headsets, it’s not up to the job as well as others. I wish that weren’t such a dampener on the whole thing, but it really is the Achilles’ heel of the Dream Air as it stands today.
Not every VR game requires controllers. Flight sims, racing sims, and anything with immersive, non-standard controls are best suited to the Dream Air. Though these games often come with their own set of challenges to deal with. While the Dream Air doesn’t have the widest field of view (FOV) for these sorts of experiences, it has something even better, in my opinion. So, let’s get into the details.
Buy if…
✅ You hate the feeling of a hefty headset on your head: The Dream Air is a very comfortable VR headset, owing mostly to its diminutive size.
✅ You enjoy sim gaming: For its superb visuals and sleek design, the Dream Air has no rival for sim racing among VR headsets I’ve tested.
Do not buy if…
❌ You want to play a fast-paced shooter or VR sports: The tracking on the controllers just isn’t up to scratch, especially when compared to other cheaper headsets on the market.
❌ You don’t have a high-end graphics card: This is a seriously demanding headset, with a resolution to make a graphics card squirm.
Pimax’s slickest VR headset yet. The best I’ve tested for visual fidelity and long-term comfort; if only its tracking was as competent as the competition’s.
Pimax Dream Air – Features
| Row 0 – Cell 0 |
Dream Air SLAM |
Crystal Super Micro-OLED |
Crystal Super QLED Mini-LED |
|
Display |
Sony Micro-OLED |
Sony Micro-OLED |
QLED Mini-LED |
|
Lenses |
Concave Pancake |
Concave Pancake |
Glass Aspheric |
|
Resolution per eye |
3840 × 3552 |
3840 × 3552 |
3840 × 3840 |
|
Horizontal FOV |
~110 ° |
~116 ° |
~127 ° (50 PPD) / ~106 ° (57 PPD) / ~140 ° (Ultrawide) |
|
Weight |
~170 g |
~600 g |
~600 g |
|
Tracking |
SLAM inside-out (Lighthouse available) |
SLAM inside-out / Lighthouse |
SLAM inside-out / Lighthouse |
|
Price |
$2,299 ($1,999) |
$2,199 |
$1,599 |
The Pimax Dream Air has an enviable specs sheet. The stuff one could only dream of when first trying on a HTC Vive or Oculus Rift.
Let’s start with the optics. It comes with twin 1.35-inch Sony Micro-OLED panels with pancake lenses over top. Pimax calls these ‘ConcaveView’; the first of three lenses making up the pancake optics has a deep, recessed design, as if someone pressed a golf ball into the glass just as it was out of the kiln. Two further lenses together adding up to a 110-degree horizontal FOV.
That’s the same FOV as the Crystal Super Micro-OLED, using the exact same optics in a much larger optical engine such as the Quest 3, and Steam Frame. With a 140-degree FOV, the Crystal Super QLED has it beat (Ultrawide version), but I prefer the Dream Air for one key reason.
Binocular overlap. This is the portion of a frame that is displayed across both screens in a VR headset. It’s noted as a percentage: the higher this percentage, the more of a frame is shared by both screens, and the easier it is for your brain to blend the two images into one. After all, humans have stereo vision, and the brain is constantly trying to match up two slightly differing views of the world into one complete image. It’s also very important in how comfortable and convincing a virtual reality experience is.
It varies person to person, but generally, a higher binocular overlap is best. It’s a big deal for me, anyways, which is why I’m more than happy with the Dream Air. It has an excellent binocular overlap of 86%, far in excess of something like the Quest 3, which only comes in at 69%. That headset has a notably low binocular overlap, which I personally find leads to more eye strain and me reaching for my ever-so-slightly corrective glasses.
I can’t wear my glasses with the Dream Air, as it doesn’t offer much wiggle room for the frames, but I needn’t worry. I’ve not found any need for them, even over longer periods of play, and I chalk that up to its high binocular overlap.
Here are the figures from my most recent round of testing in ‘What is my Field of View?’, or as it’s more commonly known, WimFov.
- Dream Air – 86%
- Dream Air (Wide FOV mode) – 77%
- Crystal Super QLED (50 PPD) – 77%
- Crystal Super Micro-OLED – 86%
- Quest 3 – 69%
At a resolution of 7680 x 3552 (each eye at 3840 x 3552), the twin Micro-OLED displays are razor sharp. Using the Pimax Play software, these can be configured to run at either 90 Hz or 72 Hz, with the latter being a benefit if you’re lacking suitably powerful silicon. This headset is very demanding and will require a high-end graphics card at its native resolution.
There’s also eye tracking built into the Dream Air. This can also be configured in the Pimax Play application. It feels snappy and responsive in that tool, and though the uses can be a little limited, depending on what games you play, it is also a must-have for some titles; games like DSC, for instance, which support Quad Views rendering for the best performance and visuals with eye tracking. Similarly, it’s pretty useful if you can figure out Pimax’s own in-house center rendering tool, which runs when it’s selected as the OpenXR runtime. That can be a bit tricky to sort game-to-game, in my opinion, but it is an option if you’re willing to tinker.
The Dream Air tracks your movements through either inside-out or Lighthouse tracking, depending on which version you buy. I have the inside-out version here for review, what Pimax boisterously calls the SLAM version, which includes four cameras; each one covering a quadrant of the area in front, below, and above the headset. This version also reportedly supports hand tracking, though I’m yet to figure out how to turn it on.
Two controllers are included in the box. These are one and the same with the controllers included with the Crystal Super, and as such are pretty mediocre. They’re comfortable enough, though they use a design that’s more common among older VR headsets with a halo around the hand. They’re rechargeable using USB Type-C, at least, which saves on buying AA batteries like the rest of them.
There are two speakers nestled into either side of the strap, in a fashion similar to the Quest lineup. They’re pretty decent, which is a relief, as they’re all you’re gonna get without running another cable from your PC—there’s no 3.5 mm jack on the headset. Speaking of cables, the device has one tethered to both sides of the headset, for better balancing, that combines into a roughly four-metre long flexible and not-too-chunky cable into a breakout box. The breakout box requires a USB 3.0 and DisplayPort connection from your PC, and power from a supplied adapter.
Pimax Dream Air – Optics
The Dream Air has the best optics of any headset I’ve used. It’s truly next level. A potent combination of contrast, colour, and clarity that only Micro-OLED can so far deliver.
Every object is rendered in absurdly crisp detail within the Dream Air. Even an instructional pop-up looks good. They’re very readable, too, as text rendering is greatly improved between this and older, cheaper headsets. I’ve been replaying Half-Life: Alyx—still the best game you can play with a VR headset—and the difference between the Dream Air and a Quest 3 is startling. Namely in how vibrant and immersive the former feels.
The Quest 3 appears washed out, lacking clarity, and jittery. The Dream Air feels like you’re experiencing the game as the developers intended; like seeing the game world in full detail, rather than a facsimile. I personally feel a lot closer to the action when the quality has been improved by so much. In darker environments, the individually-lit pixels of the Micro-OLED produce incredibly atmospheric contrast. It’s really creepy when you’re hunting for headcrabs under shelves and around corners.
There’s a pretty extreme difference in price between the Dream Air and Quest 3, so how about something more its own speed? The Pimax Crystal Super with a couple of QLED displays certainly comes closer to the Dream Air due to its equally high resolution and impressive optics. Yet it’s the depth of colour and contrast that places the Micro-OLED on a rung above.
I generally find pancake lenses have a little more visible glare compared to more traditional aspheric lenses, and that’s certainly true of the Dream Air. It’s noticeable in the TestHMD test environment; less so while actually playing games, but it is definitely present either way. Though it’s not quite as bad as the Quest 3 in this regard.
There’s no visible aliasing due to the sheer number of pixels on the screen, nor does the screen door effect raise its ugly head. The teeny tiny pixels on the teeny tiny 1.3-inch Micro-OLED displays see to that. They are, after all, manufactured directly onto silicon substrates, achieving pixel density often in the thousands, where traditional screens are only in the hundreds. The Sony ECX344A used here has a pixel-per-inch (PPI) of 3,389. A standard 27-inch 4K monitor has one of just 163.
That also translates into a high pixel per degree (PPD) of over 50. With a field of view within the same sort of range as other high-end VR headsets, at around 110 degrees, it’s not alone at the top of the pile; however, it is an excellent rating. Much higher than a Quest 3 or the upcoming Steam Frame.
(Image credit: testhmd)
The FOV, at around 110 degrees, isn’t breaking any records. That’s pretty standard for a VR headset today, and I measured the effective FOV with the provided facemask and IPD at 64 to be more like 90 degrees horizontal (88 vertical). There is a wide FOV mode in the Pimax Play advance settings, which extends that to around 98 degrees, closer to the given rating; however, it drops binocular overlap from an excellent 86% to 77%. It’s also not anywhere close to the Crystal Super QLED Ultrawide at 140 HFOV, but that’s pretty wild.
(Image credit: wimfov)
The biggest downside to all of this? The hardware required to run it all. With over 27 million pixels to deal with, you’d better have a very high-end and modern graphics card in your gaming PC. Even an RTX 5080 can struggle in my experience, and I’ve had to roll out render scaling in the Pimax Play application, sharpening, and even upscaling to try to ease the performance hit with some demanding titles. So, if you think the VR headset is already too expensive, think again; the PC required to run it is much, much more.
Pimax Dream Air – Controllers and tracking
A reality check for any potential buyer: The controllers included with the Dream Air aren’t great, with consistently inconsistent tracking. Or perhaps it’s the SLAM tracking. Either way, the interplay between the controllers and headset is a little clunky.
There are two controllers included with the Dream Air. They’re identical to what’s included with the Crystal Super, and include a halo around the top, four buttons, one trigger, one grip button, and a thumbstick on either side. They’re rechargeable via a USB Type-C on the underside, and come with fairly standard wrist straps with an adjustable size. Due to the halo around the top, I have smacked the two controllers together a few times, as is tradition with this sort of design, but that’s not a huge issue. What does wear thin after a while, however, is the tracking.
Between these controllers and the four tracking cameras on the headset, the tracking is inconsistent. It’s not game-breaking but it does remind me of much older VR headsets in terms of accuracy and dexterity.
The issue is present most of all at the extremes of human movement, ie, trying to raise my hands above my head or down at my waist. Climbing a cliff in Blade and Sorcery turned into an exercise in mental resilience, as my hands would often get stuck or feel unresponsive, jittering or wobbling to and fro, as I tried to make my ascent and slipping back down the hill like Bennett Foddy. It’s quite realistic, in a way, as my own vertigo would cause me similar jitters in real life, but as a VR experience, it’s quite frustrating.
Reaching toward holsters located at your waist in other VR titles also proves a tricky scenario for the Dream Air. Any action that requires the controllers moving close to your body seems to put the tracking at a disadvantage. As it stands, I prefer the Quest 3 for games that require any level of dexterity in controls.
Case in point, I’ve been on a mission to defeat a cat in the game Eleven Table Tennis. My AI opponent, a cat who stares blankly at me as it serves and returns with laser-guided precision, is only set to the second difficult level, but I’m yet to defeat it. Though this hasn’t been helped by the Dream Air. I can barely even serve with the Dream Air, due to both an inability to toss the ball into the air to begin my serve with any accuracy, or return the ball with a controlled speed. The Dream Air’s controllers seem unable to judge the speed and inertia to a required accuracy. Meanwhile, I can serve and genuinely compete with (but not beat) the smug cat while wearing the Quest 3.
Room-scale boundaries also need to be set-up pretty much every time you put down and pick up the Dream Air. It tends to ‘lose’ its place in the real world once it’s down on the ground, and while the process to make a new one is fairly slick, it’s a real frustration when you have to do it over and over again during play.
Ideally, you’d use the Pimax Dream Air with a sim rig, which would cut a lot of the hassle out of using its insufficient tracking. Though I’ve been attempting to play a few sim racing games in VR over the past week, and I’ve been reminded just how convoluted and messy trying to get my sim racing wheel, pedals, and shifter working in a game alongside VR. That’s not on Pimax; it’s just an issue seemingly shared by many racing games over the years. Sim racers may prefer a headset with a wider FOV, anyways.
Pimax Dream Air – Ergonomics
The Dream Air has a dual-adjustable headband, but lacks any over-the-head strap for added support. Usually, I’d say that’s a big miss, but when you get down to this sort of weight class for a VR headset, it doesn’t make a difference. This thing is hella comfy.
The Dream Air weighs just 280 grams. That’s on my own scales, with the cable still connected, but not taking the weight of the entire 4-metre cable as well. Pimax has it listed as sub-170 grams without the cable connected. Comparing its weight to others on my scales and it’s clear nothing else comes close:
- Dream Air: 280 g
- Quest 3: 437 g
- Quest 3S: 454 g
- Crystal OLED: 848 g
- Crystal 50 PPD: 837 g
- Sony PS VR2: 499 g
Some of these VR headsets have their own system-on-chip and play games without a PC, but even compared to Pimax’s own Crystal Super Micro-OLED, using the same optics as the Dream Air, the weight savings are astounding.
I can wear the Dream Air for hours and not feel the strain. It moves around the least on my face of all the headsets I’ve tested over the past week, including the Quest 3/3S and other Pimax units. It gets a little hot along the top edge of the headset—right where the exhaust vents are for the two fans inside, so that checks out—however, I don’t feel like it warms up enough to make it uncomfortable, even after hours of testing. Combined with the stellar optics and binocular overlap, it’s the one VR headset I feel I can wear without glasses for hours on end.
Though, speaking of which, you cannot wear glasses in this compact headset. It does come with frames should you wish to buy prescription lens inserts.
The cable is well balanced, too. Ultimately, any VR headset with a cable is going to be less convenient than one without, but I do find not worrying about battery life to be a boon most of the time. In this instance, at least, the Dream Air’s twin-cable approach helps prevent the cable from tugging one side of the headset. It’s a simple solution to a problem many VR headsets have had over the years—a sign of some quality of life improvements for the previously slightly clumsy company.
(Image credit: Future)
My one small complaint is that the strap has a rather sharp edge to it, on both sides, where it terminates at the speaker housing. Now, this doesn’t necessarily have to be an issue, as you can position the headset and straps in such a way to avoid the sharp edge resting on your ears or head, but it does slightly limit the comfortable range of the headset a little. Other than that, the Dream Air is very comfortable. Top marks.
Pimax Dream Air – Software
Pimax Play is the one-stop shop for features and settings with the Dream Air. It’s a Spartan application, with a plain interface and minimal bloat, and it’s easy to use.
You’ll find the usual suspects in the settings menu within Pimax Play: IPD adjustment, firmware updates, and ways to pair controllers and trackers. But there is also more than meets the eye here. Pimax has a pretty complete feature set tucked away under device and advanced settings, which are key for unlocking the Dream Air’s full potential.
One important setting is render scale, which Pimax recommends adjusting down to lessen the load on the hardware. Combined with a sharpening filter, it’s easy enough to finely balance performance and fidelity. If performance is still an issue, there’s even upscaling support with FSR and NIS (Nvidia Image Scaling) to boost frame rates; though in doing so, hurting the overall clarity that you are paying a lot of money for in the first place.
You’re going to need a PC that is resolutely high-end for a good experience across the board.
Dynamic Foveated Rendering (DFR) is one way to increase performance that is supported through Pimax Play and the Dream Air’s eye tracking functionality. There’s also Quad Views support, which needs to be supported on a per-game basis to have an effect (namely in DCS). Finally, there’s Center Rendering, which has three modes: Quality, Balanced, Performance. In Pimax’s own words, this “Reduces rendering quality at the edges of the field of view while keeping the center in high resolution to save performance.”
I admittedly didn’t notice this was even functioning until opening up testHMD and noticing a distinct circle at the center of my vision, outside of which, lines and text were a little less defined.
With an RTX 5080 under the hood, I was able to combine a lower render scale, a touch of sharpening, and Center Rendering for a smooth 72 Hz—and in many cases, 90 Hz—experience in all of the games I played with this headset. There’s lots of flexibility here, which helps with performance on a range of PCs, though you’re going to need a PC that is resolutely high-end for a good experience across the board.
Though Pimax could maybe do a better job of signposting how these settings work and what they are dependent on in the application. VR still feels clunky at times, especially with per-game support for eye tracking, and it takes longer to get au fait with all the settings and what they do than I’d like.
Pimax Dream Air – Value
The Dream Air costs $2,299 ($1,999). A price tag like that sets very high expectations for the headset.
The Dream Air offers the best visual experience I’ve had in VR. It’s only matched by the Crystal Super Micro-OLED with the very same optics, but the Dream Air absolutely wins out on overall comfort and fit. The bulking behemoth of the Crystal Super compacted down into a headset the size of some ski goggles—the Dream Air is both impressive and selling at a similar price point.
The headset is genuinely pushing what’s possible in VR, and I have to say, I’m here for it. Virtual reality can feel a bit stagnant at times, stuck with the same games and tech for years, but the richness of detail, colour, and tone from the Dream Air does a lot to dispel that feeling. This is seriously impressive tech at an unattainably high price—it is, ultimately, a price I could not afford myself.
Then onto the tracking. This is one aspect of the Dream Air that doesn’t feel remotely high-end or worth $2,299. It’s clunky, old-fashioned, and a detriment to the experience. A pretty big one, too, in my opinion. I shouldn’t really be reaching for the $599 Quest 3 in order to play a game with more accuracy than the $2,299 headset currently on my head, nor having to reset my play area every single time I remove the headset. That is a big deal for me—I expect better at this price point.
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