3.0 out of 5 stars
The Elite Strap with backup battery is fantastic. The carrying case? Not so much.
Reviewed in the United States on 16 October 2020
This is a difficult product to review, because it's two separate products in one. It's also a little shady that the Elite Strap with battery is not sold separately. I almost wonder if they did that knowingly to increase the sales of their case, which I don't believe is worth its price tag. As far as the case alone goes? You're better off waiting for likely superior and cheaper 3rd party options.
As it stands, the official Oculus case for the Quest 2 is just that: a carrying case. Nothing more, nothing less. I guess at a bare minimum it offers minimal protection, but really, it's just a decent place to put your headset away and carry around. There's minimal rubber dividers for your controllers and headset to sit in and around, and a small separated "compartment" that you can fit in the small charging cable. Aesthetically it is pretty good. Fairly professional looking. That's where the pros pretty much end. Let's move onto the cons.
- It doesn't have much foam/padding to speak of, so it doesn't have much in the way of shock absorption. If you drop this case, you may very likely still end up damaging the headset. There is just two small bits of hard styrofoam in place to help keep the headset and controllers down.
- It also doesn't have much give to it, either. I don't have to apply much force to either the top or bottom before it starts pressing inward. As a result, too much weight set on top of it could also possibly damage the headset. It's better than nothing. It's better than nothing, naturally. Better than a backpack or cardboard box, of course.
- There's not much in the way of form fitting spots for anything. Everything is slightly loose inside with just the ever so basic of dividers. The controllers just kind of sit in the middle and can very easily rattle around while carrying it. Thankfully there are rubber spacers in between them and the headset, so at the very least they shouldn't ever touch the lenses. I still put a soft lens cover in front of them, though.
- The zipper is used with a small string. I could very easily picture this string breaking at some point and will likely be a pain in the butt when that happens, as it's not easy to grab at the zipper without it. But that's not the real problem I've discovered with the zipper. As the elite strap fits in fairly snuggly along the edge, I've found the interior side of the zipper can possibly rub against it while trying to open/close. As a result, I've already got a minor scratch along the back of strap's hard plastic where it was pulled along. Not such a great thing to see on a new piece of equipment. So be careful there.
- The separated storage spot that you can put your charge cord into is nice, but it would have been better if it had some kind of door to keep it from falling out. However, for the most part it stays put.
Needless to say, $50 just for an absolute minimal carrying case is a tad too steep, but it is what it is.
Onto the Elite Strap with the battery. It's fantastic. I'm not sure if it's $80 more fantastic, if you decide the case isn't worth it, but the additional play time, ease of use, better comfort, and the weight distribution makes it great. If reviewing it alone, it would probably be 5 stars. I would gladly have paid $30-50 more for this version of the strap had they sold it separately from the case (versus the normal elite strap sold separately for $50). It does come with a clip, which I like to use when using a Link cable, but I tend to prefer to keep it off when just using the battery by itself. I find that it stores better as well and puts less awkward bending on the cord when trying to place it inside the case, as I keep the battery plugged into the headset at all times.
Pros:
- More play time. That's the obvious one. I can say that it seems to have doubled my available play time (4-5 hours). Most gaming sessions I can typically finish without both batteries dying on me. Then I simply charge them when I'm finished.
- Charging is simple. You keep the backup battery plugged into the headset always. There is an additional USB C port on the back of strap, which when plugged in, will charge both the battery and headset. The single indicator light on the headset when charging will remain orange until both are charged completely, and then the light will switch to green.
- Separate battery time notifications. With the Elite Strap backup battery, inside the headset it actually shows you the two separate battery lives, so you can see where each are at. You can always get your own backup batteries to use with the Quest 2, which I do have as well. However, 3rd party batteries when plugged in act simply as a charge for the headset battery. So the headset battery will merely appear as if it is running out more slowly (until the backup is depleted).
- More comfortable than the soft strap that comes with the Oculus Quest 2 by default. Well, relatively speaking. It mainly comes down to weight distribution. Especially with the battery that is included in this version of the elite strap. It has a near perfect weight balance between the front and back of your head, making for more comfortable gaming sessions. Especially for longer gaming sessions, which of course the backup battery allows you to do.
- Far easier to take on and off and adjust. The greatest thing about the straps with the wheel adjuster is just how easy it is to remove and put back on and very quickly tighten it into place for a perfect view experience.
Cons:
- I still do not personally find this strap as comfortable as the halo straps you can get that tighten around your head. Like the ones that come on the PSVR headset and Rift S. With the halos, you can tighten it around your head with soft padding, which is more comfortable than worrying about it being too tight around your brow and face. This is subjective, though, and some people seem to have the opposite experience.
- No, you can't plug in a link cable at the same time. This is only a 'sort-of-con' really. The back USB C port is only for charging. You will need to plug in a link cable to the headset itself in order to establish the Link. For the official Oculus Link cable, that's not a big deal, as it keeps your headset charged while linked. Unfortunately if you have a 3rd party cable, most of those do not keep the headset charged at the same time, so you can't take advantage of the backup battery and use the link simultaneously.
- Like with most halo-like strap designs, it's not comfortable while sitting back in a headrest chair or lying down on a bed. Luckily you can just swap out to the soft strap if you ever want to use it for that.
- Having said that last point, swapping the different type of straps isn't the greatest. This part of the headset is fixed, but protruding, and where the audio is stored. The pressure you have to apply to remove a strap and install a different strap makes me slightly uneasy. I suppose worse case scenario, you damage the audio component, which probably isn't a big deal for most people, who use their own headphones.
So I struggled trying to decide whether or not to give the overall package 2 or 3 stars. The Elite Strap with the battery is really good, but I don't know if it's kind of a cop-out that you can only get it with such a subpar case. That leaves you having to weigh in the cost of $130. Hopefully at some point Oculus will decide to sell the battery version of the strap separately.
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