BARCELONA—Gear VR? Feh. LG can do virtual realiity for free. LG showed us the "VR for G3" headset here at MWC, a plastic Google Cardboard spin-off that lets you zoom around 3D, immersive worlds using your LG G3 phone.
The device is made of three pieces of plastic. The G3 snaps into the outer shell, which has a hole for the G3's volume buttons and headphone jack. Then there's an insert, which splits the screen into two halves, and finally some lenses to go over your eyes. It worked fine with glasses. There's no strap; you have to hold it up to your head.
It's only for the G3 because of the same reason the Gear VR is only for the Note 4 - to have a decent VR experience, you need a quad HD screen. I took a zoom around a city and rode on a roller coaster. It doesn't have Oculus Rift levels of smoothness or cinematic realism; while it absolutely tracked my movements, everything was rendered in pretty low quality. We've clearly reached the limit of today's smartphone GPUs. It works with all Google Cardboard apps, which means it'll probably work with those new ViewMaster reels, too.
This isn't serious VR. After a few minutes, I felt like I was in a 90s movie about VR, because of the slight lag and the blocky rendering. (I want to note that the screen isn't low-res - it was the rendering of the graphics so as not to strain the GPU.) But it's helping to broaden and popularize VR.
We're going to see more of these kinds of experiences, not just because VR is cool, but because Qualcomm and Nvidia are looking for reasons to sell more and more powerful mobile GPUs. Mobile high-end gaming hasn't gone entirely mainstream, but virtual vacations to vibrant vistas make high frame rates at super-sharp resolutions an absolute must. I wouldn't be surprised if this was included with all LG G4 phones, when that's announced later this year.
For more from LG at MWC, check out PCMag's hands on with the LG Urbane and Urbane LTE Smartwatches and LG's Midrange Smartphone Quartet.
Eugene Kim contributed to this report.