Paired with a high-end smartphone, the Google Cardboard turns into a virtual reality headset with high resolution and wide field of view, offering experiences like wide-screen streaming, virtual reality gaming, live concerts, and panoramic photo viewing.
The most impressive part of the product is that it has low "user-barriers", namely, it's cheap, sleek, and easy-to-use. Normally an immersive 3D experience requires a display with dense pixels, nice graphics cards, and motion sensors.But all of these turn out to be components of smartphone that everyone carries around. Thus by taking advantage of the smartphone hardware, Google Cardboard costs like nothing but offers "luxurious" visual experiences. By being so cheap, this virtual reality headset no longer only attracts hardcore video gamers and media futurists, but rather attracts anyone who wants to see better on a personal mobile device or experience digital information in a new way. Moreover, the Cardboard is lightweight and un-tethered, thus it is ideal for use whenever, wherever. It also requires no set-up. In fact,the user is just a couple of clicks away from the content. I believe for most people, a sleek product like Cardboard is much better than a bulky, wired device packed with expensive sensors and control boxes although even though the Cardboard has slightly worse display performance.
The product aims to pave the ground for a new platform that enhances the user's visual experience and redefines his/her interactions with real world. Of course, the platform would live and die with the content. Therefore another reason that I attribute to the product's success is it offers cool experiences for instant consumption. My attention was immediately hooked by the companion apps, which provide not only YouTube on a TV-sized screen, 360 panoramic photos, but also 3D exhibits, VR animation clips, live concerts, and VR games. In addition, thanks to the newly released SDK, the Google Cardboard promises more: both indie and big-ass app developers will help drive the wave by creating new experiences that will make the ecosystem richer and more mature.
To sum up, Google Cardboard VR headset is a easy-to-use product that offers cool viewing experiences at low price and creates a platform that connect end users who desire more impressive entertainment experiences on mobile platforms with developers who want to create 3D/VR content for the revolutionary medium.
