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Samsung’s new VR headset includes a controller

Slips into strap on headset when not in use

Gear VR with controller
Samsung

With more than 5 million smartphone-powered Gear VR headsets already on the market, Samsung today announced an upgrade to the system that includes a controller.

The new curved controller features a touchpad and is designed to be used and held like a remote control. Samsung says the touchpad supports various forms of motion, including the ability to point, drag and drop, tilt and shoot. The controller also has a trigger and Home, Volume and Back keys.

The Gear VR headset itself includes a strap for holding the controller when not in use. It appears the rest of the specs are the same, which means it has 42mm lenses, 101-degree field of view and advanced distortion correction technology. The headset supports both a micro USB and USB type-C port with an included converter.

The headset, like the previous version, is compatible with the Galaxy S7, S7 edge, Note5, S6 edge+, S6 and S6 edge.

The news comes out of the annual World Mobile Congress in Barcelona, Spain. Samsung didn’t release any new sales figured with the announcement, but just last week Oculus’ Jason Rubin said that Samsung had sold “over 5 million” of the units. The Gear VR runs on Oculus software.

While sales numbers for VR headsets aren’t typically available, a story today in the New York Times quotes a Sony exec saying that more than 900,000 PlayStation VR headsets were sold in the first four months.

Late last year, Google entered the mobile VR headset market with Google Daydream, a system that also comes with a controller.

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