The good news is that Vuzix have made a number of significant improvements when compared to the Wrap 920. The picture is definitely sharper and clearer - I think they have paid close attention to the scaling of different resolutions because the image quality is definitely more satisfying than it was on the older model. The image on the 920 always had a tendency to get dark in the upper and lower corners of the screen (the upper corner of the left image and the lower corner of the right image) but that problem has happily been solved with the 1200; the contrast and brightness are even across both displays, which makes adjusting the image quality much easier. Adjusting the 920 was always a study in compromise: trying to find a level where the corners weren't too dark and the middle wasn't washed out. Solving that headache may well be the single biggest improvement of the 1200, in my opinion.
The image seems generally sharper and cleaner on this model, and not just because of the slightly higher resolution. On the 920 I always found the NTSC image to be superior to the PAL image, which tended to be a bit fuzzy and less defined (this may be related to scaling again: mapping a 720x576 image onto a 640x480 display). When I tried PAL DVDs and television signals on the 1200 the image was significantly sharper and cleaner - it was quite gratifying. Also the 920 always had a bit of a problem with side-by-side 3D in PAL - there was always a distortion on the edge of the right-hand display (that was not there with NTSC 3D). There is no sign of that distortion with the 1200, I'm happy to say.
Vuzix have added Component Video connection to the 1200, which worked fine when I tried it; the unit recognised the signal immediately and displayed a good image with no difficulty. It may not have HDMI, but component video is certainly useful.
The basic 1200 model does not come with the VGA adaptor, but I already had the VGA cable from the 920, and it connected to that perfectly. Again, the image is significantly better than the 920 could produce when connected via VGA. The 920 could only handle a maximum resolution of 1024x768, and even then had a good deal of distortion and interference. I usually set the computer to 800x600 as a decent compromise; the 920 scaled that rather better. The 1200 displays a crisp clean image at 1280x720. I was able to use Stereoscopic Player for photos and videos and the 3D image was excellent. Reading text was not so good, unfortunately. the 852x480 display is a bit too low to make out the fine print on most websites (I would have no hope of reading messages on this forum, for example) but in fairness, Vuzix do not recommend using these sets as replacement computer monitors. If you lower the resolution the text becomes readable, but unfortunately all the standard settings (800x600, 1024x768) have the wrong aspect ratio, so that doesn't really solve anything. I have an Acer Pico Projector that uses the same 852x480 resolution, and that has exactly the same difficulty with text. This isn't purely the fault of Vuzix, at least!
For use as a video monitor, the increase in resolution to 852x480 is surprisingly dramatic. Since most broadcast television is 16x9 these days, images on the Wrap 920 had to be letterboxed, which meant you were wasting an awful lot of pixels. Rather than using the 640x480 display, you were essentially using a 640x360 display. For 16:9 source material, even the Headplay was only utilising a resolution of 800x450 - the remaining pixels went to waste in the letterboxed area. For widescreen video, the 1200 really does look good. It may not be HD, but it is better than most of the other headsets I have tried.
Now for the bad news:
Although the image quality is really very good, I'm afraid the same cannot be said for the lenses. It's almost as if Vuzix chose lenses that are a fraction too small for the displays behind them. The Headplay had the same problem; the displays (although very good) were very fuzzy around the edges. The bizarre part about the lenses on the Wrap 1200 is that they are actually smaller than the lenses used on the Wrap 920. Here is a side by side comparison - the 1200 is on top and the 920 is below:
Being able to adjust the IPD helps, but even so, I found it very difficult to get the two lenses centred so that they are both sharply in focus from edge to edge. Also, the nose-piece is an instrument of torture; I still have not been able to get it adjusted to my satisfaction. If I remove it completely, I can position the lenses by hand so that the image is perfect, but I have not yet been able to bend the nose clips so that they hold the unit in that position. I remember I had the same trouble with the 920 when I first bought it (and of course the two nose-pieces are different, so I can't just put the old one into the 1200
). I don't know why Vuzix has such trouble designing a comfortable nose-piece; Ziess can do it, Olympus could do it, why not Vuzix?I'm going to keep experimenting with the 1200 for the next few days, but so far (on balance) I am mostly happy to have bought it. For my purposes the widescreen display and the improved image quality make it a satisfying upgrade to the Wrap 920. If the lenses had been better (if they were even as good as the lenses on the 920!) I would be completely happy with it. Unfortunately for Vuzix, I think both Zeiss and Sony are going to cast some very long shadows over their new release.
