Our Oculus Rift CV1 Kickstarter Edition has arrived! There was some concern that we might miss the delivery since it required a signature, but with a knock at the door reminiscent of the post-dinner “Major Award” delivery from Christmas Story, the box was in our possession and ready to go.

Here’s the unboxing video we put together with our original Oculus Rift DevKit looking on as it’s new baby brother arrives into the world.

And here’s a stack of photos from the unboxing process. I’m still a big fan of the original DK1 packaging, so I include it in the photos to compare the old and the new.

The new carrying case shown below is considerably larger and made of a strong carboard material as opposed to the original molded-plastic case. It’s a beautiful box but not likely something I’ll feel comfortable transporting the new headset around in without a little more padding.

But as you can see in the following image the hardware itself is well protected inside. In fact the handheld controller was snapped in so tightly it was tough to remove. I haven’t tried packing it all back up yet, but I imagine it will all fit back in nicely.

Some have asked if there will be enough room for the Touch controllers when they arrive later in the year. Hard to say until we have them in-hand, as it were, but I do think there will be some room in the slot that holds the Xbox controller. However the Oculus Touch controllers are expected to come with a second camera and stand, which I highly doubt will fit with everything else. So some decisions would need to be made if you’re packing the kit up for a road-show of some sort.

Finally here’s a still of the original Oculus Rift Developer’s Kit next to the new Rift CV1 to compare the old and the new. I am genuinely impressed with the craftsmanship of the new device. It has that rare mix of a lightweight balance but a sturdy feel that makes me very comfortable handing the device to anyone without too much fear of it getting banged up.

Overall our initial experience with setup and installation has been very easy. The Oculus Store required us to remove all of the old Oculus drivers and software first, which didn’t take long. The cables plugged in nicely and we were inside the VR room within a half hour of opening the box.

My only wish is that the HDMI cable could be longer or allow us to plug in our own cable. It does not play nicely with passive HDMI couplers and needs to be plugged directly into the PC, which gives users like myself who have the computer in a cabinet a little less room to play with. The HMD will in fact work with an HDMI extender, but using the non-powered coupler resulted in sparkles and visual artifacts, so we went back to a direct connection. Later we’ll try using a powered HDMI extender.