The Microsoft HoloLens is one of the most fascinating devices I have ever used. Everybody I have shown it to, including my friend below, has been absolutely blown away by it. I actually brought it to Starbucks and people were joking (I think) that I was somebody from the future.
You can put an astronaut on your table, a ballerina on top of your television set, and you can play a game where robots break through your actual walls, forcing you to shoot them. The only problem I’ve had – and it’s a pretty significant one – is that the field of view is small. Picture an iPhone 6 Plus a couple feet away from your face, and that’s the space where you can actually see the holograms. Once you turn away from that space, the image clips and your immersive experience is (sort of) ruined.
I’m not holding the narrow field of view against Microsoft too much, especially since they got everything else just about perfect. The head tracking, the spacial stereo sound, and the high resolution graphics are impressive for a developer’s edition device. There’s nothing on the market like it.
The HoloLens needs developers to come up with new programs to take advantage of its capabilities.
However, because it’s so new and because it’s still only a developer’s edition, there isn’t a lot you can do with the HoloLens right now. I was really looking forward to using the HoloLens to watch videos. However, you can only watch Netflix or videos you load through OneDrive, as long as they are the “correct” format (some MP4 and Divx files of mine would not play).
I have not been able to get Hulu Plus to work. I originally thought that the HoloLens ran a desktop version of Windows 10, but it doesn’t – at least not the full Desktop version where you can install or run any program. Don’t expect to find a “File Explorer” folder; it’s simply not there.
I tried running a remote connection to my laptop through the Remote Desktop program. However, the Intel Atom processor is not really powerful enough on the HoloLens to run some programs efficiently. I tried using the Windows Media Player through the HoloLens, but the video kept stuttering.
Perhaps the problem is more with me than it is with the HoloLens. Microsoft delivered exactly what they promised for now and it’s up to developers to make the most of the HoloLens. However, there is still a big part of me that wishes I would have waited for the second version instead of taking the plunge with the first one.
