So far:
Cons:
Headset feels a bit heavy (about same as Vive, Vive Pro) and is a bit warm unless you have air conditioning, he doesn't.
The color contrast is a bit washed out like the Rift S ( LED ) He's not sure if he would notice in game. ( He did notice this in one fps he was playing ) In a well lit room he said it's not a big deal, but in other higher contrast environments it is noticeable.
Horizontal FOV hasn't impressed him. He was hoping for more and thinks Valve oversold the FOV improvement.
Takes a bit of adjustment to the sweet spot ( a bit of a PITA) but once there everything looks great.
He wishes both the base stations and hand controllers where cheaper and he would have been happy to have less elaborate Rift style controllers to bring the cost down. In fact he eventually said he didn't like the placement of the D-pad.
Pros:
Audio is (amazing, awesome, incredible), sounds like speakers
Very solid construction
Loves the hand controllers (bloody awesome) even if he doesn't care about finger tracking, He doesn't think the finger tracking is perfect.
Vertical FOV is where he saw the improvement
Says it's very comfortable, more comfortable than the Vive/Vive Pro, Complained about the comfort of the Oculus Quest as being hard to wear for more than an hour. Seemed to talk down about the Rift S although said it l had good visuals.
It's very sharp and clear, (clarity is really nice) god rays are not bad and circular Fresnel rings are not noticeable
Blocks light really well, but not a priority of his
SDE is not noticeable
His term, "It has a large eye box" or sharp in focus area to look around in.
Easy to put/on and take off without having to adjust anything
He said the tracking was really good and so far he only has one base unit set up.
Says the resolution looks better than Vive Pro
He specifically said the this tracking is better than the Rift CV1 and MILES better than inside out tracking. He suggested that the Light house is 99.9% perfect, CV1 95% perfect, and Rift S 90% and that for playing room scale games you want that tracking accuracy.
He mentioned that CV1 -> Rift S (30% better) -> Index ( 30% better )
Index is much more comfortable, with better image quality, with better tracking, and much better tracking than a Rift S. He said it was miles better than the original Vive and 10-15% better than Vive Pro but with much better headphones and better comfort and better hand controllers. He did say the image quality was crisper and clearer.
They sent my base stations in separate shipments. One arrived.
The same base can be wall mounted or sit horizontally with two 1/4" threaded mount points depending on orientation. Has a ball head for adjustment that tightens. The power cables seem crazy long.