This is a review of the standalone VR for the masses – after about a week of playing around with it. Specifically, this is the 32 GB version that currently retails for $199. Unless you plan to load up your device with lots of movies and games I wouldn’t bother with the slightly more expensive 64 GB version.

The Oculus Go works independently of the Apple ecosystem – although you do need to install the free Oculus app on your iPhone to set up the oculus device. But once set up, you rarely need the app – except for adding in a payment method to fund your Oculus purchases and to set up a PIN for the same reason.

Oculus has an app to view photos in your iPhone photo library – but this feature is buggy and only worked for me once or twice, after which it has stopped working entirely. If or when it does work, check out some of your panoramic photos – they look really nice in the VR world. Regular photos look nice as well but a bit pixelated. Don’t expect the display quality to be like the retina display on your iPhone or Mac. There is lots of room for improvement here – but given the price tag, the image and video quality is reasonably good. No doubt this will improve over time as the hardware and display resolution gets better.

Next, we come to the Oculus apps or “experiences” as they like to call them. There are lots of freebies here to get you exploring – Discovery VR and Gala360 are fantastic! This is definitely a great boost for armchair tourism – but it is definitely a better idea to stand (on the same spot) or use a rotating stool so you can see all around you. The Go is only capable of 360 degrees views from the same location and you cannot physically walk around in the VR landscape. Stephen King fans might want to check out the IT video experience – currently part of the Oculus Video app.

You can watch your favorite movies in a movie-theatre-like VR environment – but at the moment, only NetFlix, Hulu and a few other streaming services are supported. You are out of luck if you wish to see movies in your iTunes library – for that, we will need to wait until Apple decides to hop on to the VR bandwagon. If streaming is not your thing, movies can be purchased or rented from the Oculus ecosystem instead. Overall, the VR movie experience is incredible – it is almost like sitting in a movie theatre. Again, with increased resolution and graphics fidelity, this will only get better with time.

Finally, we come to VR games. Shooting zombies is not exactly my cup of tea but rest assured there are lots of those games and videos. If you have never played VR games before, you should definitely check out a beautiful game called “Lands End”. This game has been crafted by the same developers who created Monument Valley and the entire landscape and music is just fantastic. You won’t need your controller to play this one – all the action is controlled just by moving your head. A truly hands-free gaming experience. You will almost feel like you have Jedi powers at times when moving heavy rocks around to solve the connect-the-dots puzzles.

Overall grade for the Oculus Go: B+