HP's VR backpack computer starts shipping this week
There may be a catch to buying the Omen X right now, though.
HP's latest virtual reality backpack PC has been a long time in coming: the company unveiled it in June and promised a July release that came and went with nothing to show. At last, though, it's here. HP now expects to ship the Omen X Compact Desktop on October 10th. You'll have to drop $2,500, but you too can sling a speedy gaming PC (with a 7th-generation Core i7 and GTX 1080 graphics) on your back and avoid tripping over cables while you explore VR worlds. There is, however, a gotcha you'll need to be aware of before you splurge on this wearable system.
You see, the $500 backpack portion was slated to ship on October 13th but is listed as out of stock as of this writing. If you're one of the first to buy the PC at this point, you'll have to either hook up your VR headset the old-fashioned way or (gasp) make do with staring at a conventional screen. It's far from a hardship -- if you can swing a $2,500 PC, a $500 backpack and a VR headset, you can probably afford to wait. Still, it suggests that HP wasn't quite ready to handle demand.
