Australian carrier Qantas will soon welcome a new breed of gadget
onboard -- the Samsung Gear VR, along with a Galaxy Note 4 to power it.
The phone's loaded with a special app that shows you 360-degree views of
the carrier's first-class lounges and even a virtual reality boat ride.
You can also use it to watch a movie, but unfortunately, if you want to
marathon House of Cards,
you'll have to use your own laptop or tablet for that. See, the bad
news is that there will be a limited number of Gear VRs available, and
it's not accessible to everyone flying Qantas: only folks in Business
Class aboard an Airbus A380 going from LA to Sydney or from Melbourne to
LA can borrow one. Even then, they're expected to use it only for a
limited time, so other people can take their turn.
Qantas is providing two units each for the Mebourne and Sydney
first-class lounges, four for inbound flights from LA and another four
for outgoing flights to the city. The lounges will be stocked with the
units as soon as mid-February, whereas the planes themselves won't be
offering the device until mid-March. If you're just looking to
experience using the virtual reality headset, though, it might be wiser
to just buy the $200 Gear VR and the $700 phone to power it, as each top-tier round-trip ticket for those Qantas flights cost roughly 20 grand.
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