Yeah I have a Galaxy S8 powered Gear VR and its honestly, at least in terms of clarity, not much different than what I get with the Vive or the Rift. PSVR actually has the least amount of screen door effect, but its actual content is typically rendered at a lower resolution than the display is capable of (so it can look more jaggy than the others at times).
As for what separates them? First of all, with anything NOT the Gear VR, you get to actually move around in the game world. Like, walk around, look close at stuff, up at stuff, under stuff. Obviously the Vive does this best, followed by a fully decked out Rift, and then much further behind is the PSVR. But still, that's like an immediate increase to immersion right there. Imagine laying on your back to work on underneath a car in Job Simulator. Or going prone and crawling through grass (on your carpet) in Rec Room paintball games.
After that, yes, the controllers. You have your hands, weapons, dildo, actually tracked in 3D space, so you can interact with things just like in real life (assuming the game lets you). In one sports game I played, I went over to another player and we fist bumped each other. Fucking surreal man.
Last, you have an order of a magnitude difference in rendering / processing power between mobile "VR" (like the Gear) and these more expensive sets. So instead of your games looking like shitty mobile apps running at an inconsistent framerate, you have AAA quality visuals that rival regular 2D games and run at 90 frames per second LOCKED.
the only similarity is that the display/lense clarity are comparable. But that's like saying you have to wear the same slightly fuzzy glasses to play your Atari games and your PC games.
does that help?
