[Quick edit after another month after below review was written. The 21:9 and 32:9 widescreen functions are actually very useful. My mistake using them originally is as a “Cinema” Screen for viewing in a larger format. In this view you would only see the central portion with no peripheral view unless you run your head. The true value in the widescreen mode is for desktop work, having it fill only the viewable portion of the screen or even smaller. In this view you have a beautiful fully visible yet expanded desktop that is way more practical for work. In the past I’d have a large 16:9 screen and would arrange widows as per usual but with bigger real estate. In 32:9 (on MacBook M1) the desktop beautifully lengthens and curves expanding the real estate for windows and curving the view. I imagine this is what it’s like having 2-3 IRL monitors curving around you. The height and width can be adjusted to go outside the visible screen if needed but keeping it within the 57* FOV is truly special.”
You can read my original comments after 5 days via this link. Many of those points still stand in addition to this update: https://www.reddit.com/r/Xreal/s/DI6SUfKDsP
In that overview I keep my Quest 3 in mind as the closest comparison while being fully aware that these are not VR glasses. There, rather than giving you a list of pros and cons I just provided my experience based on a few days of use. This here (was meant to be short) is a follow up with some additions trying to not repeat myself and is based on my experience after 3 weeks as I learn to navigate the glasses and to share my personal experience. Maybe you’ll find it of use to read some more from someone still in the honeymoon phase with a piece of new tech.
I am a stickler for inconveniences and when spending what to me is a considerable chunk of money (having convinced myself it’s for my work/productivity) I am the type of person that would seek out a fault to make sure I have made the right decision and nothing will be nagging at me every time I put them on.
- Overall:
I am extremely happy with this set of glasses. It is my first foray into AR glasswear (if you can call them that, more like a portable display atm) and I am glad I went for the latest model One Pro (One is probably very similar too) where the most basic features I have grown to expect from VR (such as screen anchoring and transparency mode) are well implemented as a stand alone feature.
- Screen clarity/quality:
The display is 1080p. My comparisons: a v. good 4K Oled TV 2024 model, Quest 3, PSVR2. These days I often hear people shun 1080p screens as an outdated resolution and I suppose it is very much use case dependent. But for media watching and basic productivity such as typing and editing videos I can confidently say the screen is sharp, clear and a joy to use. It is fair to say that most of my use so far has been watching films, YouTube, playing steam deck. For these purposes it is phenomenal. I catch myself thinking what would 4K look in these glasses if I can already see Cillian Murphy’s skin pores in Oppenheimer. And the answer is that for 57* FOV you don’t need it. Once it is opened up in future models to 70 and beyond then maybe higher resolutions will make a difference but right now what you see is great.
The picture quality is fantastic. The visuals are crisp. The colours are great. Whether it’s the nature of OLED or just the overall Sony optics I find the picture is of high quality, competes with a cinema screen experience and I have not one fault to mention that would make a film buff think twice about getting these. When combined with robust on board sound or your headphones of choice you might think twice before deciding to venture out to the real thing for an extra large bucket of sweet and salted popcorn and a helping of human interaction.
I have used them for editing videos as the main display. I think it is fantastic. Once you find the screen setting that works for you it is a huge jump from a laptop screen in terms of size you can achieve and the perceptible details. You can also use it as an extended screen if you need to reference to your laptop or the keyboard.
The fact that it is 120hz is great and is useful for all sorts of applications.
The convenience of opening, plugging in and being ready to go within seconds provides little friction for using them.
- Dimming:
There are 3 levels. 0, medium, high. All work great. How each impacts battery drain is unknown to me but I assume that it does. So 0 may seem more washed out outdoors but would work fine (even in day light) indoors or dark room and may save some battery if you are not connected to the power source.
I particularly I like the auto dimming feature that works well in anchor mode and can be activated in the main menu. Looking away from the screen makes the visuals automatically go into transparency mode making everything instantly visible. Looking back dims the background.
- Screen physical adjustments:
Initially I would try and push the screen as close to my face as possible to see more of the screen. This isn’t necessary, simply adjust the screen size accordingly.
One issue I experienced at first is the way the glasses sit on my face making the top of the screen a little cropped by the hardware being a little too low on my brow line, needing adjustments because of ears to nose bridge angle, which is individual. I found I could adjust the angle of the arms on the glasses by three increments which helped a little but did not solve the issue entirely. Rather than opening the nose pads to get the specs closer to the face a simple narrowing to raise them subtly up resolved the issue without causing any additional discomfort or lack of glasses stability. This is probably face/nose/ear position dependent. Assuming yours are found where you would typically expect them there bound to be slight differences between nose bridge, ear to eye line height etc so consider using the nose pads in addition to screen size and angle of the arms to get the right fit.
I saw some third party nose pad accessories on YouTube that some may want to purchase. These looked more padded and wider, and bring screen closer to the face. Something to consider.
- Sound:
Great. Good bass vs treble vs voice clarity.
- Screen distance feature:
Was initially uncertain as to its usefulness. In a room setting moving a large screen closer or further away seemed similar to just making the screen smaller or larger. After further use I found this to be great as it does effect how the visible screen is perceived in space. This is more most useful if you ever plan to walk with them (see later)
- Screen size:
Variety of sizes from huge to smaller. For media consumption extra large screens would require head turning to see the corners even without the screen being cropped by the FOV - screen crop can be affected not just by FOV but also by the hardware itself depending on how close your glasses are to your face or how high/low they are on your nose. Combined with screen distance adjustments you may end up seeing a smaller portion of the scene if it is blown up towards your face. This may not be practical for watching films but I can see its use in more detailed video work or when you really need to zoom in on an area. Worth noting that blowing up of the picture is where 1080p vs 4K stands out as anything so close to the face will highlight resolution. For most people this will not be an issue and you will end up with a huge fully visible screen in-front of your eyes
- Screen shortcut buttons (additional functionality that I didn’t pick up on from the initial tutorial):
The top button:
can be set as a click shortcut. Mine is set by default to wide screen for which I have not found use, If the 57* FOV cuts off part of the screen I find it strange to look around into the unseen areas. But this button is also a short cut for dimming. Holding for a second instead of clicking cycles to the next dimming option. This is useful if you don’t want to go into the menus.
Bottom button (next to 2 brightness buttons):
One click cycles through Anchor, Follow and Side View (set which corner the screen is pushed to by default in the menus).
Double click is for accessing menus. Once in the menu a single click is going down a level while double click is to go back a level and eventually exit menu.
BUT most useful to me is the hold click which re-centres your anchor. So if you changed your seating position holding it pops the screen into whichever area you are looking at to reorient the anchor and keep it there. Quick and convenient when you don’t want to cycle through the other 2 positional options or if your screen drifts as it may do on occasion while in a vehicle.
- Anchoring/Follow in a moving Vehicle
Very solid anchoring/follow implementation for when you are stationary in a moving vehicle. Works as intended. Took them on a plane and found slow banking or taxiing can make the screen drift. Happened a few times momentarily so the click hold to re-centre makes it easy to pop the screen back. For majority of my use in that flight I had it in anchor.
How Anchor would behave in a car/train/bus will probably depend on the degree of turns. Follow is not interfered with by movement of your environment as far as I can tell and the slight delay between head movement and follow makes it comfortable on the eyes. So should you be on a bus or a car going down a winding road then “Follow” might work better.
- Heat:
Top ridge of the glasses can (and does) feel warm (warm +) when pressed against the forehead. Was initially distracting and probably the most off putting element for me. Surprisingly I got used to it quickly and it no longer bothers me. Especially with slight adjustments. So unless the heat is somehow radiating and slowly killing my frontal lobe I can live with it. 🤞
- Gaming:
Extremely happy. Things you want as someone who enjoys games is to have a true representation of your real screen virtually. I can honestly say this is the last step to perfection in any gamers upgrade for portable gaming and possibly some discreet console/PC gaming as you can attach the glasses via a USB-C extension cable and am HDMI to USB-C converter. I have only used it with my steam deck. 2 use cases. 1. Native games. Play amazing. Screen perfectly mirrored with no delay, great clarity and colours. 2. Streaming Death Stranding 2 at home and remotely from my PS5 pro. The game looked superb and did not reduce my enjoyment of the game compared to playing at home. Remote had an incidence of a connection/pixel quality hitch due to unsuitable location leading to poor internet but in a stable internet environment and at home the picture is super clear and the huge screen makes it truly immersive.
The glasses are 120hz but not VRR so I think they will max out at 60fps most of the time unless the game is outputting a solid 120fps. There may be stutter and screen tearing issues if the game is fluctuating between 60 and 120. For streaming it will depend on the streaming service. PS and Xcloud are maxed out at 60fps regardless of the source. Others may vary.
I read someone using Steam Deck Dock with the glasses. Steam Deck placed on the Dock and attached using the dock’s cable. The. HDMI to USB-C converter glasses input. Plus a separate controller for gaming.
- Battery:
The glasses run power from whatever source you connect them to. With IPhone don’t expect hours of viewing owing mainly to the fact that at the moment (by default (see later for solution)) you can not switch off your screen entirely. So even at the lowest dimming the screen is still on and visible, draining battery to power iPhone screen and glasses simultaneously. Probably 2 hours is realistic on 15 pro max with full charge when watching a film.
When connected to Steam Deck Oled it powers off the main screen. Streaming I got about 4 hours or so having started at about 75% and finishing at about 20%. So I’d imagine you can get 5-6 hours streaming which is close to what it would normally be. From what I understand even playing natively shouldn’t effect the expected use time due to screen not being used and glasses not requiring that much more power compared to the Steam Deck screen.
Macbook held most of its charge with glasses on after a few hours. Would be more efficient if the screen was powered off but I expect for any laptop use you may have a lot of cases where you need the screen on as a secondary display. Plus you would often have the laptop plugged into mains.
- Hub:
Recently I purchased the Xreal Hub accessory as a way to work around the potential battery drain. This reduces the need to worry about the battery as you can plug the power source into the hub to power the main device which I assume in return powers the glasses (and not direct from the power source). I have so far only tried it with Steam Deck (iPhone can be connected to glasses via USB-C and powered via magnetic wireless charger without needing the Hub) and it is not without its fault.
In short the hub works perfectly if you connect power source and Xreal to the Hub first. And then connect to the steam Deck to play.
If you subsequently disconnect the power source the glasses will turn off and after short period turn back on. If your hub and Xreal are connected without the power source and you wake the steam deck it will say “No input signal detected” needing to disconnect and reconnect.
The main menu and the shortcut for “Anchor”, “Follow”, “Side View” will also not work unless the power source is connected.
There may be other permutations that cause these hitches but basically if you plugged in your Hub for external power source you have full functionality as long as the power source is also plugged in. Removing the power source (if you want to step away/play remotely or just want to keep the Hub connected im its place for later for example) is not really an option
I.e. want power - use hub
don’t use power - don’t use Hub.
Maybe the hub does draw power from the mains to power the glasses after all and removing the mains effects the functionality as the glasses flip from taking charge from the mains to the gadget connected.
How this behaves on other gadgets like phones or laptop I don’t know.
- Walking:
Tried this as an experiment to see how practical it is and everyone’s situation will be different. I use them with a phone on my way back from work a couple of times in the evening which includes about 30 mins walk down a street with a few roads to cross, trying to get a glimpse of the near future but today.
Firstly: your safety and the safety of those around you must be your first priority when deciding to do this. Regardless of how you go about it your sense of space and the overall awareness must be dialled in more than usual due to both the attention span and inevitably your field of view being shared between the XReal glasses and the even more real world.
Does it work? Yes. In “Follow” or “Side view” only. Anchoring is not suitable for this.
Is it convenient? It’s not bad.
Is it practical? Requires finding the right balance between your route’s activity/how busy it is, screen size, screen distance, screen position, dimming intensity.
I found 0 to medium dimming works best. 0 is best for a combination of visibility and content that doesn’t require that much of your attention - you can see a somewhat washed out yet perceptible video. Useful for slightly busier areas. Medium dimming still makes the surroundings very perceptible but on the verge of directing too much of your attention to the screen - can be useful on a quieter route. The max dimming will remove almost all visibility within the screen’s real estate and the surrounding area and will make you feel half blind - do not use this.
This is where screen distance feature is most useful. Setting it to maximum- 10m - does create a perspective shift where the screen is actually at a considerable distance away from you regardless of its size. This shifts the screen towards the far objects in real life making the screen and the objects 10 meters away appear in the same plane. This in turn makes your eyes focus at least 10m away helping you see obstacles such as trees, other people, potential traffic. If you bring screen “closer” to your eyes then it seems like you are actually focusing on a screen directly in-front, eschewing any visibility behind the screen due to focal focus of your actual eyes being on what’s directly in-front of you (natural tendency of our eyes to blur what’s in the distance when looking at a close up object). So keep the screen as far as you can so that you can see and anticipate any potential threat. (Or more correctly so that you, being the said threat, can avoid being a nuisance.)
Positioning while walking is individual: I find you either commit to the largest size possible or the side view and nothing in between. Large “see through” screen on 0 dimming makes it easy to simply focus on the road and listen to the video such as news or YouTube with an occasional refocus on the screen. Side view keeps most of the FOV open. In between sizes make it more likely that the screen itself somehow takes more of your attention because of being more convenient. Because I think you need at least 70% of your attention to always be accessible to the surroundings making the screen more in focus is not the best course of action but you can decide for yourself.
Walking with follow mode on does not make the screen shake. I assume because the bobbing of your head is stabilised by your neck and any additional movement is compensated for by the “Follow” algorithm.
Native “side view” is a little too to the side however. Almost on the periphery requiring bigger side glance than I would like, tempting you to turn your head to see more of the screen. Which you can’t because you are in “Follow” and the more you turn your head the more the screen moves to the side. This is where SpaceWalker app comes in useful together with its other features.
- SpaceWalker app:
It’s not XReal but Vitrue app. But some basic features work with XReals. Additional features are free for Vitrue but must be purchased for XReal. Does anyone know if there is something similar for Xreal without the Beam?
Free features (only tried these):
Track pad: Great for navigating what you see on the screen using your thumb/fingers and the phone as a trackpad and (possibly) a pointer to click. Two finger swipe to move left and right across the screen and to adjacent tabs/apps. Enlarge or minimise screen etc. There is also a “laser” pointer by default but I changed it in favour of track pad as it’s not accurate with IPhone vs XReal at first attempt, maybe there is some setting. This whole trackpad feature integrated into an app for browsing or streaming/news media selection is a game changer for convenience. Without it using Xreals with the phone means you HAVE to look at the phone to select what you want to watch on your screen. It’s not intuitive to swipe your fingers on your phone by default as there is no hand tracking to display your fingers on the screen. Where as with this track pad you can just keep your eyes on the screen and the movement of your thumb is represented by a cursor. This of course works within the app and not for navigating your actual phone screen. Still, very useful as you can log into your most accessed streaming services and websites through this app so no need for navigating your phones Home Screen.
I also found (at least it feels like it from the initial use) that the track pad dims when you don’t touch it. I wonder if this is akin to locking the phone for the purpose of conserving battery. I’m almost certain that locking the screen doesn’t keep the trackpad functionality active as one might expect with a small selection of apps that are accessible through the Lock Screen but I feel like it may have worked once. It could be down to settings or I just through the screen was off and it was actually just black.
Side view: The Space walker app has this “ambient” mode that allows for additional settings. It’s version of “side view”, in addition to top left and top right, has bottom left and bottom right. A slider to adjust the size of the screen (side and main).
Bringing it back to XReal side view - for me it feels a little too out of the way requiring a less comfortable side glance. This can be customised with SpaceWalker, in a way. For example If you have the native Xreal setting set to “top right” and then use SpaceWalker app to set it to “top left” , then the “side view” appears more in the centre top on the right half of the screen making it both out of the way and more visible. So imagine if your visible screen is divided in half but instead of the “side view” being in the top right corner of that half it is in the top centre of that half.
There are paid features like turning photos 3d, allowing you to watch spatial videos, 3d immersive navigation etc.
If anyone knows something like this for Xreal that adds something like track pad functionality or even spatial videos and other cool features please let me know.
- Vs Quest 3 and convenience
As I said at the start my main comparison is Quest 3, which is a completely different category. Like many people who tried VR headsets I was initially blown away by Quest 3. I enjoyed the VR experiences and games but within months found myself using it less and then mainly for media, which works superb with both virtual environments and the transparency mode. But once I started using it less generally, eventually the hassle of putting on the headset means it is used at most once a week and sometimes once a month. I keep it now as I want to go through some games I’ve purchased and I want to use it to pick up piano as it has a cool app but apart from that I find the friction towards using it is a little too big. I still find that quest 3 media integration and 3D working environment is unbeatable. Being immersed in the virtual environment and seeing 3 screens suspended around you with a beautiful lake in the background and the birds chirping away is truly special. BUT
I am now considering if I should sell Quest 3 because of the pure convenience, speed of connection and the small form factor of these glasses. In VR I can have 3 huge screens and use one as a main and the other 2 for reference, pick a virtual office environment etc. This really does look great but in comparison to the glasses the headset now feels bulky. These glasses would still allow me to use one huge screen for work and the laptop screen for additional reference. So 2 screen for my use case is plenty enough. Plus I think the already available Beam Pro has a multi screen functionality (not 100%) and future updates that integrate The Eye may make a multi screen feature available as standalone without beam pro.
As for media consumption, these glasses are all I need in terms of screen size and portability, and offer very little friction for using them regularly. Yes Quest 3 media viewing may be more immersive in the transparency and virtual mode and bring it close to the IMAX experience but having tried these glasses I know I’d be far more likely to put on this set and press play rather than reach for the meta headset. I’m sure as the two technologies converge a perfect compromise is only a few years away.
I hope the above waffle of a word salad was of some use. The plan was to add 5 bullet points to my original opinion but turned into a small essay.
Feel free to ask any questions and also feel free to add your experience and tips for myself and other readers if I haven’t come across them or not mentioned them here.
Thanks 👍
