Why the XREAL Beam is (and isn't) worth your money.

[Music] iPod this is not this is the xra beam beam to where beaming you up to the spatial Computing reality that is XR okay that was pretty cringe sorry I can't afford to pay writers so it's just me but what I did pay for was this x real beam add-on so like pretty much everything else on this channel this is a completely independent review so don't worry no punches will be pulled here and as usual I'll tell you what I like what I don't like and I'll give you a little conclusion on whether I think it's worth your money as a reminder if you haven't watched the xreal air reviews on the channel already I invite you to check those out either by clicking up there or by checking the link in the description below that way we don't have to retread too much in this video what is this thing though it's an accessory of sorts for the xre air AR glasses now let me go over briefly how this thing works you plug in a source device like your phone steam deck R Ali or even some laptops and then on this side you plug in the xre airs after that you set up your Wi-Fi and you'll probably get some notifications for updates you can also set this up to work wirelessly with your compatible devices though expect at least some delay or latency with that option after setting up you're greeted with a beam splash screen or landing page The Landing has a little guide that you can click through which is more or less a nicer way to look at the instructions and then there's a Bluetooth connection button and a notice that says more apps will be coming soon boy I hope so for interacting with the beam you get get an iPod like circular button which actually has four physical buttons underneath one for each Direction when you press the button on the left side the mode change switches between body anchor and some other modes the body anchor means that it follows the position of your body in space so let's say you're looking at your front door the screen is always going to be fixed in that position or in that direction then there's smooth follow which follows the position of your head that mode is very similar to just plugging in the xreal airs directly without the beam as the picture most mostly stays in your central vision something is a little bit different about that mode though as it seems to uh smoothly follow okay that was bad I told you I can't pay writers okay let me try again so that one rather than always staying fixed in the middle of the glasses kind of Bobs around trailing just a split second behind if that makes more sense and finally there's a side view which puts the picture into one of four corners in the Air's fov when you're switching modes right after you select the mode you can then adjust the size or distance of the screen in the glasses if you chose body anchor for side view you can select one of those four corners and you can't change anything for smooth follow and that's pretty much how basic functionality works for the beam unless you connect wirelessly as mentioned that will work similarly but obviously without the need for an additional cable plugged in I did mention latency before but it's actually decent for just media consumption though in my opinion I wouldn't try gaming wirelessly unless it's something pretty slow paced so onto my experience and what I like thus far with the beam over the past month and a half or so I've been playing with this thing on handheld watching movies through my phone and occasionally walking the doggo with them ins side view and the beam has been a nice compliment to that particular experience for example when I'm walking my dog now the picture isn't smack dab right in the middle of my eyes and so I can actually see where I'm going without risk of getting run over something else that's kind of crazy is that you can connect a Bluetooth controller to your phone or handheld like a seam deck or RG Ally and then just keep set device docked while you lay in bed and game in this case I did it using boosteroid never heard of that why not check out my review after this basically it's a cloud gaming service that lets you log in to a remote computer and play your Steam games without a dedicated PC on your end so for me I didn't even actually need to use my Ally when connected to the beam I just paired a controller to my phone started the boosteroid app on my phone and Bam Bob's your uncle presumably this works for Xbox cloud gaming and steam link but I didn't really play around with that so I like that there is this flexibility and for the streaming option it's pretty cool in terms of the streaming option I kind of get that you don't really need the beam as you can do this directly with your phone and the xre airs or a handheld but in that case you're limited to basically whatever is mirrored and you can't manipulate where the display shows as in there's no control over the distance and the size of the projected image another thing I like about the beam is it's small form factor I could just pocket the thing and it really doesn't take up that much space and it's not overly heavy it's a minor thing but it is still something I like now it's not all sunshine and rainbows though I do have some gripes about the beam the first one is that the battery life isn't amazing and the recharge rate is also not great for the first part from my rough estimates it was lasting maybe 3 to 4 hours on a single charge which might make you think I'm being unreasonable but it also took about 3 hours to charge so yeah not great In fairness the LED indicator I spoke about earlier is pretty to look at and it does turn red when the battery is critical needs more RGB though am I right what else I'm not a fan of well the fan or the fan placement I'm not going to open this up at the risk of damaging it so while I can't confirm the internal architecture of the device I can literally hear the active fan inside of this grate or vent and you can feel the hot air just blasting from it and the issue I see with this solution is that because it's opposite of the cable ports there isn't really a great way to orient or position the beam in your pocket I've opted to sit it upright in my pockets so that the cables can face down and then the fan exhaust is blowing up air out of my pocket because if you do it the other way around the heat just goes uh into your shorts or uh I guess you could say just wear a jacket and lay the device sideways okay then I need to wear a jacket all the time sounds like I'm whining about nothing but with how hard I think this thing is working I can't help but think it's not long for this world obviously I'm not an engineer but surely I'm not the only one wondering why they couldn't have used some passive solution like a device wide heat sink or maybe move the the ports to the sides and have an air intake on the bottom anyway you might also have noticed how I haven't spoken about the price up until this point and that's because I was saving it for the dislike section I don't like that it's an additional $119 as of filming for this which brings the cost of the total package to about $500 since the glasses are about $380 and that doesn't include the USBC cable that you need which apparently was only included for pre-orders additionally since they've just recently announced the air 2s and the air2 pro as far as I know the price for the beam hasn't really changed and it's sold in bundles so if you decide to buy the beam in the original eror maybe there's a deal for under $500 but then you're kind of sitting on Old technology anyway the primary issue I find with this solution is that it's not only expensive it's also that the xreal airs themselves sort of or were supposed to come with some kind of functionality similar to The Beam built inside the device before the beam ever existed what I mean by that is within the nebula app on Android for for instance there are body anchor and smooth follow modes but they don't work so well presumably because the glasses themselves lack the tracking data needed that is in the beam what does this mean in non-technical terms it means we probably should have had the beam capabilities built right into the glasses from the get-go so tacking on even another $50 for an accessory like this feels a bit bad on top of this I'll add that the marketing for the beam isn't exactly accurate either they say up to 120 in display and technically yes you could set that through the body anchor mode but then you'll literally be looking at a corner of the screen or section of the screen because remember the X reels have a limited fov in a center is rectangle of the glasses themselves and as a result 120 in in the glasses pretty much functionally speaking anyway looks very similar to 320 in but let me get to the conclusion now should you buy the xra beam if you already own the xra air you kind of have to because some essential functionality of the glasses is basically locked behind this device now if you really can't be bothered and you just prefer to have the picture mirrored right in front of you I suppose you can save yourself that Benjamin and change but how should I put this it' be like buying a Ferrari and then putting some Walmart Great Value tires on your Ferrari you know what I mean what about if you don't own the xreal airs though well as is often my recommendation wait this space is changing so fast that things like the to Max Pros have just hit the market in addition to the xreal air 2s and two Pros in China and while the latter of the bunch will likely offer new features that the original airs don't have we don't have much confirmation on them and there might be even some price cuts for the existing airs in the future but what you shouldn't wait for is to hit the like And subscribe buttons and be sure to check out these reviews next [Music] GG

Channel: Gamers' Generation

Views: 17,930

Keywords: steam deck, nreal, nreal air, nreal air ar glasses, ar glasses, smartglasses, smart glasses, steamdeck accessories, steam deck accessories, xreal, xreal air, handheld, handhelds, handheld pc, steam deck accessories 2023, xreal glasses, xreal ar, xreal ar glasses, xreals, nreals, steam deck glasses, nreal air ar glasses review, vision pro, visionpro, apple headset, rog ally accessories, rokid, xreal 2023, xreal air 2023 review, xreal beam, xreal review 2023, xbeam, xrealbeam

Id: kQIVNx4Eq8E

Length: 9min 5sec (545 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 27 2023