XREAL Air 2 Ultra hands-on at CES 2024: An alternative to the Apple Vision Pro?

ah I'm going to say hi to my virtual girlfriend hi there with the anticipated launch of the Apple Vision Pro mixed reality AKA spatial Computing is once again a Hot Topic here at CES for instance xrail is here with its latest AR glasses which they claim to be an affordable alternative to The Vision Pro let's take a look at how well it actually fares the xre air2 ultra is the company's most powerful AR glasses to date with the biggest upgrade being its sixo or six degree of Freedom tracking meaning you can actually put these on and walk around within a space and interact with various virtual objects rather than being stuck on your chair or having to stand in one spot the tracking is actually handled by these two front-facing 3D environment sensors in my earlier demos just now the tracking was largely uh smooth the objects that were stuck on the wall stayed at their places even as I was walking around but it was those little cardboards that I was holding and interacting with that were a little laggy at times but I'm sure they'll be able to fix that before they ship the actual products later this year compared to his predecessors the air2 ultra do have a wider field of view at 52° so you can actually see a bit more within the same view it's otherwise the same Sony micro OLED panels with a 1080p resolution for each eye you also get a refresh rate of up to 120 HZ and a brightness of up to 500 knits I was also impressed by how comfortable the air2 ultra felt they weigh 80 g which is a little bit heavier than its predecessors but it's still acceptable and this is thanks to its titanium frame as well as its external battery source just like before you have to plug these glasses into a smartphone mainly one of the latest Samsung Flagship phones or the iPhone 15 or a Windows PC or Mac but of course I'll need a bit more Hands-On time to see how long it will take before I feel any discomfort much like the air2 pro the air2 ultra offers fre levels of electrochromic dimming in case you want to watch videos without any distraction from the outside world this actually worked really well for me in the demo room just now but uh when it comes to outdoors I reckon you might need an extra shield just to make sure you block out all the sunlight out there after a bit of Hands-On time with the air2 ultra today I can definitely see a lot of potential in these glasses although I wouldn't go as far as saying it's it will completely replace the Vision Pro but then again you do get what you pay for and speaking of which xre is asking for $700 for these glasses which is exactly a fifth of what apple is asking for and also more importantly it's all about the ecosystem so xrail is currently targeting developers in the hopes of getting more apps to work on these glasses so who knows maybe we'll come back to these glasses in a few months time and see how many apps they have that will keep us entertained for the time being for more news from CES 2024 feel free to hit subscribe and stay tuned on engadget.com [Music]

Channel: Engadget

Views: 87,350

Keywords: engadget, technology, consumer tech, gadgets, science, gear, tech, ces2024, xreal, handson, xreal air 2 ultra, vr, ar, apple, visionpro

Id: zbkSFw7VkPc

Length: 3min 16sec (196 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 11 2024