XREAL One AR Glasses Review

XREAL is back with its latest pair of AR glasses, the XREAL One, featuring IPD adjustments, Bose sound, and 5000 nits of brightness, along with a wide array of adjustments perfect for gaming, movies, and everything in between. I've spent the last few weeks putting it through its paces alongside the Beam Pro, a smartphone-like device that takes the glasses to a new level. For mobile entertainment, they’re outstanding, and even at $500, one of the most compelling options I've tested so far. 

Specifications

Current Price: 

• XREAL One - $499 (Amazon) 
• XREAL Beam Pro - $199 (Amazon)
• XREAL One and Beam Pro Bundle - $648 (Amazon) 

XREAL Air One - Design and Highlights

XREAL has been in the forefront of augmented reality glasses for quite a while now, and it's fair to say they've inspired a number of imitators and competitors over that time. The XREAL One is its latest release, one step below the upcoming One Pro. At $499, it represents an impressive entry point to this exciting field of technology. 

If you've never tried a pair of AR glasses before, you could be forgiven for being a little mixed up about what they are. Or perhaps it's easier to say what they have been. AR, in contrast to VR, which is more commonly discussed in this space, has essentially acted as a digital screen to replace whatever display you would traditionally use. Built within the glasses are a pair of displays that project onto a lens, making it seem as if another screen is floating before you. It's not unlike the pass-through experience offered by the Meta Quest 3, when you're watching a video. 

Broadly speaking, the augmented reality market has suffered from screen clarity issues pretty much forever (there are some exceptions to this, like the Viture Pro). This isn't a knock against other brands because the same was true of XREAL due to the way its lenses worked and its fixed interpupillary distance setting. The XREAL One remedies that and, in doing so, adds some functionality that makes it a more useful option for different purposes. It can genuinely act as a screen replacement, even for getting work done, which is something I've personally struggled with most AR headsets I've tested. 

It accomplishes this by pairing an upgraded screen with a new IPD adjustment system. IPD adjustment is something the VR community has recognized the importance of for some time, but it has been difficult to implement in AR glasses due to their thinner, lighter, and more fashion-friendly design. However, it is indeed critically important, especially if you have vision issues like myself. IPD refers to the space between your pupils. It's paramount to being able to view displays, whether they are AR or VR, clearly and is a key facet of any pair of glasses you might buy because we are not all anatomically the same. This distance can vary a little bit, which shifts the point of focus from being perfectly centered, resulting in the potential for blurring. 

With prior glasses, I would invest in prescription lens inserts to bring myself as close to what I felt the intended experience always was. It was clear from the marketing and presentation of all of these brands that they wanted these screens to act like actual monitors, but the further you got from the center of the screen, the more focus point and toward the edges of the screen, it was pretty common that some blurring would occur, even with prescription inserts. This is due in part to the one-size-fits-all approach to interpupillary distance. 

With this new system, you're able to dial in the focus to match your actual anatomy, even if it's not entirely perfect. The XREAL One also allows you to adjust the size and distance of the virtual screen, which can make up the rest of the difference to having clarity across the entire display space (at the expense of reduced screen size). Put frankly, if you have jacked-up eyes like I do, this is one of the most important elements to actually being able to enjoy the AR experience like people with better vision.

XREAL also spared no expense on the other elements of the One. It's using the company's X1 processor, which is designed for ultra-low latency. It uses a pair of Sony 0.6-inch micro OLED displays capable of an equivalent brightness of 5,000 nits for HDR content. These displays are also able to run at 120Hz, so if you pair it with a game console, you can enjoy high refresh rate gameplay. The displays are 1080p, however, and have an actual peak brightness of about 600 nits, though it's important to note that the perception of brightness works a bit differently here than it does with something like a TV or a gaming monitor. 

They're also quite feature-rich, even without adding the Beam Pro accessory, which I will get to soon. It features native three degrees of freedom movement, which allows you to anchor the screen to one place or have it follow your head. The screen itself can reach up to 147 virtual inches with a 50-degree field of view and is able to support 3D video content if you provide the files. 

The sound is quite good, which perhaps shouldn't be surprising. It features specialized speakers built into the arms of the glasses. They use what the company describes as “far field noise technology” to deliver a more spacious listening experience. They also have a built-in microphone, so you can wear these glasses to take part in virtual meetings or calls, such as Discord. The actual tuning has been done by Bose and is more full-bodied than what I would have expected from such tiny drivers. 

The lenses have also received an upgrade and are now able to offer customized shading. They can be put into a pass-through mode, which lets you see the environment around you as if the screen is floating in midair, a shaded mode that looks like sunglasses surrounding your screen, and a theater mode, which completely blacks out the outside world and only allows you to see the screen. 

The glasses are also available in a bundle with the Beam Pro. This is essentially a smartphone-like device (it runs Android) that acts as a platform and controller for your AR experience. It features two high-resolution cameras on the back to capture spatial video and provides the processing power and battery for a more immersive experience.

In fact, it reminds me very much of the videos I've seen of the Apple Vision headset, though I've never tested it myself. With the XREAL app loaded up, your interface isn't just a mirror of your phone or what's clearly an Android app. Instead, your interface hovers before you, and you can physically interact with it using the Beam Pro. This changes the overall functionality of the headset for the better. It becomes much more of a platform experience versus just a high-quality digital display for your phone. It also means that you won't need to worry about the XREAL Beam Pro draining your phone's battery life. 

If your budget can stretch to pick it up, I highly encourage you to do so. Though I would also love to see some of this functionality released as a standalone app because it seems entirely possible given the Beam Pro's smartphone-based design. 

XREAL One AR Glasses - Performance and Use Impressions

Having spent many hours with the device at this point, I can confidently say that it's thus far the best match for my eyes I've tested yet. That isn't to say anything negative about some of the other headsets I've reviewed because those, such as the Viture, are able to get there and offer an excellent experience of their own. But I, like many potential customers, need IPD adjustment to dial in the experience and the range on offer here was able to hit my exact needs.

The glasses arrived at a fortuitous time. I was able to binge the second half of HBO's The Penguin, and once I saw how good they were and that I could move and reposition the screen however I liked, it genuinely began to feel like I had my own big screen TV. Even at 1080p resolution, the picture was still very clear. I happened to also be sick at the time and was able to recline back in my chair and rest while also having a theater-like experience alongside my kids using the actual TV to play their Switch. 

Thanks to that IPD adjustment, I was also able to wear them normally. Typically, I would have to put them a bit off-center since my vision is not equal between both eyes. As you can probably imagine, this made them more comfortable. But even if you didn't have to do that, the adjustment makes for less eye strain overall.

The electrochromatic film on the lenses is also a great touch for their usability. It's perfect if you need to keep an eye on what's going on around you, and there's certainly a holographic kind of effect when pass-through or shaded mode is turned on. For the best contrast, you'll want to use theater mode, but bear in mind that this does block out everything.

Well, at least mostly. Unlike a VR headset, which aims to wrap around and block out your entire view, the XREAL One is designed like a simple pair of sunglasses. Everything around the lenses is completely open. There were times I wished there were some kind of accessory I could add around the sides to completely block out the light, but it would obviously look pretty strange and make them more like a pair of dystopian goggles than something you would ever wear when other people might see you. 

The design of these glasses has come a long way over the last couple of years, though they're still not slim enough to where I would ever wear them outside. This is obviously a personal call, but it's worth remembering that in addition to their slightly thicker frame, you'll also have a wire dangling to whatever device is driving them. There is no wireless support yet, though I imagine that will come to market in the near future if it hasn't already.

Still, they're perfectly fine for wearing around the house even as you're getting errands done. The glasses' ability to anchor the screen pays dividends because it can also be shrunk and shifted to the side when you need to focus on what's in front of you but don't want to miss whatever's being displayed. I made dinner for my kids while a video played off in the corner. It probably looked a little silly, but it was genuinely very cool and a great way to keep connected with the content I was enjoying. 

It's possible to use these with PC, though I found that they were a much better fit for the Nintendo Switch. You can simply plug them into the USB-C port at the bottom of the console, and they act exactly like a normal TV. This is perfect if you want a big screen experience but can't actually use the television in your home. The latency was perfect, and the experience was flawless.

It's even possible to stream content over the cloud, though my experience with this was a bit more mixed. It's entirely possible it could have been related to my home network, though I do have gigabit internet, so take that for what it's worth. I found the experience to be a bit more dithered than if I were streaming from a console directly to my television. It was playable, but it was more obvious that the game was being streamed than if I had just done so locally. My consoles are connected with a wire with an Ethernet cable; however, the laptop I usually use for game streaming has a powerful antenna that is certainly larger than what would be in the XREAL One. That said, I didn't once experience issues with buffering either when gaming or when streaming video. 

Final Thoughts

Overall, it provided a pretty darn great experience for the investment. The big question is whether it's worth purchasing, especially when you can get the Meta Quest 3 for significantly less, or the Viture Pro Cloud Pack for less than $600. It's worth addressing both directly.

Compare it against the Meta Quest 3 or other similarly priced VR headsets. This will really come down to what you're hoping to accomplish. The Meta Quest 3, frankly, does more and does a lot of it better than any pair of augmented reality glasses. It's an incredible value for what it is, but that's also VR and MR, not AR. The XREAL One is a far lighter and lower profile device that, if you wanted to, you could wear out and about. The two things are after fundamentally different goals: the Meta Quest 3 is like a desktop computer, while the XREAL One is like a smartphone. 

Compared to the Viture Pro, however, things get much dicier. As of this writing, you can pick up that pair of glasses for only $399 on Amazon, and if you purchase it in the Cloud Pack bundle, it's only $580 and adds the Neckband Pro and a free controller. The experience isn’t the same as with the Beam Pro and the XREAL One, but it’s great in its own right, and the Neckband solution is superior to having a cable run to your pocket. 

With that in mind, I find the XREAL One to be an objectively great experience, though a bit expensive compared to its biggest competitor. I would wait for a sale if you have your heart set on it. It's bound to impress no matter when you pick it up, but it's a hot market and time should only make it more competitive on price. 

The product described in this article was provided by the manufacturer for evaluation purposes. Some articles may contain affiliate links and purchases made through this will result in a small commission for the site. Commissions are not directed to the author or related to compensation in any way.