Apple is betting that the Vision Pro headset will be its biggest product launch since the iPhone.
Even before its market launch in the USA on February 2nd, new test reports about the mixed reality device have appeared.
Here’s what users say about it.
This is a machine translation of an article from our US colleagues at Business Insider. It was automatically translated and checked by an editor.
The hype surrounding the new Apple Vision Pro is huge and it’s launching in the US this Friday. The Apple Vision Pro headset reportedly sold out almost immediately when pre-orders began on January 19th. About 200,000 units have been sold so far, reports ‘MacRumors‘.
The company is betting that the €3,500 mixed reality headset will be its biggest product since the iPhone. But does it justify the hype?
The first detailed test reports about the headset were published on Tuesday. Here’s what users had to say about the Vision Pro:
It can be uncomfortable if worn for too long
The headset may become uncomfortable after prolonged use. Nilay Patel from “The Verge” said the Vision Pro “definitely warms up” after a while. After half an hour, Mark Spoonauer felt “Tom’s Guide“, “that she pressed on my cheeks”.
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Joanna Stern from “Wall Street Journal” said the device, made of metal and glass, caused what was described as a “facial contusion.” She noted that her Light Seal cushion, which is designed to help the headset fit more comfortably on the face and block out ambient light, was “covered in makeup” at the end of her test.
The displays and video passthrough quality are stunning, but there’s a catch
The headset’s displays deliver “vibrant, colorful, HDR, and simply stunning” images, wrote Scott Stein of “CNET“. “Not only is it good enough for movies – something Apple constantly touts – but it’s better than any TV in my house,” he added. Patel called it “by far the best video passthrough ever delivered in a consumer device.”
However, the device’s field of view appears to be smaller than that of its rival Meta Quest 3. Stein compared it to “seeing an amazing monitor through a diving mask,” while Patel said there were “pretty big black borders around what you see, a bit like looking through binoculars.”
EyeSight and personas seem off-putting
The overwhelming consensus is that the Vision Pro’s portrayals to other people are…weird.
On the one hand, there is EyeSight, which shows a digital version of your eyes to other people who observe you while wearing the headset. Patel calls it “a low-resolution, ghostly image of [euren Augen], which feels like CGI”. Stern said it was “very subtle” and “a bit gimmicky.”
There’s also a persona, a digital avatar of you that appears on FaceTime calls. Patel called the avatars “deeply strange and extremely scary,” and Stern said hers would “haunt you in your dreams,” while one of her colleagues compared it to “Botox from hell.”
Todd Haselton and Spoonauer from “CNBCsaid their avatars had aged them significantly.
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It’s great for entertainment purposes like watching movies
Reviewers seemed to have positive experiences using the Vision Pro when watching movies. “The only thing I was missing was theater seats,” Stern wrote, between the big screen and the immersive surround sound. Spoonauer said the headset would “turn even the biggest skeptic into a believer in 3D movies.”
Several reviewers said the sound quality was great, but be aware that if you don’t use headphones, others around you can hear what you hear.
It fails in some aspects, like typing
Vision Pro’s floating virtual keyboard lets you type in the air without having physical keys at your fingertips. This feature was a resounding flop for the testers. “Anything that lasts longer than a quick message will drive you crazy,” says Stern.
Spoonauer likened it to a “whack-a-mole scenario with one or two hands,” and Patel called the keyboard downright “hilarious.” However, the Vision Pro performed better for other work purposes. Haselton said it offers “a whole new way to multitask.”
“You can open email and a browser, or keep Slack open next to a Word document while your calendar is on the other side. You can hang your text messages on the ceiling if you want,” he wrote. Spoonauer said he “could imagine taking the Vision Pro with him on business trips and using it in the hotel.”
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Final thoughts
So what were the reviewers’ key takeaways? “Although it has some flaws, it is simply the most fun new product I have tried in years,” Haselton said.
Stein said Apple beats its competitors by providing a seamless input experience. “Other headsets have eye tracking and hand tracking, but none make the combination work as smoothly, subtly, and intuitively as the Vision Pro,” he wrote.
Another problem is juggling between the real and virtual worlds with the device. In his report, Stein spoke of the danger of “isolation.” “While the Vision Pro creates presence by showing the real world through its cameras or even replicas of my eyes, it also allows me to close it off and even completely close off my audio world with the AirPods,” he wrote. “I can be in my own world, just inches away from my own family.”
Stern called the Vision Pro “the best mixed reality headset I’ve ever tried, much more advanced than its only real competition, the much cheaper Meta Quest Pro and Quest 3.”
Patel called the Vision Pro “a VR headset masquerading as an AR headset.” “There’s not a lot of reality that’s augmented in the rest of visionOS. There is a lot of what might be called mixed reality: virtual objects floating around in space with no connection to anything real,” he wrote. “This is the best thing anyone has ever done in there made, and it’s still not nearly as good as out here.“