XREAL Air 2 AR Glasses Review: This shows great promise

AR (Augmented Reality) offers a whole new world for us to explore as it enables you to interact with the real world, and a virtual one in an entirely new way. It’s unique, exciting, and offers a lot of possibilities. While an MR (Mixed Reality) headset offers even more tracking features and functions, AR isn’t too far away in terms of similar characteristics. However, it’s rather limited when compared side-by-side.

That said, the new XREAL Air 2 glasses offer users a new way to interact with the virtual world, enabling them to work, play, and consume content in a more immersive way. The Air 2 glasses allow users to watch movies and videos on a massive screen, making it feel like they’re in the cinema. You can work with three virtual displays simultaneously without buying three separate monitors, and you can play selected games to feel like you’re solving a puzzle in a new dimension.

The XREAL Air 2 has much to offer, but some limitations could make you second-guess whether it’s right for you. But before we go any further, let’s stop here and talk about where you can buy it and how much it’ll cost.

XREAL Air 2: Price & Availability

The XREAL Air 2 and XREAL Air 2 Pro AR glasses are available for $399 and $449, respectively. They’re available on XREAL.com, as well as Amazon and other retailers across the US.

The XREAL Air 2 series is available in two colors, Graphite Grey, and Carmine Red. The Air 2 series also offers a fashion-forward XREAL Kaleido Kit that lets you change the colors of the frames. The Kaleido Kit can be bought for $9.99, and it comes in six colors: Navy, Verdigris, Royal Blue, Pale Dogwood, Jonquil, and Dartmouth Green.

It’s worth noting that the kit alone doesn’t include the Beam, a standalone device that lets you hook up the glasses anywhere and offers additional features such as anchoring yourself, and other viewing modes. The XREAL Air 2 and the XREAL Beam can be bought as a bundle for $499, while the XREAL Air 2 with the Beam Bundle will cost you $549. Additional cables might also be required, depending on if you want to use the device with an iOS device, which’ll cost you extra. The Beam alone costs $119.

What’s in the box

• XREAL Air 2 AR Glasses
• Travel Case
• Three different-sized nose pads
• Light Shield
• Prescription Lens Frame
• USB-C Cable
• Cleaning Cloth & Warranty Cards

As a standalone product, the XREAL Air 2 comes in a rather stylish, compact box and carry case. The case includes the USB Type-C cable that can attach to the back of the glasses, and a supported device, such as a USB-C-equipped laptop, desktop, tablet, and smartphone. The box also includes a guide and a warranty card, three types of nose pads, a cleaning cloth, a light shield, and a prescription lens frame.

XREAL was kind enough to send over a few additional goodies, including the XREAL Beam, and other necessary adapters and cables to connect it with an Apple product and gaming consoles. As mentioned in the section above, these are all additional accessories that cost extra, so make sure to keep on reading to see what you need to connect it with various devices. As a footnote, you can purchase a bundle on XREAL.com that includes some of these handy accessories.

Hardware & Design

• Lightweight and comfortable design
• Traditional looking glasses
• Ability to add prescription lens

The XREAL Air 2 is a lightweight device, weighing just 72 grams. It measures 148 x 52 x 159mm when open and 148 x 52 x 60mm when folded. It fits head sizes from 120-186mm and is rather comfortable to wear for extended periods. If you wear glasses, or you’re used to sunglasses, you most likely know what to expect. While the XREAL Air 2 is bigger than conventional glasses and sunglasses, it borrows many design elements and features, making it feel ergonomic, compact, and comfortable.

Discussing comfort, I’ve worn these glasses for extended periods, and the experience has consistently been comfortable, thanks to their lightweight and slim design. The frame and overall structure never caused discomfort, and it was effortless to stretch them over my head, wearing them for hours without any problems.

If you wear traditional glasses like I do, you can insert prescription lens to improve your sight while wearing the device, which is a nice bonus. I would, however, strongly discourage you from attempting to wear traditional glasses as there would be nowhere to place them, and they would likely be uncomfortable to wear.

Overall, the glasses were comfortable to wear for many hours at a time, and the only issue I noticed was that my eyes started hurting after a while – since they were directly up close to the display, putting extra strain on them. I would encourage you to take a break every 45 minutes or so, stand up, and move for 5 to 10 minutes before hopping back into the virtual world.

Using the glasses in bright rooms isn’t a concern, since the XREAL Air 2 comes with additional shades that you can attach to the back of the lens. These usually block out enough light that you can comfortably use the glasses with ease, even in brightly lit rooms, or in front of your monitor or TV.

Specifications

The XREAL Air 2 is a compact AR glasses. It doesn’t have any ground-breaking specs when it comes to power, as it relies on the attached device to stream content onto the glasses. As such, the glasses don’t have any built-in batteries, which will also depend on the primary device.

The Air 2 has two Sony 0.55 Micro-LED 1080p displays with a 108% sRGB color gamut, and support for 16 million colors. It has 500 nits of peak brightness, and up to 120Hz refresh rate with 46-degree Field of View. The glasses are compact, lightweight, and easy to store thanks to the provided travel case.

The device supports 3DoF head tracking that lets you pin the display at a specific location relative to your head’s position. It’s useful when you’re doing something else in real life and want to access the virtual screen at a particular spot near you.

The Air 2 also has a proxy sensor that can turn the display on or off, depending on when it recognizes that it’s being worn. This helps save power and is a neat way to conserve battery.

Display

• Excellent, high-quality displays
• Support for up to 120Hz refresh rate
• Sharp, bright, and color accurate

The XREAL Air 2 comes with the latest Sony 0.55 Micro-OLED 1080p displays, providing excellent viewing angles, colors and accuracy. XREAL says that the displays support 108% sRGB color gamut, and 8-bit depth with support for 16 million colors. It has up to 500 nits of peak brightness and 120Hz refresh rate when Air Casting, 72Hz when using Nebula on Android, and 90Hz when using Nebula for Mac or Windows.

The display has a 46-degree FoV (Field of View) and all the TÜV Rheinland Low Blue Light and Flicker Free Certificates to help protect your eyes and to provide a more comfortable viewing experience. In terms of real usage, the glasses felt great most of the time. It took some time to get used to the AR glasses and the visual content directly in front, but after about an hour, I was quite confident and more entertained as my eyes adjusted to the Augmented Reality world.

The colors looked spot on, and the brightness was even high sometimes, requiring some fine adjustments to keep it at a more comfortable level. I often turned it down by one or two notches, using the buttons on the glasses. The image quality was never jittery, and I was quite pleased with the Sony panels’ overall quality, sharpness, and response.

Unlike the XREAL Air 2 Pro, the standard Air 2 comes with the standard light shield that blocks out most of the light around you. It converts normal glasses into very dark sunglasses, making it easy to use even in brightly lit rooms and spaces, even in front of brightly lit monitors and TVs. This provided an even more enhanced experience as the dark area improved the contrast, and the overall viewing experience.

Overall, the XREAL Air 2’s display quality is excellent. Whether you’re playing games, watching your favorite TV shows or movies, or consuming content in the browser or social media, it’ll do a fantastic job providing a balanced and exceptional experience.

Sound

The Air 2 has two open-ear speakers. These proved effective and worked well in most cases, but people nearby could hear audio playing without an issue when they were close enough to the wearable due to the leakage. It’s worth pointing out that while the speakers worked well enough, it wasn’t very loud, and I felt it lacked bass. It’s good enough to watch a few videos on the go, but you’ll likely want to connect some decent headphones or earbuds to get the most out of this unique experience, especially if you’re watching movies or playing games.

The built-in speakers do a decent job in quiet environments where there is little noise, but it’s hard to hear things when you’re out and about. If you’re on a plane, train, or bus, you’ll have to connect some earbuds or headphones to hear anything.

Software

Before we get started with the software experience, let’s first talk about the devices the XREAL Air 2 is compatible with. The XREAL Air 2 supports all Android smartphones and tablets with USB-C video output or DP. The AR glasses also support the iPhone 15 series, as well as older iPhones, although additional cables will be required to connect the glasses, such as the XREAL Adapter and Apple Lightning Digital AV Adapter.

The glasses are compatible with the latest consoles, such as the PlayStation 5, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and even the handheld consoles, such as the Steam Deck, ROG Ally, and more. In order to connect these consoles, users are required to have additional cables and/or devices, such as the XREAL Beam, adapters. The wearable also works with Windows and MacBook computers too.

When it comes to Android devices and my Macbook, the XREAL Air 2 was plug-and-play. The glasses connected automatically within a matter of seconds of plugging them in via USB-C to either my Galaxy Z Fold 4 or my 16-inch MacBook Pro. It worked reliably right out of the box, and I only experienced connection issues initially while trying to connect my phone. This, however, was fixed after a software update, so whatever the issue was, it appears to be now resolved.

On mobile, there are two ways you can experience the glasses. Once connected, you can either cast your device’s screen onto the glasses or open the Nebula app and AR Space. In this mode, you’ll be greeted with a virtual hub, where you can view your photos and videos, browse the web, and play a handful of games made by XREAL. You can also watch videos on YouTube, or stream content through the browser.

It’s neat but severely limited, and most icons and widgets are only there to make it feel more lively. For example, the weather widget does nothing and relies on the phone’s location to populate the temperature reading. Most widgets are there to fill up the space and offer no value.

XREAL is clearly still working on this experience as the company is slowly adding more features in every software update, but as it stands, I would likely encourage you to buy it for the casting feature alone as the AR Space is confined to a great extent.

Connecting the glasses to my Mac, the Nebula Mac app allows you to have one, two, or three virtual desktops. The app also allows you to change the refresh rate from 72Hz to 90Hz, and you can adjust the distance of the displays from your eyes, as well as their sizes. While all of this sounds great, I would’ve loved to add a virtual monitor to my existing dual monitor setup, yet this wasn’t an option. Instead, you’re given three new virtual desktop environments that require some work to move over existing windows from existing monitors.

This can be done in a few minutes, but there are some flaws. Using the glasses for work, I sometimes experienced fatigue as I moved my head and eyes around to find the tiny mouse. Making things worse, the glasses would also periodically freeze or hang for a few short seconds, despite being connected with a cable.

XREAL hasn’t released the Nebula app for Windows yet, and we don’t know when that might happen. As it stands, the software experience leaves a bit to be desired, and while the current features work most of the time, XREAL has a bit of catch-up to do if it wants to be taken more seriously, especially if it wants users to think of it as something more that can offer video and casting features in AR. That said, the glasses are excellent for streaming games and your screen’s content onto the glasses. The experience is rather smooth and convenient, and it’s truly a plug-and-play experience if you have a compatible device.

It’s worth noting that if you’re looking for the Body Anchor, Smooth Follow, or Side View formats, you’ll have to pay more for the XREAL Beam accessory. This will enable you to connect to gaming consoles like the PlayStation 5, and Xbox. This tiny device also supports AirPlay, Miracast and DLNA. It enables users to pin and resize the screen, making using the glasses easier and more comfortable. The only downside is that the Beam costs $119. It’s sold separately unless you buy it as a bundle with the glasses.

XREAL Air 2: Should you buy it?

You should buy the XREAL Air 2 if…

• You’re looking for a new, more comfortable, and easier way to consume media on-the-go or at home
• You want to up your gaming experience
• You’re interested in Augmented Reality and want to give it a try with glasses that are plug-and-play and work with a large selection of smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles and computers

You shouldn’t buy the XREAL Air 2 if…

• You’re looking for lots of built-in features and a flawless software experience
• You don’t want to spend more money on additional accessories
• If you’re after a mixed or true virtual reality experience

XREAL offers a great overall AR experience with the new XREAL Air 2 glasses. It is reasonably priced, widely accessible, and easy to use. The displays provide a wonderful overall experience for watching movies, playing games, and, in general, consuming content. It’s a terrific plug-and-play device that works right out of the box, only requiring you to plug it into a compatible device.

If you’ve been looking for a pair of AR glasses with a great display set, comfortable design, and ease of use, the XREAL Air 2 ticks nearly all the boxes. However, it’s worth noting that there are a few areas that I wish XREAL would improve on in the coming weeks and months, and that is the software.

The software on my Mac and Android phone wasn’t all that smooth. The mobile app sometimes made my phone come to a halt, and even after a software update, there was little reason to use the built-in AR Space Hub as it offered very few features and games. And while I understand that’s not the main selling point here, it’d be great to see a platform that’s full of games and additional features that enable you to interact with the virtual world, and play games using the phone and the headset. I especially would like to see even more emphasis on productivity features, as AR has a chance to change the way we work and consume content using existing technologies.

The other nitpick is that the XREAL Air 2 is limited, and requires additional accessories to take advantage of its features. For starters, the AR glasses need the XREAL Beam if you want other viewing modes, and that’s not a cheap accessory costing $120. Sure enough, you can buy it in a bundle with the glasses, but it seems too steep.

That said, the promised and advertised features did work, and it provided an excellent overall experience. While there are some limitations, all I can say is that I’m impressed, and that I would recommend the XREAL Air 2 to anyone looking to try the AR experience for the first time in 2023.

If you have a compatible device and a legitimate use case, or you just want to play games more immersively, the XREAL Air 2 is a fantastic accessory that won’t break the bank. It offers an excellent set of displays, a plug-and-play design, and it’s easy to use and comfortable to wear.