Samsung launches Galaxy XR headset to rival Apple Vision Pro

Two years after first teasing it, Samsung has finally launched its first XR headset, the Galaxy XR. It is the world’s first device to run the Android XR operating system and positions itself as a formidable competitor to Apple’s Vision Pro and Meta’s Quest 3 headsets.

What sets the Galaxy XR apart is its native integration with Gemini, one of the world’s most advanced multimodal AI assistants available right now.

The Galaxy XR is a premium extended-reality (XR) headset, featuring a metal faceplate on the front. It is covered by a curved glass panel that conceals multiple cameras and sensors. It rests on your forehead and cheekbones, and its head strap helps keep the device securely attached to your head. You can adjust the fit of the strap using the knob on the rear.

Inside the headset, two 4.3K resolution Micro-OLED displays with a 109-degree horizontal field of view and a 95% DCI-P3 color space coverage offer full-color passthrough, allowing you to see your surroundings clearly. They run at a default refresh rate of 72Hz, but are capable of up to 90Hz. The displays are HDR capable and support HDR10 and HLG video playback.

You can see the displays through pancake lenses nestled inside the comfortable fabric material. A detachable light shield prevents ambient light from leaking in, creating an immersive environment. You can remove the light shield when you want to see the outside world while still wearing the headset.

The device supports an interpupillary distance of 54-70mm, and supports vision correction through optical inserts that you can buy alongside the Galaxy XR.

Spatial audio is offered through a setup of two-way (tweeter + woofer) speakers placed on both sides of the headset. It supports Dolby Atmos and Hi-Res Lossless audio playback. Six microphones help pick up your voice clearly for voice commands, interactions with Gemini, calls, and a lot more.

This device features two high-resolution pass-through cameras, six world-facing cameras, and a depth-sensing camera on the front. These cameras help the headset understand your surroundings, movements, and track your hands.

Additionally, it has four eye-tracing cameras that track your eyes and recognize your iris. The iris recognition feature is used for unlocking the device when you wear it and for biometric authentication within apps.

All the processing is handled by the Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 chip, which is paired with 16GB RAM and 256GB storage. It also features Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 5.4. You can play games using the wireless motion controllers that offer six degrees of freedom and haptic feedback.

You can switch between AR (passthrough) and VR (immersive) modes by double-tapping on the touchpad on the right side. A power connector on the left temple connects to an external battery pack, and Samsung claims the headset lasts around two hours of general usage.

The headset runs Android XR that has been developed in partnership with Google and Qualcomm. You get access to first-party XR-optimised apps from Google and Samsung, and other third-party apps as well. Since the platform is built on the OpenXR standard, and developers can use OpenXR, Unity, or WebXR to develop apps and games for it.

You can use apps, play games, view images, stream 4K movies on the huge virtual screen, watch multiple sports matches simultaneously, and mirror your phone's or PC's screen on the XR headset. You can also use Android apps that aren't optimized for the headset.

Gemini, a central part of the headset’s software, sees and hears what you see and hear to assist you with various tasks. It can retrieve information from the internet, identify objects in the physical world and on the screen, summarize documents, create images and videos, translate languages in real-time, help you plan your travel, control the device, and a lot more.

You can use Gemini to get live help with a game you are playing, use it as a guide in Google Maps, get more information about a video you are watching on YouTube, create in 3D using Adobe's Project Pulsar app, and turn 2D images and videos into 3D automatically in Google Photos.

The Galaxy XR is priced at $1,799 in the USA and is available for purchase starting today. It is also available in Samsung’s home country, South Korea.

The company has not revealed if it plans to launch the headset outside of these two countries. It hasn't revealed the price of additional optical inserts for vision correction.