I had just 30 minutes to test out Appleās $3,500 Vision Pro headset. Others who received a review unit from Apple or purchased one themselves have spent a week or more with it by this point. Weāve seen a lot of interesting use cases for the headset and an equal number of people hawking dumb and potentially dangerous Vision Pro clips for clicks. The latter has gotten so notorious theyāve been dubbed āVision Bros.ā After my short stint in Appleās new, beautiful, and very impressive āspatialā environment, Iļæ½ļæ½ļæ½m not sure if thereās any reason for anybody who doesnāt have thousands of bucks to burn or a burning need for fleeting internet fame should ever consider owning one.
By the time a little more than a week had passed since the Vision Pro first hit store shelves, we were left with dwindling options for actually getting our hands on one. Former Gizmodo staff had a fair few good things to say about the headset when Apple first announced it, but a full review unit was not in the cards. The base $3,500 for a new Apple-brand headset is equivalent to a month and a half of my salary before taxes. Iām still paying off my iPhone 14 Pro in $50 allotments month after month. So, if I had the choice of paying for rent or purchasing a VR headset, Iād go for the roof over my head. Sure, a spatial video of a dinner table will look rather good on a Vision Pro, but Iād probably prefer real sustenance over any virtual meal.
My in-store Vision Pro demo was limited to just a few apps under a strict time limit, but I was able to gauge the quality of the controls and pass through quickly. In just a few words, itās the most capable hand and eye tracking of any VR headset Iāve used. Its depth of colors on its twin 4K mini-LED displays was unmatched, and the controls are simple and intuitive enough that I picked up the gist in just a few minutes. Its spatial video and photos had a very unique, 3D effect that reminded me of the hologram video from the Minority Report movie. The 3D movies indeed look very good on Appleās headset.
Ignore the impressive hardware specs for a second, as itās clear the biggest boon for the Vision Pro is its software. The gesture controls were extraordinarily intuitive, and itās obvious the company put a lot of man-hours into how users would neatly reorganize their workstations. You can leave a window anywhere in your field of view.
Apple promised a true revolution of computing, but despite the companyās directive to never use the letters āVā and āRā together when talking about their new headset, the real question we should is how good the Vision Pro is compared to other VR headsets. Iāve used other modern, top-of-the-line VR from companies like Varjo and their latest XR-4 enterprise-level headset. Varjoās $3,990 headset doesnāt quite have the same level of eye tracking as Appleās latest device, but it, too, uses 4K, micro-OLED internal displays. I would need to have both together for a true side-by-side as to overall pixel density, clarity, and depth of color, but they still are comparable.
The Vision Proās passthrough is indeed one of its strongest features. Still, I couldnāt give it a massive edge compared to other headsets that are explicitly made for developers or other businesses and not the hardcore Apple fanatic. Instead, we can look at the $500 Meta Quest 3, which also sports a full-color passthrough. No, the image quality of Metaās headset is far less pretty than what streams from Appleās cameras. The video from Quest 3 looks extra warm in a closed environment. The Quest tends to warp objects placed directly in front of the headset. Thereās also far more lag between your movements and what you see on Quest compared to Vision Pro. You could probably play ping pong in Appleās headset, but on Quest, it would be a big handicap.
But does any of that matter? The Quest doesnāt have the Vision Proās eye tracking, but it does now have hand gesture controls that work surprisingly well. Its video quality isnāt as good as Appleās, but itās also a seventh of the price. Hereās the rub. The Quest 3 is close to where Apple will end up once it starts to bring the cost down. I have no doubt that a future Vision device will be powerful, but it needs to scale down. It doesnāt need the complicated EyeSight external display to pretend youāre actually in a room with your friends or family. It doesnāt need those still-rough 3D Persona avatars for video calls. There are some features that could have been left out in initial drafts that could have helped save on costs. Apple is known for its spartan sense of design changes for the iPhone. The Vision Pro seems unnecessarily extravagant.
What has annoyed me so far about Vision Pro reviews coverage was how few seemed to want to acknowledge the deviceās obtuse price scheme. The New York Times (which didnāt receive a review unit) pointed out that anybody who wants accessories or extra battery packs will easily be spending well above that starting $3,500 price. Still, the headset is one of the most expensive consumer-end devices to receive this amount of marketing. Bloomberg, which finally released its Vision Pro review Sunday (likely because the outlet had to purchase one for review), said we may need another few generations of Vision headsets before we get something that truly matchesAppleās true augmented reality ambitions.
After using the Vision Pro, even so briefly, I canāt help but agree. The amount of effort Apple put into these demos shows how important a good initial product launch is to the Cupertino Company. It doesnāt need to sell millions like the company does with the latest iPhones. Instead, the company has reportedly limited shipments to around 500,000 for this year. No, Apple doesnāt expect a person like me to buy one. It wants people with enough cash to burn and/or limited amounts of impulse control to dive into its real spatial computer.
The real test will be whether customers, and perhaps even those supposed āVision Bros,ā are still using the Vision Pro as their desktop replacement a few months from now. If theyāre only pulling it out once in a while when a friend comes over, then it doesnāt bode well for future, less-expensive Vision releases.
Want more of Gizmodoās consumer electronics picks? Check out our guides to the best phones best laptops, best TVs, and best headphones. If you want to learn about the next big thing, see our guide to everything we know about the iPhone 16.
