Apple Vision Pro vs Nreal Air (now XREAL Air): Some similar features, vastly different price tags

The much-anticipated Apple Vision Pro AR/VR headset was finally unveiled, and is likely to deliver the push augmented reality (AR) needed, in order to go mainstream. We'll see soon enough.

But AR has been around for a while, and affordable, consumer AR in particular is already enjoying good popularity, in its still-niche, but growing market. And one company – Nreal, which recently rebranded to XREAL, has been among the top AR glasses brands for a few years now.

So it only makes sense for us to do an early comparison between the Apple Vision Pro headset, and the highly popular Nreal Air glasses (now called XREAL Air).

Apple Vision Pro vs Nreal Air expected differences:

• The Apple Vision Pro is a super high-end (and expensive) AR/VR headset, while the Nreal Air are affordable AR glasses (with some VR functionality)
• The Apple Vision Pro lets the user see their real-world surroundings through its cameras, while the Nreal Air has glass lenses, so the user sees their surroundings naturally
• The Apple Vision Pro is a standalone headset, meaning it has its own battery, operating system, storage, and so on, while the Nreal Air needs to be connected to a smartphone, PC, or a gaming console to work; it does not have standalone features
• The Apple Vision Pro is positioning itself as a next-gen wearable computer, capable of complex multitasking and productivity, not just entertainment, while the Nreal Air, and all AR glasses like it, is mostly used either as a basic external screen to another device, or for watching movies and videos
• The Apple Vision Pro is much heavier and bulkier, while the Nreal Air have a body only slightly chunkier than regular sunglasses

Table of Contents:

• Price and Release Date
• Design and Weight
• Display Differences, FOV, IPD Range
• Performance
• Apps and Games
• Cameras and Passthrough
• Control and Hand Tracking
• Audio Quality
• Battery and Charging
• Specs

Price and Release Date

The Apple Vision Pro is coming out in early 2024 for a heart-stoppingly high price of $3499. We can likely expect cheaper models to come out later, but for now, this is a rather unreachable (at least for the masses), super premium AR/VR headset.

The Nreal Air, in contrast, only cost $379, and were initially released back in late 2021, so they've been around for a while.

Nreal Air AR Glasses

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Design and Weight

The Apple Vision Pro, like its price suggests, is a luxury, premium device, made out of aluminum and glass. It has an external display, which gives visual cues to people around its user, as to whether they're fully immersed in VR or capable of seeing their real-world surroundings.

It sports an Apple Watch-like rotating crown for essentially switching between VR and AR, a camera shutter button, and possibly more.

The Vision Pro also has a large, adjustable head strap, a reasonably thin (for a VR headset, anyway) footprint, and notably, an external battery, which is meant to be held in the user's pocket during use.



The Nreal Air are shaped like modern sunglasses, and aren't that significantly thicker than the Ray Ban glasses their design appears to be inspired by.

The Nreal Air are light, comfortable, and rather simplistic (in a good way), with just some buttons for adjusting their displays' brightness at the bottom, and a USB Type-C port for connecting with a smart device.

In terms of weight, the Apple Vision Pro is speculated to weigh about 454 grams (not including the battery), while the Nreal Air are just 79 grams, and again, feel barely any different than a pair of regular sunglasses.

Display Differences, FOV, IPD Range

The Apple Vision Pro packs dual micro-OLED screens at a resolution somewhere around 4K, and with a refresh rate initially speculated to be 120Hz, but some sources now claim could be 90Hz.

Their FOV and IPD range remain unknown for now, but we can expect a good range on both.

Users who were able to test the Vision Pro claim superb brightness and clarity. In fact, some rumors have suggested that the Vision Pro can go up to 5000 nits in brightness, which, if true, would make this the brightest, clearest AR/VR headset ever.



The Nreal Air also has dual screens, again one for each eye, but in this case, they're being reflected onto glass lenses in front of the user's eyes, so the user can also see their real-world surroundings, as well as the screens' projections.

The Nreal Air screens are 1080p, OLED, and initially refreshing at 60Hz. However, Nreal (now XREAL) has recently announced that a software update will be coming soon, which will boost these AR glasses' refresh rate up to 90Hz.

As for brightness, the Nreal Air can go up to 500 nits, which in our experience is perfectly good even for outdoor use. Their FOV is about 46 degrees, while their IPD is unknown.

For our Nreal Air review we were able to test them thoroughly, and are happy with both the display clarity and brightness, albeit their FOV and resolution can feel a bit lackluster, at least if one's trying to use them as a second display for productivity, and needs extra clarity.

But for watching movies and other content, which is their main purpose anyway, their displays are very impressive-looking, with fantastic colors, contrast, and again – brightness.

Performance

As a standalone VR headset that's meant to be a wearable computer, capable of productivity and multitasking, the Vision Pro is powered by Apple's M2 chip, as well as a new Apple R1 chip. The former does all of the visionOS / app management / multitasking heavy lifting, while the latter does the computations needed for the headset's AR and VR functionalities to work.

We don't know the Vision Pro's amount of RAM just yet, but can reasonably speculate 8GB or 12GB.



As for the Nreal Air, they are not standalone, meaning they can't do anything on their own. They don't have built-in processors, storage, a battery, or an operating system, so they rely on the device you choose to connect them to.

For example, if you connect them to your smartphone, their performance depends on it. Same if you connect them to your laptop, PC, or game console.