Apple Vision Pro reviews are in: here are 8 key takeaways

Apple’s Vision Pro could very well be the most important new product Apple releases this decade. This is an entirely new product category for Apple, accompanied by a new software platform called visionOS and a corresponding app ecosystem.

So it’s no surprise that Apple has been extremely careful in how it handles this launch. The company invited only a handful of journalists to in-person briefings and distributed review units to an even smaller group of people, whose review embargoes were lifted Tuesday.

The resulting reviews paint a (very) cautiously optimistic picture of the Vision Pro’s future. All reviewers praise the technology – CNET’s Scott Stein calls it a “breathtaking look at an unfinished future,” while Nilay Patel of The Verge calls it “magical,” but cautions that “the technology to create a true optical AR display that works well enough to replace a regular computer is simply not there yet.”

Perhaps the most important takeaway is that there is so much to cover on the Vision Pro. There’s display technology, sensors, user interface, comfort, weight, accessories – the list goes on. There’s also so much this thing can do; you can use the Vision Pro as an everyday work machine (or a virtual extension of your physical computer), or simply as an entertainment device, social device, or gaming gadget. Finally, there’s also the question of price exorbitant and that of the sequel.

That’s why we’ve decided to group these early reviews into a few key points that everyone has a strong opinion on. It’ll be a while before we have a clear idea of ​​what the Vision Pro actually is and who it’s aimed at, but for now, here’s what seems certain.

1. technology is amazing

There’s no two ways about it: All reviewers praise some aspect of the ingenuity that Apple’s engineers put into the Vision Pro. The screens are incredibly sharp, the passthrough video feed of the world looks great and has very little visible latency, and the hand-eye control interface is impressive.

According to Stein, the Vision Pro is “the best portable display” he has ever used, and he wrote that the display quality and interface “make the Vision Pro feel like it’s in a whole other class “.

“This is the kind of first-generation device that only Apple can truly make, from the incredible display and transmission engineering, to leveraging the entire ecosystem to make it so useful transparently,” Patel wrote.

2. It’s heavy and will become uncomfortable after long sessions

We know the Vision Pro’s exact weight (21.2 to 22.9 ounces, or 600 to 650 grams, depending on configuration, which doesn’t include the 353g battery). But now, thanks to these early reviews, we also have an idea of ​​what it feels like to wear the Vision Pro on your head for several hours. The consensus is that it’s not great.

“After half an hour, the headset feels very heavy,” Stein wrote, referring to the setup with the Solo Knit headband. The Dual Loop group is “better suited to long work sessions.” YouTuber Brownlee Brands said the Vision Pro with Solo Knit might get “a little uncomfortable,” although he also said weight distribution is better with the Dual Loop band. But the Dual Loop messes up your hair and is less comfortable according to Patel. Either way, it’s a heavy device to carry on your head for hours. “You’re going to feel it after a while,” Patel wrote.

3. Personas aren’t great.

Personas are Vision Pro’s virtual representations of its users, and while they’re more impressive than what Meta came up with, they’re still pretty strange. Patel called them “deeply strange and extremely strange” and CNBC’s Todd Haselton said his Persona looked “like a much older version” of him.

The good news? Apple officially considers Personas beta software, so we can expect some improvements here.

4. The Vision Pro’s best use might actually be the simplest: watching videos

Want to just disappear into a virtual landscape and watch a high-resolution movie on a massive virtual screen? The Vision Pro might be for you, because apparently it works great.

According to Patel, watching movies on the Vision Pro is a “ton of fun,” and Stein said the experience of watching movies with the Vision Pro was “better than any TV” he had at home .

Better yet, 3D movies work too, and from the sound of it, they look better than what you’d get in the theater. “It gives me chills sometimes,” Stein wrote.

5. The floating keyboard isn’t very usable yet

It’s no surprise, but reviewers say the Vision Pro’s floating virtual keyboard that you can theoretically type on with your real hand is barely usable.

“The floating keyboard is useful for searching or typing quick messages, but you won’t be able to type very quickly at first. You look at each letter on a number pad and select it, or you reach out and press the number pad. I got faster with the Vision Pro, but nowhere near as fast as on my iPhone or on a real keyboard,” Haselton wrote.

Patel wasn’t as kind to the virtual keyboard, calling it “hilarious” and “not worth using for anything other than entering a Wi-Fi password.”

6. EyeSight is a dud

EyeSight, the screen placed on the front of the Vision Pro glasses to display a virtual representation of your real eyes, apparently only appears well in Apple’s promotional photos. Stein pointed out that people who saw it didn’t “know what to think about it”, while Patel wrote that “the idea that you will make real eye contact with anyone is a fantasy”. Many reviews use the word “strange,” and not in a good way. EyeSight, it seems, needs to be significantly improved, otherwise it will only scare the people around you.

“In real life, I simply took the headset off when my wife came over to chat,” Haselton wrote.

7. You are still very far from reality

Video Relay keeps you connected to the real world, and EyeSight makes it a little easier for others to communicate with you. But make no mistake, when you wear the Vision Pro, you will always be alone, in the heart of your virtual world.

“I watch movies with the AirPod Pro headphones, turning my living room into a movie theater. After a while, my son taps me on the shoulder and asks if I’m sleeping. I say of course not. But my wife says she doesn’t.” “I don’t like it, that I’m so far away from everything. My son calls it a telephone for my face,” Stein wrote. And Patel points out that there’s no way to share your experience with other people. “Two people wearing Vision Pro headsets sitting in the same room cannot see the same things floating in space at the same time,” he wrote, while noting that some developers are working on experiments with views shared.

Bottom line: you put the Vision Pro on and you’re mostly AFR – far from reality. We just created this acronym and we really hope it doesn’t become a reality.

8. The device is primarily just a glimpse of what’s possible, but it could take years and multiple iterations to get there

None of the reviewers are literally saying that this is a device that most people, or even most Apple users, or even most enthusiasts, should buy. Instead, everyone agrees that, while impressive, the Vision Pro is something you should only consider if you don’t mind the $3,499 starting cost at all, as the Vision Pro will only replace not your phone, your tablet, your MacBook Pro, or even your gaming VR headset. It’s incredibly powerful and very interesting, but there’s no great feature yet. As Stein said, “this is clearly not a device you should get started with right now.”