I’ve been a fan of XREAL for a while, but outside of people who are really into AR, it’s still a lesser-known company. Lifehacker has given XREAL’s glasses stellar reviews before, but in the company’s new collaboration with Asus, it’s aiming to expand its market. The new ROG XREAL R1 AR glasses are the first XREAL glasses aimed specifically at gaming (though its other models aren’t exactly bad for gaming), and they basically put the best gaming monitor you could ever want right in front of your face.
You wear these like a normal pair of sunglasses, and you get a massive 171-inch virtual TV floating in a black void right in front of you. It’s an OLED, so there are crisp colors and high contrast, and the resolution is a respectable 1080p. Most importantly, the glasses max out at a 240Hz refresh rate, meaning they can display up to 240 frames per second.
Taken all together, that’s better than pretty much all of the full-size desktop monitors I have at home, but these are portable. They’re barely heavier than my reading glasses, too, and you can set your virtual screen to either be anchored in one spot (meaning it won’t follow your head) or stay in front of your eyes at all times. I prefer the former, since it shakes around less.
Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt
I also didn’t get any of the usual problems I have with AR or VR, like light bleed or fuzzy graphics. Aside from the black void, this really did feel like looking at a real-life screen. And you don’t even have to use the full 171 inches, if you prefer something smaller.
Aside from the glasses, Asus is also shipping these with a dock, to help you better use them with your various devices. It has two HDMI ports and one DisplayPort connection, so you can have up to three devices ready to go at one time. It’s probably the most realistic way to simulate gaming on a movie theater screen, and it’s only set to improve down the line. Asus told me these glasses will eventually support XREAL’s 2D-to-3D conversion tech, which just came out on the new XREAL 1S glasses and automatically converts any image to 3D. The effect uses AI to determine how to split the image between your eyes, but it was so convincing to me when I tried it with Mario Kart World that it felt like it was officially developed by Nintendo.
What do you think so far?
And on that end, I have confirmation from XREAL that the ROG XREAL R1 glasses are compatible with the XREAL Neo mobile dock and battery pack. This is much more compact than the dock that comes with the headset, and, if you plug the glasses and the Nintendo Switch or Switch 2 into it at the same time, it will allow you to play your Nintendo console in AR. Even Asus’ dock can’t do that without another Switch dock acting as an intermediary first. Plus, this will charge whatever device you’re playing at the same time.
The ROG XREAL R1 AR glasses will release later this year, although pricing isn’t available quite yet. They’re expected to release in the first half of this year.
