Samsung Galaxy XR Review: Needs More Polish

I had the new M5-powered Apple Vision Pro and Samsung Galaxy XR headsets sat on my desk for several weeks. These are expensive and cutting-edge equipment. The Apple version costs $3,499! Samsung’s headset is about half that price, a pretty penny at $1,800. Mustering the energy to put them on was a task.

You can watch movies, play immersive games, and work with multiple virtual screens. None of these experiences have been so convincing that I want to wear a headset on my face for more than an hour. Still, I tried it the old-fashioned way, and my takeaway is that Google and Samsung still have work ahead of them to improve the Android XR experience; I also had a strange, new appreciation for the quality of Apple’s mixed reality headset.

Photography: Julian Chokkattu

Find comfort

I purchased the Galaxy The process went smoothly, although long shipping times meant my inserts arrived weeks before the XR.

While I appreciate how much lighter the Galaxy XR is than the Vision Pro, I consistently struggled to find a comfortable fit. You put the headset on and turn a knob on the back to tighten the headband around your head, but there’s often a fair amount of pressure on your forehead, which also gets hot when the sound fans come into play; it’s almost impossible not having a sweaty forehead after an XR fight. Two magnetic light shields in the box do a decent job of preventing ambient light from filtering into your VR, but they’re not perfect, as I still experienced some light bleed.