When I slipped the Samsung Galaxy XR visor over my head, familiar yet strange feelings accompanied my journey. Familiar because I’d tried an earlier version of this headset a year ago, and because it feels a lot like the Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest headsets. Strange because for the first time, Gemini AI was along for the ride, looking through my eyes, seeing what I was seeing.
Google, Qualcomm and Samsung are working together to incorporate AI into AR/VR via Android XR, eventually building a line of smart glasses. That whole project begins with this Galaxy XR headset, now available for $1,799. It aims to extend Android and Gemini into new forms and feels as much like a stepping stone as an actual product.
“I think there will be a shift in how people interact with devices,” Samsung’s COO of Mobile Experiences, Won-Joon Choi, told me in a conversation in New York. “Agentic AI coupled with multimodal AI will really change the industry. We’re not saying glasses will replace the smartphone, but will complement and provide experiences people wouldn’t have gotten with smartphones.”
In the few hands-on minutes I was able to spend with Galaxy XR at Samsung’s demo in midtown New York, the headset felt like an open door to product ideas to come. The Galaxy XR is surprisingly lightweight and easy to use, with some exclusive apps that Meta and Apple would kill for. YouTube’s immersive video support looks great, for instance. Google Maps, and its 3D globe modes and 3D-scanned location walkthroughs, are even better. But the most impressive part, and the part I have the most questions about, is the AI.
Watch this: I Tried the Samsung Galaxy XR: The Headset That Could Rival Apple’s Vision Pro
Gemini is Galaxy XR’s killer app
The headset’s built-in Gemini, based on my demos, can recognize more things in both 2D apps and the world around me than any other mixed reality headset AI I’ve ever tried before. It’s an all-seeing type of magic, but I’m already wondering about its limits. How smart will it seem once I’m in the real world beyond the demos? I’ll find out when I can review it, sometime soon.
For now, it’s hard to see who the Galaxy XR is meant for at its price. The possibilities for what can evolve with Gemini on a device like this are fascinating, however. Galaxy XR is a living testbed for live AI that can sit on your shoulder and see what you’re seeing. Other headsets don’t have anything like it yet. Google, Qualcomm and Samsung know that’s an advantage right now.
The hardware is a lot like the Vision Pro. It runs multiple apps at once in windows, can play movies on vivid 4K displays and can handle immersive games. But the Gemini layer struck me right away as the wild new function here.
The head band tightens on the back, like the Meta Quest Pro did. It doesn’t have detachable straps like the Vision Pro.
While the demos were pretty tightly focused on trying particular apps like YouTube, Google Maps and Photos, I was able to say whatever I wanted. Gemini explained parts of Maps locations and commented as I watched sad New York Jets highlights of Justin Fields. I asked how bad his performance was historically. I didn’t get a clear answer there, but I did get served up some stats.
Gemini is summoned by pressing a button on the headset, and defaults to Gemini Live — a first for any Google product, Google’s President of the Android Ecosystem, Sameer Samat, explained to me in a chat after my demo. Gemini’s focus can also be reined in: you can authorize particular apps to be visible by the camera-enabled AI, and hide others.
“Our goal is to go beyond the world of AI assistance that’s on demand and more to a world where it’s proactive, and that requires context,” Samat told me, referring to the headset’s ability to see the world and apps open simultaneously.
Gemini’s accuracy is still imperfect, though. In one demo moment, I requested a New York location in Google Maps, but a Chrome search was launched instead. And when I asked Gemini why a football team was kicking a ball into the end zone during a Jets highlight, Gemini tried to explain that it was to score a field goal (which was wrong).
We couldn’t do captures in-headset, but this projected demo cast to a TV showed how floating grids of apps look while wearing.
Maps and YouTube and Photos are standouts
While I didn’t get a clear sense of how many XR-optimized apps would be available for Galaxy XR at launch, Google has some wonderful XR-ified YouTube, Google Maps and Photos apps of its own. Samsung, meanwhile, has none of its own yet, relying on Google’s Android XR OS on the device instead.
Google’s Samat promises that a good handful of XR apps are making the move over, something that seems likely since Android XR sounds like a relatively easier port process from other Qualcomm chip-based VR headsets, at least compared to Vision Pro.
But Maps may be my favorite for now. The immersive 3D views and 3D-scanned interiors of some locations, done via Gaussian splatting technology, make Maps feel like a place to explore.
Google also showed off auto-conversion of photos and videos to 3D in-headset using Gemini. Turning old photos into AI-simulated videos is weird enough, but seeing them in 3D begins to feel like a moment of memory inception.
The headset’s comfortable, although the visor-type design doesn’t flip up.
A bit like Meta Quest, a bit like Vision Pro
While Google and Samsung have smart glasses plans in the near future, including glasses made with Warby Parker and Gentle Monster, the Galaxy XR is very much a VR headset with mixed reality functions.
It’s not small like a pair of smart glasses, but it did feel remarkably light for a VR headset, especially compared with Apple’s Vision Pro. Like Meta Quest, the visor-type design rests on the forehead, not strapped around the eyes. It’s an easier fit and allows you to see the world in your peripheral vision (you can also attach snap-on shades to the sides that block light). The Galaxy XR headset is meant to be used with custom prescription lenses, not work over your glasses.
Much like Vision Pro, there’s a separate tethered battery pack, with USB-C passthrough to charge while using it. Battery life is in the 2-hour range, similar to Vision Pro.
The Samsung Galaxy XR’s separately-sold spatial controllers look familiar.
Both Apple and Samsung headsets lack the included controllers found on Meta Quest. The Galaxy XR is meant to be controlled with hand and eye tracking, although you can buy optional controllers. In my demos of hand tracking, I moved my fingers to cast a pointer-like extension to click and navigate, rather than pinching my fingers on where my gaze landed. Tapping my fingers brings up a grid of apps, much like it does on other VR headsets.
The audio and video quality seemed very good, especially the 4K displays. The Galaxy XR’s open-ear speakers in the headband are similar to what Meta and Apple do, but in the noisy demo room it was hard to judge audio quality. I watched YouTube and some demos of an immersive movie called Asteroid, one of Google and Samsung’s few exclusive apps coming at launch.
The Galaxy XR isn’t using as powerful a processor as the new M5 Vision Pro. Instead it has a Snapdragon XR2+ Gen 2 onboard, which is better than the Meta Quest 3 and allows for 4K video.
The field of view and display resolution of the Samsung Galaxy XR felt better than Apple Vision Pro. It’s lighter, too.
The specs for the micro OLED displays are impressive, at: 3,552×3,840-pixel resolution per eye (29 million pixels). That’s higher than Vision Pro’s 23 million pixels and reported 3,660×3,220 pixels per eye, although it runs at 90Hz maximum for now vs the M5 iPad Pro’s 120Hz. The field of view is 109 degrees horizontal, 100 vertical and definitely looks wider than on Vision Pro.
The headset comes with 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage (similar to the Vision Pro’s base storage configuration). There are buttons on the top edge for volume and power and launching Gemini Live, and a touchpad on the side band.
Cameras are everywhere: two high-res ones for pass-through video, which looks as good or better than Vision Pro, plus six external tracking cameras and four internal eye-tracking cameras with iris scanning for securely logging into apps and making payments. There’s facial tracking for animating avatars in Google Hangouts, though Samsung and Google are starting with cartoon-type avatars that are less uncannily real than Apple’s Personas. I did see a glimpse of Samsung and Google’s own realistic avatars, though, which Samsung says are coming later this year.
The Samsung Galaxy XR with its battery pack tethered in.
High price, with lots of incentives for early adopters
The Galaxy XR is half the price of the Vision Pro but still very expensive. To attract more customers, Google and Samsung are offering a ton of perks for early adopters in the initial launch window, including a year of Google AI Pro, a year of YouTube Premium, a season of NBA League Pass, a year of Google Play Pass, and some free apps.
According to Samat, part of that incentive is to encourage people to play around with Google’s subscription offerings and get deeper with Google’s AI tools. The Pro subscription does unlock some extra capabilities on Galaxy XR, but it’s not necessary — Samat says it’s all functional even with free access to Gemini. To me it feels like Galaxy XR is an AI gateway disguised as a VR headset.
The Samsung Galaxy XR won’t be the only Android XR device, not by a long shot. But it is the first.
A platform for a whole wave of hardware still coming
What’s particularly fascinating about Galaxy XR is how it’s already being touted as the first step of a multi-device approach, one that looks a lot more integrated between VR, AR, AI and smart glasses than Meta’s VR and glasses approach and Apple’s headset-only current strategy. Samsung and Google aren’t hiding their intentions here at all. The hardware is very AI-focused, and aims to dovetail phones, computers, even watches and rings into an everyday ecosystem where, as Samat says, the AI starts being more proactive.
Galaxy XR is a device for your face that lets Google and Samsung see what you’re seeing, and it won’t be the only one. Next year, both companies will have smart glasses coming via Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. Galaxy XR is a foot in the door, but it also clearly feels like a stepping stone towards the future of glasses, and potentially all of AI as well.
I look forward to a full review of Galaxy XR in the coming weeks.
